The unique situation of the classical school revival in the modern age makes it especially vulnerable to the temptation of ideology.
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Everydayness & the Restless Heart
Education, fundamentally, is about human flourishing, and in order for an education to succeed in engendering flourishing, it is necessary for it to reach the heart. It’s not enough to have a perfect grasp on Augustine, or to write a flawless essay on To Kill a Mockingbird. When I discover that the questions Augustine asks are my questions, or that Atticus Finch and I have something fundamental in common, human flourishing starts to happen.
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Neither Modern nor Post-Modern: Newman on Certitude
Our reasoning might be user-relative, but truth is not itself relative. Our path to truth is only as subjects who seek it out from particular perspectives, but we must reject what C. S. Lewis later called “the poison of subjectivism” which posits that there are only perspectives and no full picture to which those perspectives attach.
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The Importance of Being Inadequate
“I don’t know, I guess opera’s just not my thing,” I concluded, slouching against the wall of the music building hallway. After travelling across the state to Western Michigan University for a vocal competition, I’d sung some operatic repertoire for a panel of judges. Later in the day I received feedback from the judges, confirming, in part, what my teacher had been telling me for weeks.
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Tradition and Authority in Luigi Giussani’s Educational Method
It’s more authentic to stand before a young person and humbly say, “I’ve found something I’m eager to share with you, and I want to provoke you to go on your own journey for the truth,” than to implicitly or explicitly deny that teachers, mentors, and other role models are speaking from tradition with authority. This kind of authority—the kind that loves the mystery of each human so much that it wants to guide each soul in the use of the great gift of freedom—is not a burdensome imposition. Rather, it’s a helping hand on the arduous journey of knowing one’s own purpose and place in the world.
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2020 New York Encounter: Crossing the Divide
Are you hungry for an extended engagement with reality, for something that will awaken you more fully to the human condition? Consider joining us at the New York Encounter, February 15th through the 17th.
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“The School for Life”: N.F.S. Grundtvig
It is only to a heart and mind and body that is freely expressed in its own time and place that something as universal and cross-cultural as Christianity can come and find a home.
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The Education of Henry Adams (Book Recommendation)
The education he had received bore little relation to the education he needed. Speaking as an American of 1900, he had as yet no education at all. He knew not even where or how to begin.
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The Beauty of Excellence: Rethinking Student Motivation
The beauty of excellence provides us not only a vision of greatness but also a vision for greatness: greatness in a particular skill, greatness of the human spirit, greatness of human achievement, and greatness in our own lives.
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“Thoughts that Wound from Behind:” Literary Allusions as Pedagogical Opportunities
Dante places the ancient hero Ulysses into the eighth circle of hell. A fraudulent counselor of war, deception, and exploration beyond the bounds of God’s law, Ulysses suffers eternal encasement in flame. But Tennyson’s poem, great in its own right, calls Dante’s judgment into question. The tension between these two poems – one epic, one lyrical – gets at the very question of the meaning of life.
