Oct 28, 2018 | Parents and Family
In my first post on classical education I explored modern progressive education, and why it’s a disaster. In my second, I shared how I came to not only appreciate classical education, but have become an evangelist for it. Here I want to give a brief introduction to exactly what classical education is, and why it’s so important for Christians to embrace it.
As I said previously, classical education is rooted in history, specifically the history and ideas of the classical world, both Greek and Roman. This became infused with the Jewish and Christian worldview through the Middle Ages as Christian thinkers who took the ideas of the ancients, and wrestled with them through the lens of Christianity. It was in fact the Christian influence that systematized and humanized (as in, for example, man is made in God’s image and worthy of infinite value) classical thought. Part of that systematizing came in what’s called the Trivium, and that is the model of K-12 classical education. What is it? (more…)
Oct 20, 2018 | Parents and Family
In my previous post, Take 1, I didn’t relate that I was late getting on the classical education bandwagon. I’ve always been a fan of the liberal arts, the humanities and such, but the term “classical education” meant little to me even into my 50th year. I was so clueless that when my wife insisted that our youngest son was not going to our public junior high school, I thought she was being irrational. We survived a public school education, I told her, and turned out fine. Our older daughter and son did as well. And we couldn’t afford that Christian classical school she was so excited about anyway. What an idiot I was. When family stepped up to help us afford it, I resented it, that it might inconvenience me. It so happens that God’s providence (and mercy), and results, intervened to enlighten me.
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Oct 14, 2018 | Parents and Family
That’s actually another book in my brain, and one I think needs to be written (and there are plenty already out there, but I may have something unique to add to the conversation; we’ll see . . .), but right now a blog post, or two, is the best I can do. I was inspired to write something on classical education because of a piece I recently read about education in the American Thinker that didn’t even use the phrase classical education. The title made it a necessary read for me: “Marxism and Education.” The author tells the story of how American education became radically re-envisioned in the early part of the 20th century, and you can infer from the title that Marxism was a seminal influence in that process. As he says, very few people today in or out of education are aware of these influences, but Marxist assumptions are ubiquitous in the American education marketplace.
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Jul 31, 2018 | Parents and Family
When I saw the announcement of our latest Supreme Court Justice nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, I couldn’t help notice that this practicing Catholic family had only two kids, daughters. As precious and cute as they were, I wondered why only two. Not too many years past, Catholic families were known for their large families, but in the 21st century two kids is the norm. In fact, 40 years ago the number of families with four children (40%) was the same as the number of families today that have two (41%). That is a striking turn around. Why might this be? One could point to any number of causes, but the triumph of secularism has to be at the top of the list, and Christians have too easily adapted to the secular norm.
It so happens that July 25 was the anniversary of Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI’s “encyclical on the integrity of love and the appropriate means of family planning.” Not too many days prior to the 25th I read a sad, to me, commentary on the state of child bearing in 2018 America titled, “The Extinction of the Middle Child.” I’m a middle child, and I guess we’re going extinct. The author, from a strictly secular perspective, bemoans the implications of what one less child in a family means for American society. Some years back, I read an article about the implications for extended families that have two verses three children, and how fewer cousins means fewer significant relationships to support that family. And it’s not only relational issues in the family that feel the impact of fewer children, but in a liberal welfare state, fewer with younger people there are not enough income earners to take care of the old who can no longer earn.
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Jul 3, 2018 | Parents and Family
One of my apologetic strategies for my children has been to annoy them, and if you ask them they will tell you I’m really good at it. Of course since the annoying has a purpose, they are willing to endure the annoyance of it all, most of the time. One thing I’m really annoying at is hounding my kids to read, and read some more. I still do it even though two of them are in their 20s, and one a teenager moving quickly toward college. I do this because I think there are few things more important in life than reading, than exercising our brains and imaginations with the written word (above all in books), and especially so in the Age of the Screen.
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Jun 30, 2018 | Parents and Family
Do you have a bad attitude? Do your kids have bad attitudes? If you and/or they do, I know why: wrong or faulty expectations. It’s probably hard to overestimate how many people suffer from a bad attitude (sometimes it’s called depression or anxiety or frustration or disappointment or anger or . . .) because their expectations don’t take into account one small factor: reality! When things don’t work out the way they expect or want them to, they think something must be wrong, or this or that wouldn’t have happened. It’s silly that anyone would think this way, but we all tend to, naturally. It is the bent of our fallen, sinful human nature.
So it goes to reason that the solution to a bad attitude is a realistic understanding of the way things are, not the way we wish them to be. Strangely, one of the most comforting passages of Scripture I’ve discovered as if for the first time this past year is in Genesis 3, where we read of the consequences of the curse because of Adam and Eve’s fall. As a result of their disobedience, the Lord confronts them with these horrible words: (more…)
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