As we drive down the long road to the lighthouse, we take bets on how many gators we will see. On a cool winter’s day, the answer is not many. As we reach the lighthouse, broad levees separate the freshwater marshland and coastal hammocks from the Gulf of Mexico. The varied habitats of the wildlife […]
Knowing the Wine-Dark Sea Read More »
The tall windows of our schoolroom overlook the street; from our table, I can see Mrs. Wills walk by. Her walk has become a shuffle, and what was once merely a diminutive frame has become the hunched frame of the aged. She looks so pathetic now it is hard to believe that this frail
The Wisdom of Changeless Things: Reviving the Mathematical Arts Read More »
I vividly remember my introduction to the concept of scholé. It was not a season of smooth and easy days. Between teaching and administrative duties, I was working fifty (or more) hours a week. I had one- and three-year-old boys (both in diapers), and we had recently purchased a home; there was much work to
Scholé for the Restless Soul Read More »
At its core, all literature is about identity—a search to understand who we are as we grapple with our unnatural separation from God. We were created to see a face that we are too sinful to behold. Ultimately, the problem of suffering and the hiddenness of God are two sides of a coin. This is
A Commonplace on Suffering from a Year of Reading Read More »
I had little interest in celebrating Advent until I became a mother. I was not raised in a liturgical tradition and did not learn about the liturgical calendar until I was in my twenties studying Russian literature at a secular university. I longed to orient my life around the seasons of the church rather than
Advent and the Virtue of Prudence Read More »
There was a time when I would have been thrilled by a new wine megastore within jogging distance from my house (though as a rule I avoid jogging with wine bottles). Instead, I cast a wary eye as I drive by, hoping my favorite wine shop can stay in business. Yet, I confess I was
The Reader’s Regress—Loving Books and Wine in a Finite World Read More »
It was the moment for which I had been waiting. As a 4th grade teacher, I had dutifully suffered through teaching history timelines, confident in Mrs. Sayers’s assertion that these dates, these tedious facts, were pegs upon which to later hang ideas. I just so happened to have taught medieval history and timeline as a
Charlemagne and the Case Against History Timelines Read More »
In 1971, behaviorist B. F. Skinner published one of his later works, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, providing insight into his troubling philosophy and anthropology. Because the challenges of the modern world are apocalyptic, he argues, we need to make sweeping changes to human behavior. This should be accomplished by new technology, a technology of behavior.
Like a Rat Without a Tail; or, Education Beyond Behaviorism Read More »
My first year teaching at a classical school was a uniquely challenging year. I knew very little about classical education. Though I had years of experience teaching English as a second language overseas, neither this experience nor my degree in Russian prepared me to teach classically. When the school year began my firstborn was not
Ask and See: Hope for the Fledgling Classical Educator Read More »
Yesterday we visited a local music store to add a third (and final) tiny violin to our household. The family orchestra has expanded from a duo to a trio. Early this morning, as I sipped coffee and worked on an essay for graduate school, a cacophony arose from the schoolroom. It is usually the hour
On Plato and the Virtue of Tiny Violins Read More »
In a two-part lecture on the medieval imagination, published in a collection called Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, C. S. Lewis invites students to take an hour-long starlit walk with the assumption that Ptolemaic astronomy is true. My experience of Circe’s national conference, A Contemplation of Worlds, was a similar exercise: taking a starlit
The Discarded Spreadsheet: On the Medieval Cosmos and the Year Ahead Read More »
The vestiges of progressive education remain in the idea that understanding consists primarily in remembering facts and engaging in analysis. No wonder so many people consider Shakespeare “too hard” if they were taught that to know his plays meant to crea
No Bottom: Delighting in Shakespeare with the Young Read More »
