In the greatest of ironies, a recent issue of Harvard Magazine has condemned parents being at home with their children all day, even while the governments across America have now required it for the past several weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. My efforts to recast homeschooling in a less-threatening light are rooted in [...]
According to Socrates, to save Philosophy, to save young souls destined for greatness, to save human society itself, the true, philosophic nature must be freed from the corruptive influences that have formed him and receive the best education. The soul must be turned around. I forgot that we were playing and spoke rather intensely. [...]
Apologists for Greek and Latin have lately dwindled. Yet in the past several years there have been some notable attempts to save classical education from utter extinction—one of which is Tracy Lee Simmons’ “Climbing Parnassus.” Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin, by Tracy Lee Simmons (290 pages, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2007) [...]
The very idea that students will suffer any significant loss of educational attainment by losing two months of twelve-plus years of school—less than two percent—is nonsense. Such an argument that every minute of school attendance is irreplaceable can only be made by someone who never attended American elementary and secondary schools. A frequently worried-about consequence [...]
When things collapse, childish narratives no longer are an option. The class of 2020 will have no choice but to mature or fade away. How fortunate its graduates will be if they accept the responsibilities of adulthood. This year’s graduates can become America’s “Second Great Generation” or a lost one. Rarely have graduates faced challenges [...]
The Western canon as typically presented is increasingly unable to rally the enthusiasm even of devoted admirers of Western civilization, who recognize the commonly proffered canons as, at best, an impoverished rendition of Western culture and, at worst, a perpetuation of the very same cultural forces that are at the source of its decay. [...]
Those of us who bemoan the “death of the liberal arts” do not do so simply because the jobs of professors are at stake, but because we believe that liberal learning is the only fit preparation for any portion of life—especially one that involves responsibility for the common good. Those of us who have [...]
When most people imagine a classical school, they probably think of a K-12 institution with a compulsory Latin curriculum focusing on grammatical analysis and close translation, an integrated approach to humanities that takes inspiration from the Great Books programs developed over the last sixty years, and some compromise with the conventional STEM-orientation in science [...]
Now it is at its heights that education in universities has been forced to undertake the impossible errand of distance-learning with its virtual classrooms. It is true that there is some remaining love of truth, even in the virtual classroom, but the wine of this love is diluted where the immediate interpersonal bond is broken. [...]
Learning and language are intimately related. People speak well—clearly, concretely, and accurately—about the things they know, and poorly when they pontificate about things they don’t. Broadly-educated people speak well about many things; they are dilettantes rather than pedants, the two kinds of intellectual according to Miguel de Unamuno. Primo Levi, a professional chemist as [...]
Does online education mean the end of universities? Or, if pursued with an understanding of its limits and of the necessity of a non-virtual community of learning behind it, could online learning be part of the idea of a university? Is there anything better for a teacher than watching one’s students do great things? [...]
In a crisis, it is best to balance change and continuity. The liberal arts help us do so by embracing both. On the one hand, they are the anchor-in-bedrock that conserves the best of our culture. On the other hand, they are the wind-in-the-sail that powers us to betterment. I. Accelerating Our Experience of [...]
We teachers have been hearing for years how online learning will soon sweep our worlds away. That’s possible, but my concern is more immediate: that in the rush to put our classes online, we are tempted to create a world of Total School. I am—genuinely—one of the luckiest people in the whole coronavirus pandemic. [...]
Clear, deep, and accurate thinking about reality, both natural and supernatural, is the essential skill the student must develop. However, without the help of dedicated and proficient teachers and a robust community of learning, it is quite difficult, if not impossible, to acquire true knowledge of both self and creation. We may assert without [...]