In this webinar, Jonathan Councell will show what a course in the Great Ideas could look like. The discussion will consist of identifying what some of the Great Ideas are that could be included, and then how to structure the course around those ideas. He will, moreover, consider how to plan, prepare, and discuss those ideas in a way that facilitates greater participation. For, Plato’s Socrates tells us that nothing enters the soul by compulsion, except physical training—gymnastics. Yet, we live in a society that compels education from childhood through the teenage years. And, as lovers and pursuers of Christian classical education, we know that the cultivation of a love for the beautiful, of a pursuit of ideas and truth, and of growing up in virtue, are an important part of the education our children and students receive during these formative years. How do we get these loves and truths and virtues into the souls of our children, who are present for their studies by compulsion, if Socrates is right that nothing enters the soul by force?

These are serious questions with which pursuers of Christian classical education need to wrestle. So, in this webinar, Jonathan Councell will present ways to structure a course, one that pursues the beauty, wisdom, and virtue of the Great Ideas, in a way that is non-compulsory, that creates space for these things to enter the soul.