Easy and Inexpensive Faculty Development

For a faculty to grow, it needs tools and forums in which to develop. David Hicks spoke of this as The School Within The School. I came across this fine article on-line today about the value to faculty of reading a book together and discussing it. I hope you are doing something like this already.
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What it Takes to Teach

When a teacher is afraid to think her own thoughts, she cannot possibly teach classically. If she wants a text book to tell her what to think, if she can’t dig into the subject or artifact beyond what the text book publisher tells her, if she doesn’t continually learn, if she can’t unfold the heart [...]

A Call for Learning Teachers

 
In the world of higher academia, the old adage “publish or perish” is a guiding principle (even if somewhat stereotypical and exaggerated).  Why the emphasis on publishing? 
One could argue, quite easily, that it is the inevitable result of a pragmatic view of education – if the faculty of the university is not “producing,” then [...]

Reflections on Progressivism, Part II

Not only the child and his knowledge are reduced by Progressivism. So are what we used to call virtues. Nietzsche reduced virtues to values to underscore his theory that we all have our own values which are dynamic and relative. No adult has the right to impose values on a child because values themselves are unstable. [...]

Reflections on Progressive Education

For the Progressive theorist, education is one great, extended experiment for which society is bound to pay. Here in America the progressive experiments (it would not be just to call it a single experiment) have continued for nearly 100 years, during which the inevitable resistance and the internal contradictions of progressive theory have convinced many [...]

The Importance of Stories

Brightest Heaven of Invention, a book by Dr. Peter Leithart, was composed as a guide through some of Shakespeare’s greatest writings.  The book was quite insightful in its treatment of Shakespeare, but I found Leithart’s preliminary comments about the importance of literature even more helpful. 
Why is it important to read literature?  Why do stories [...]

Further Reflections on the Nature of Classical Education

Five ideas that distingiuish Classical education from conventional:

A unifying principle that orders all learning, thus an integrated, proportioned course of learning
Recognition of the transforming power of ideas, thus an emphasis on training students to contemplate ideas rather than merely retain content or master processes
Virtue as the end of education, rather than mere application, thus a concerted and [...]

A Strange May Fever

Things are different now.  You are stricken with a strange fever and so are your students.  Oddly, the news fills you all with both dread and exhilaration.  Dread, because there is so much to be done before the end comes.  Exhilaration because of what awaits you on the other side. 
The temptation is to think [...]

My friend Marshall

A Protestant guy, a Catholic guy, and an Orthodox guy all sit down to dinner.  No, it’s not the beginning of a religious joke, it actually happened to me on Sunday.  My wife and I have some wonderful friends who are Orthodox Christians and we were invited over by this gracious family to celebrate Pascha [...]