Summer fades into autumn; one season wanes, another flourishes. This is the undulating pattern of life, as well as that of our home-centered liturgy of education since my husband and I married and began a family. This liturgy is like a familiar hymn, one that began with the births of our children and has been […]
A Classical, Christian Education: Pondering the Fulcrum Read More »
A common theme I encounter in conversations with other home educators each spring, and often into the summer months, concerns preparation for the upcoming year. I’ve been classically homeschooling for over twenty-five years, and the liturgy of this assessing and planning season is an integral part of my own life, too—as fundamental to it as
Inside the Outside: Tactical and Strategic Planning Read More »
Our era is dismantling millennia of incarnated memories with increasing fervor and speed—“old” books are considered irrelevant, so much so that it can be difficult to find classics in local libraries or school curricula; monuments and artistic creations, some of which have withstood the ravages of decades, if not centuries, are toppled in the name
Memoria: Handmaiden of Rhetoric Read More »
Most teachers would probably agree with this truth: “Interest and attention characterize the mental state of a true learner and constitute the essential basis on which the process of learning rests” (John Milton Gregory, The Seven Laws of Teaching). We want the attention of our students—their eyes focused, their ears tuned in, their minds alert.
“If we will make our seasons welcome here, asking not too much of earth or heaven, then a long time after we are dead the lives our lives prepare will live here, their houses strongly placed,” writes Wendell Berry in his poem “The Vision.” These past months, seasons have been welcomed and then bidden farewell.
Asking Not Too Much of Earth or Heaven Read More »
Shortly after I ventured into social media many years ago, I discovered this poem by Emily Dickinson: I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! They’d advertise – you know! How dreary – to be – Somebody! How public – like a Frog –
Uprootedness in the Age of the Virtual Self Read More »
Allow me to tell you The Fable of the Fearsome √2, a proud irrational number with an unsettlingly sinister story behind it. Feel free to share this story with the little children whom you tuck in. Please note that this is, like any respectable fairytale, the stuff of legend. Furthermore, as is a storyteller’s prerogative,
Math Parables 3: The Fable of the Fearsome √2 Read More »
In my last article, “Can Mathematics be Parables?” I considered the fantastical realm of “imaginary” numbers. Now, wander with me across a terrain of numbers even more dazzlingly head-spinning . . . and even more hazardous, perhaps, to encounter. I’m sure you’ll remember that there is a whole category of numbers that is (gasp) “irrational”?
Math Parables 2: Welcome to the World of Hyper-Sur-Reality Read More »
Many of us tend to regard mathematics as mechanistic and mundane, ignoring the fact that the ultimate conclusions of mathematics lead us to ideas in physics which are as wonderfully bewildering as the deepest questions of philosophy and theology.
Can Mathematics Be Parables? Read More »
Further Thoughts on Parables, Fables, Stories, and Tales
The “Shadow Shining” of Achilles Read More »
Further Thoughts on Parables, Fables, Stories, and Tales
Encountering Achilles Read More »
