I am currently in the midst of the summer teacher class “Bringing Scholé to the Home & Homeschool,” taught by Dr. Christopher Perrin. He’s been assigning chapters from The Liberal Arts Tradition and Leisure, the Basis of Culture, and though I’ve read both books before, it’s been excellent to revisit Leisure (it’s been years since…
If you missed it, check out my review of Kathy’s wonderful language arts materials and Book of Centuries. This is a guest post by Kathy Weitz. The Schole Sisters have done a fabulous job of telling y’all what a commonplace book is and why you should do it. I have also written about my own…
I like to talk about education philosophy and principles much more than methods, though I do have a soft spot for practical tips. However, unless we are grounded in our principles, we will be tossed to and fro by all the practical tips out there. Every practical tip is born from underlying principles, and if…
Scholé is not just something we do for or with our children. Scholé is for everyone, including homeschooling moms. Whether you call yourself a classical educator, a Charlotte Mason mom, an eclectic homeschooler, or something else entirely, you need to draw on the wells of learning yourself in order to model the life of loving…
What does scholé even mean? Blame Josef Pieper and Christopher Perrin. Pieper’s seminal work, Leisure, the Basis of Culture opens with this: [pullquote align=”center”]The Greek word for leisure (scholé) is the origin of Latin scola, English school. The name for the institutions of education and learning mean “leisure.” [/pullquote] The classical ideal for education, which…
If classical education is the art of becoming free, then we need to build our habits of attention. The British-born turn-of-the-century American journalist, Sydney Harris, once posited: The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one’s mind a pleasant place in which to spend one’s leisure. For this to be accomplished, we have…
Brandy started it all, of course. My reading for the last year or so has been spotty and haphazard and I’d been wanting to get more intentional and deliberate about it. So when I saw Brandy’s post, I realized it was time to revive my practice of “multiple streams of reading.” If all my reading…
Are you afraid of homeschooling because you know you’re not as smart or prepared as the teacher-down-the-road? We homeschooling moms can be an easy marketing target. Day schools promise so much more than we could ever hope to provide. They seem to run without a hitch and make us doubt that what we are doing…
As a homeschool grad myself, my first “real” classroom experience was college. This was interesting, because it meant I was old enough to be aware of what was going on and it was strange enough (to me) that I was curious. As a previously homeschooled college student, I overheard and took part in many conversations…
When, because of our wide or internet-based reading, the concept of classical education grows into this huge, contradictory tangle that is scary and confusing, we need to zoom out and get some perspective. Classical education has never been one monolith practice. It has always had some core values and core practices, but there has never…