The Letter from the Editor in the spring issue of the Classical Teacher magazine: In 79 A.D., the catastrophic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in eastern Italy covered nearby towns in ash and completely buried many of them. Accounts of the ancient eruption paint a horrific scene: Volcanic pumice rained from the skies and waves of searing hot gas and debris swept over the nearby landscape. Thousands died where they stood, and others fell while in Read more…
You still have time to sign up for our March webinar, but not much! Join us today at 4:00 p.m. EST. Are you new to classical education? Or maybe you’re a veteran classical educator who’s always on the lookout for resource recommendations? If either of these descriptions applies to you, we hope you’ll tune in for our March webinar, “Books That Will Help You Understand Classical Education” with CLSA Director Martin Cothran. In this episode Martin will Read more…
My recent article in The Old Schoolhouse magazine on the classical education of the founding fathers: Many Christian educators teach their children about the men who founded the United States of America, and they focus on students becoming familiar with who they were and what they did. But if we expect our children to become more like the men of this time, we should not only teach them about these men, we should teach them Read more…
There are a lot of books on education, but very few that are very good. Here are five books that cut to the chase of what education is and how it should be done: Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, by Werner Jaeger. Jaeger was a German scholar writing in the early to mid-20th century. He points out that, to the Greeks, who invented education as we know it, culture and education were just opposite Read more…
Well, it’s National Penmanship Day, which gives us a great excuse to extol the benefits of cursive handwriting. But why should we have to do it when we have Iris Hatfield, creator of New American Cursive, to do it for us? Here is Iris’ appearance this morning on WHAS-TV in Louisville, Kentucky, talking about why cursive is important. You can learn more about New American Cursive here.
Writing in the Intercollegiate Review, Gary Olmstead answers the question, “Why Read Literature?” There were times during college when writer’s block threatened me with failing grades or missed deadlines. Scrambling for inspiration, I’d pick up a book—perhaps something I was reading for Western Lit, or a book I’d perused during Christmas break—and suddenly an idea would jump out of the text. Anna Karenina offered the perfect foil for a philosophy paper, Joseph Conrad suggested a Read more…
Well, indirectly. Sort of. Gene Edward Veith is culture editor of World Magazine and executive director of the Cranach Institute at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. In a recent blog post, he applies the principles of Aristotle’s Poetics to The Last Jedi, the new Star Wars movie. It might seem anachronistic to apply principles developed some 2,500 years ago to a movie that just came out last month, until you consider that the Read more…
On today’s date in AD 49, Caesar crossed the Rubicon. Why is that significant? There are certain historical events that have a significance beyond the immediate fact that they happened, and Caesar’s action in crossing a tiny river is one of them. After years of war in Britain and Gaul, Caesar had decided to become master of Rome. But, at the time, Pompey ruled. Pompey saw Caesar (as Caesar saw him) as a rival, and Read more…
I walked into the Dunkin’ Donuts shop this morning (it’s a guilty pleasure), and one of the people in the back said to the others, “It’s the shortest day today.” The cashier in front of me got a funny look on her face. So, in order to clarify, I said to her, “Today’s the winter solstice.” Her expression didn’t change. “That just means that today is the shortest day because the earth is tilted the Read more…
On this day in 43 BC, the great Roman statesman Cicero was assassinated by followers of the Triumvirate. The group of three consuls–Marc Anthony, Octavian, and Lepidus–had named Cicero an enemy of the state because of his defense of the Roman Republic against those who were pushing for an imperial form of government. Cicero was tracked down on his litter and beheaded in the street. The discovery of his letters by Petrarch in the fourteenth Read more…
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