Shakespeare’s Language and the Evolution of Human Intelligence

I was watching a bit of Brannagh’s Hamlet tonight and luxuriating in the language (some of which I understood) when my dear wife asked me for my opinion. “Do you think the groundlings actually understood what was going on in those plays?” To which I answered yes, but the reasons are probably another blog post. [...]

How to Teach the Iliad as a Living Text with Living Ideas

You want to start by getting students involved in THE QUESTION that drives the text or as close as you are able to do so. The Iliad puts it right on the first line: Why is Achilles so angry? I convert the question to a judicial issue: Should Achilles have been so angry? Before starting [...]

teaching living ideas

At the heart of the Christian classical curriculum and methodology is the presentation of living ideas. The soul feeds on ideas, and its health is determined by the quality of those ideas and the life found in them. When we teach children about butterflies, we do not begin by showing them dead butterflies pinned to a [...]

Charlotte Mason on Neuroscience

She was up on the latest before most people even knew the lastest was up! Wisdom like Charlotte Mason’s is our only hope as we progress into a biotechnological future. There is no more interesting subject of inquiry open just now than that of the interaction between the thoughts of the mind and the configuration [...]

How to Disturb Peace on Earth

The global village has brought Mexicans, Chinese, Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans together in a way we haven’t seen since the fall of the Roman Empire. Some folks think rather glibly about the promises and perils of this development. A few classes here and there, a multi-cultural emphasis in the classroom and everything will be [...]