character education

SPONSOR
Eighth Day Books is sponsoring our upcoming online conference AND this podcast episode. They are offering FREE standard shipping between March 8 and March 31, 2024 for our listeners.
Coupon code: BEAUTIFUL (at the checkout, choose the "standard shipping rate." $4.95 will automatically be deducted from the total order.
Click here For Adrienne's Booklist

Click here for the YOUTUBE link if you want to watch this episdoe.

About the Guest
Rebecca was first introduced to Charlotte Mason in 2013 when her oldest child was 3. After exploring other educational methods, she felt she had finally found a philosophy that made sense. Every aspect of Ms. Mason’s ideas, from reading living books to the importance of being immersed in the natural world, appealed to her on many levels. With a degree in art history, she especially appreciated Ms. Mason’s emphasis on exposing children to fine art. Rebecca enjoys the freedom found in a Charlotte Mason education and the fact that it not only nourishes the minds, hearts, and souls of her children but hers as well. She lives in Colorado with her husband, their two children, three cats, two salamanders, and whatever bug pets her kids have adopted. She also writes at her website, a humble place.

Show Notes
Picture study is an enjoyable activity that cultivates the habit of attention and shapes the affections for beauty. On this episode, Rebecca from A Humble Place walks Adrienne through a picture study demonstration. This episode is with video on our YouTube channel too.

Art Mentioned 

• Picture Study Demonstration: The favourites of Emperor Honorius by John Williams Waterhouse
• John William Waterhouse picture study packet from A Humble Place
• Artist: Alphonse Mucha
• Artist: Vincent van Goch picture study packet from A Humble Place
• The Night Watch Flashmob
• The Night Watch High Resolution image from the Riijks Museum
• The Primavera by Botticelli
• The Mona Lisa by Davinci

Memory Game with Art 

BOOKS Mentioned (We encourage you to visit our sponsor, Eighth Day Books for books mentioned on our show. They are offering FREE standard shipping between March 8 and March 31, 2024 for our listeners.
Coupon code: BEAUTIFUL )

• Thoms Bulfinch's Medieval Mythology (note: Age of Fable is another Bulfinch book that you can request from Eighth Day Books)
• Katie and the Mona Lisa by James Mayhew
• For the Children's Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
• Parent's Review articles
• Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Fost (Call Eighth Day Books to order your copy. 316-683-9446. Be sure to use the free shipping discount code through the end of March.)

ANNOUNCING A NEW PROGYMNASMATA CURRICULUM
Benjamin Lyda in partnership with Adrienne is launching a pilot for Scriptorium: Writing with the Progymnasmata for grades 3-8. For more information about participating in this pilot, visit the website: https://www.beautifulteaching.com/pilot

ANNOUNCING OUR FIRST CLASSICAL EDUCATION ONLINE CONFERENCE!
11 speakers, 2 days, online and recorded if you cannot attend all of the sessions! Early bird pricing only $69 though April 1. Visit our website for more information.

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This podcast is produced by Beautiful Teaching, LLC.
Support this podcast: ★ Support this podcast ★

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Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic

© 2023 Beautiful Teaching LLC. All Rights Reserved

About the Guest
Alex Markos is part of the Humanities faculty at the Geneva School of Boerne, TX, where he currently teaches 9th grade Greek and Roman history and literature. Last year (2022-23), he created and taught a class on virtue for the freshmen and previously taught 3 rd -5 th grade Latin for six years at Geneva. He holds a B.A. in History and Classics from Hope College and an M.A. in Apologetics from Houston Baptist University (now Houston Christian University). For his Apologetics capstone project, he developed a curriculum for teaching virtue through Scripture and Greek mythology. He has spoken four years in a row for the nationwide Society for Classical Learning summer conference on topics including Greek mythology, The Chronicles of Narnia, incorporating leisure in the classroom, and the art of crafting a new class. He has a passion for classical Christian education and aims to inspire his students to love learning and to grow in virtue.

Show Notes
Originally aimed at learning how to create a new class, we diverged into a lot of practical information that teachers will love! Alex Markos shares his love of books as the son of our former podcast guest Dr. Louis Markos. In this episode, the joy of teaching really comes out as Alex focuses on what the process looks like when creating a new class. He walks us through the brainstorming process and the many practical and thoughful ways in which to engage students!  As the discussion unfolds you will learn how to create a spirit of inquiry and ultimately how to help students order their affections. 

Some Ideas Discussed:

• The importance of integrating a class with other classes
• How to create a class cathechism and why it matters
• What are the practical implementations and expectations from a good class?
• How to read hard texts
• How to help students create great questions in order to have good discussions
• Helping students undertsand basic categories of questions
• Helping students think deeply about application of big ideas

Books Discussed in This Episode Include:
The Lord of the Rings
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Blue Fairy Book
The Red Fairy Book 
Augustine's Confessions
Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
"Allegory of the Cave" from The Republic
Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Foster
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Upcoming Winter Workshop Links:

• Fundamentals of a Charlotte Mason Education 7 Week Intensive (with Karen Glass, Kiernan Fiore, and Adrienne Freas) 
• Snapshot Series Courses by Beautiful Teaching Master Teachers
• Society for Classical Learning Winter Workshops, 2024 (scroll to read more about Adrienne's Narration Intensive)
• Sign up for Beautiful Teaching Monthly Newsletter by visiting the website! 

Let us help you discover what a beautiful education should look like. 

• Subscribe to this Podcast on your favorite podcast app!
• Meet our Team, Explore our Resources and
• Take advantage of our Services!

This podcast is produced by Beautiful Teaching, LLC.
Support this podcast: ★ Support this podcast ★

_________________________________________________________

Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic

© 2023 Beautiful Teaching LLC. All Rights Reserved

About The Guest
Dr. Phillip J. Donnelly is Professor of Literature for the Great Texts Program in the Honors College at Baylor University. His teaching and research focus on the connections between philosophy, theology, and imaginative literature, with particular attention to Renaissance literature and the reception of Classical educational traditions.  He serves on the editorial board of Principia: A Journal of Classical Education.  He is the Director of the Texas Chapter of the Alcuin Fellowship and serves on the national board for the Alcuin Fellowship.  He is the author of The Lost Seeds of Learning: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric as Life-Giving Arts (Classical Academic Press) and Milton’s Scriptural Reasoning (Cambridge Univ. Press).  He is the co-editor (with D.H. Williams) of Transformations in Biblical Literary Traditions (Univ. of Notre Dame Press). 

Show Notes
This engaging conversation gives voice to the nature of verbal arts. As written in his book, The Lost Seeds of Learning: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric as Life-Giving Arts,  Dr. Phillip Donnelly offers the image of a living seed to represent purposeful communication. From this episode, you will gain a vision for skills learned in the classroom that are alive, not detached, with a new sense of enthusiasm for the art of grammar.  Some points of discussion include: 

• Why is the trivium so important?
• What is the core function of the trivium?
• Why a seed metaphor?
• What is grammar in the trivium?

Books Mentioned in the Episode
For 15% off CAP products use discount code CEPODCAST15 at checkout.

Dr. Donnelly's book is published by CAP (Classical Academic Press)
The Classical Trivium: The Place of Thomas Nash in the Learning of His Time by Marshall McLuhan
Confessions by St. Augustine (trans. Maria Boulding)

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Upcoming Winter Workshop Links:

• Fundamentals of a Charlotte Mason Education 7 Week Intensive (with Karen Glass, Kiernan Fiore, and Adrienne Freas) 
• Snapshot Series Courses by Beautiful Teaching Master Teachers
• Society for Classical Learning Winter Workshops, 2024 (scroll to read more about Adrienne's Narration Intensive)
• Sign up for Beautiful Teaching Monthly Newsletter by visiting the website! 

Let us help you discover what a beautiful education should look like. 

• Subscribe to this Podcast on your favorite podcast app!
• Meet our Team, Explore our Resources and
• Take advantage of our Services!

This podcast is produced by Beautiful Teaching, LLC.
Support this podcast: ★ Support this podcast ★

_________________________________________________________

Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic

© 2023 Beautiful Teaching LLC. All Rights Reserved

About the Guest
Karen Swallow Prior, Ph. D., is a reader, writer, and professor. She is the author of The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis (Brazos, 2023); On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books (Brazos 2018); Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist (Thomas Nelson, 2014); and Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me (T. S. Poetry Press, 2012). She is co-editor of Cultural Engagement: A Crash Course in Contemporary Issues (Zondervan 2019) and has contributed to numerous other books. She has a monthly column for Religion News Service. Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, First Things, Vox, Think Christian, The Gospel Coalition, and various other places. She hosted the podcast Jane and Jesus. She is a Contributing Editor for Comment, a founding member of The Pelican Project, a Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum, and a Senior Fellow at the L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture. She and her husband live on a 100-year-old homestead in central Virginia with dogs, chickens, and lots of books.

Show Notes
Adrienne Freas and Karen Swallow Prior enjoy discussing the idea of culture creation through great literature. Why not think of reading for enjoyment instead of just reading for an assignment? Enjoy more balance while gaining an enriching approach to literature. 

Some Questions Include:

• How is the book, On Reading Well helpful for parents and teachers?
• What do you believe is helpful in your books and what do you hope teachers and parents will take away ? 
• What is your view concerning critical theory in contrast with the idea of reading well? 
• What are the implications for how we teach students?

Resources and books mentioned:

Artist Makoto Fujimura

On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books

The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis

Moby Dick

The Bible

To Kill A Mockingbird

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Jane Eyre

Gerard Manly Hopkins poetry

East of Eden

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Let us help you discover what a beautiful education should look like. 

• Subscribe to this Podcast on your favorite podcast app!
• Meet our Team, Explore our Resources and
• Take advantage of our Services!

This podcast is produced by Beautiful Teaching, LLC.
Support this podcast: ★ Support this podcast ★

_________________________________________________________

Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic

© 2023 Beautiful Teaching LLC. All Rights Reserved

About the Guest
Jon has worked at Coram Deo Academy since 2010. Before serving as Dallas Campus Headmaster, he served as Dean of Students at the Flower Mound campus. He has taught a variety of Logic and Rhetoric level History, Theology, Latin, and Greek courses. 

Jon earned an M.A. in Religion from Reformed Theological Seminary, and a Certificate in Anglican Studies from Wycliffe College, University of Toronto. He also holds a B.A. in History and Education from the University of Texas at Dallas. 

Jon has found Coram Deo to be a perfect combination of his two callings: academic and pastoral ministry. In addition to serving as a place to train the minds and hearts of the next generation of Christian leaders, CDA also provides a place to build relationships that will last a lifetime and beyond. 

Jon and his wife Vivien have three children, Zoë, Rowan, and Billie. They worship together at Church of the Incarnation in Dallas, where Jon also serves on the clergy team. He was ordained a Priest in August 2019. 

Show Notes
Guest, Jon Jordan shares wisdom from his experience as a headmaster of a Christian classical school in Dallas, Texas. He shares his passion for good education through his leadership approach of walking alongside his school leaders. He shares practical ideas for helping parents embrace the classical tradition in order to cultivate a healthy Christian culture. 

Some topics they discuss include:

• Helping parents embrace the school mission
• Coming alongside school leadership and empowering them to be heads of their domain
• Creating a growth mindset for a unified community between school and parents
• Helping parents experience a classical education
• Attending to a culture that practices virtue in practical ways

Resources Mentioned
The Big Ten (link to PDF)
The Return of the King by Tolkien
Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis
The Great Divorce C.S. Lewis

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Whether you are a teacher or a parent, ask yourself…

• What is the purpose of education?  
• What is the beginning of education, AND does it ever come to an end? 
• What type of education is best, and what type of education might I or my child pursue in the future?

 Let us help you discover what a beautiful education should look like. 

Where Should I Start?

• Subscribe to this Podcast on your favorite podcast app!
• Meet our Team, Explore our Resources and
• Take advantage of our Services!

This podcast is produced by Beautiful Teaching, LLC.
Support this podcast: ★ Support this podcast ★

_________________________________________________________

Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic

© 2023 Beautiful Teaching LLC. All Rights Reserved

About Our Guests
11-year-old Grace has loved poetry for as long as she can remember. When she's not climbing a tree, you can find her reading books or writing her own. She also loves to dance! Grace is the founder and host of the Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Poems Podcast and is a recurring guest co-host on the Kids Talk Church History podcast. 

Amy and her husband John are 2nd-generation homeschoolers to five children from 8 to 18 years old, including a homeschool graduate. The Sloan family adventures together in NC where they pursue a restfully-classical education filled with books, conversation, and not-so-occasional nerdiness. Amy encourages homeschoolers through her “Homeschool Conversations with Humility and Doxology” podcast and shares many resources at https://www.humilityanddoxology.com/

Amy believes that the best education is the one that leads to a humble view of one’s self and a glorified view of the beauty of God. She encourages homeschooling mamas that faithful consistency and wonder-filled exploration are not mutually exclusive. Her family’s homeschool prioritizes relationships over checklists, and she believes that beautiful words are more valuable to memorize than inventories of facts. Ultimately, Amy is convinced that Gospel truth alone saves us from endlessly striving and the fear, worry, and anxiety of wondering if we (and our homeschools) are enough.

Show Notes

Adrienne has Grace on to introduce her new podcast, by a kid for kids! Amy (her mom) homeschools Grace and they discuss the importance of poetry in their daily life. This is a delightful episode sure to inspire both parents and teachers to prioritize poetry in their routines. 

Resources Mentioned

Now We Are Six by A. A. Milne

A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson

Midsummer Night's Dream "I Know A Bank Where The Wild Thyme Blows" by William Shakespeare 

Charge Of The Light Brigade Poem by Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson

Be Glad Your Nose Is On Your Face Book by Jack Prelutsky

Ozymandias Poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Mr. Nobody by Walter de la Mare

Edward Lear Poems

Hopkins, Dunn, Dante

Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Poems: 

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Amazon Music
• Podcast Addict
• Google Podcasts

Amy Sloan’s free Quickstart Guide to Shakespeare (workshop + printables): https://birdsend.page/forms/1063/9kAhJE4Rck

_________________________________________________________

Whether you are a teacher or a parent, ask yourself…

• What is the purpose of education?  
• What is the beginning of education, AND does it ever come to an end? 
• What type of education is best, and what type of education might I or my child pursue in the future?

 Let us help you discover what a beautiful education should look like. 

Where Should I Start?

• Subscribe to this Podcast on your favorite podcast app!
• Meet our Team, Explore our Resources and
• Take advantage of our Services!

This podcast is produced by Beautiful Teaching, LLC.
Support this podcast: ★ Support this podcast ★

_________________________________________________________

Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic

© 2023 Beautiful Teaching LLC. All Rights Reserved

About our Guests

Dr. Dave Rose is a Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He received his Ph.D. in Economics in 1987 from the University of Virginia. His primary areas of research interest are behavioral economics, political economy, and organization theory. He has published scholarly articles in a wide range of areas. His work has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the Weldon Spring Foundation, the HFL Foundation, the Earhart Foundation, and the John R. Templeton Foundation. He is currently in his second term on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. In 2008 he received the St. Louis Business Journal’s Economic Educator of the year award. His book, The Moral Foundation of Economic Behavior, was selected one of CHOICE’s outstanding titles of 2012. His newest book, Why Culture Matters Most, is also from Oxford University Press. He frequently contributes to policy debates through radio and television interviews as well as in Op-Eds on topics ranging from social security, monetary policy, fiscal policy, judicial philosophy, education reform, healthcare reform, and freedom of speech. 

Dr. Lawrence W. (“Larry”) Reed became President of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in 2008 after serving as chairman of its board of trustees in the 1990s and both writing and speaking for FEE since the late 1970s. He previously served for 21 years as President of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, Michigan (1987-2008). He also taught economics full-time from 1977 to 1984 at Northwood University in Michigan and chaired its department of economics from 1982 to 1984.

In May 2019, he retired to the role of President Emeritus at FEE and assumed the titles of Humphreys Family Senior Fellow, and Ron Manners Global Ambassador for Liberty. 

He holds a B.A. in economics from Grove City College (1975) and an M.A. degree in history from Slippery Rock State University (1978), both in Pennsylvania. He holds two honorary doctorates, one from Central Michigan University (public administration, 1993) and Northwood University (laws, 2008).

Show Notes

Dr. Rose and Dr. Reed join Adrienne and Trae to discuss the foundation of a good education in civics and economics: cooperation and trust rooted in moral beliefs and lived out by ethical people in the family and society. 

We delve into the role of stories in economics class, preserving traditional practices and restoring home economics. 

For the civics and economics teachers, our guests help us see why preferring old stories to current events is best and why it's not necessarily the classroom teacher’s job to show students how to balance their checking accounts. 

Some topics in this episode include:

The Relationship between Parenting, Culture, Civics, and Economics 

Framing Economics as Cooperation 

Self-governance in Classical Education 

The Family and Home Economics 

Moral Believes and Trust in the Family and Society 

The Role of Stories in Moral Education 

Humane Economics and Traditional Practices 

Gratitude and Service to Others 

Prudence and Democracy 

The Value of Failure 

How to Avoid “Bumper Sticker Pedagogy” 

Resources and Books & Mentioned In This Episode

Why Culture Matters, David Rose 

Real Heroes, Lawrence Reed 

Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt

Basic Economics, Thomas Sowell 

Cinderella Man, Ron Howard (Director)

The Whistle, Benjamin Franklin 

Aesop’s Fables, Aesop 

“The Economics of Splitting Wood By Hand,” John Cuddeback 

A Conflict of Visions, Thomas Sowell

Dr. Reed’s Website 

Passion’s Within Reason,  Robert H. Frank 

The Memory Book, Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas

Favorite Books and Quotes 

Dr. Rose’s book that he wishes he had read sooner:

A Conflict of Visions, Thomas Sowell  

Dr. Reed’s favorite quote (corrected): 

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” - David Hayek

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OUR MISSION
We exist for the benefit of both parents and teachers who are seeking to understand classical education. Teaching is an art and teachers need opportunities to cultivate their craft. Parents need to feel confident that their children are receiving the best education possible. Therefore, our goals are to help parents make well-informed decisions about the education of their children, and to help teachers experience true joy in their vocation. We help bridge gaps that currently exists between many classical schools and the parents who send their students to these schools. 

We guide teachers and parents on the path of a beautiful education. We help teachers delight in their sacred work. We help parents understand that a good education should fill students with wonder and delight! Join in the conversation of discovering the joy and beauty of a well-ordered education. 

https://www.beautifulteaching.com/

OUR SERVICES
If you like our podcast, you will love our online sessions!
Meet our Team of Master Teachers: https://www.beautifulteaching.com/about

We offer immersion sessions so you can experience classical pedagogy. A complete listing of our courses is at  https://beautifulteaching.coursestorm.com/

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Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic

© 2023 Beautiful Teaching LLC. All Rights Reserved

About our Guest
Jonathan Pageau is a French Canadian liturgical artist, icon carver, writer, and public speaker. With a YouTube following of 191K, he has become a sought out interpreter of the deep patterns in stories. His podcast entitled The Symbolic World features, in both English and French, Jonathan's interpretations and conversations with other artists, thinkers and culture champions who are interested in restoring a collective respect for and use of these patterns as the very stuff of the cosmos.

Jonathan's current project is an eight-book series, the first of which is a retelling of the classic fairy tale, Snow White. The first book, Snow White and the Widow Queen, is now halfway through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, and it has been very well supported so far, funding at more than 900%. With this storybook publishing project, Pageau is exploring a new way of telling Fairy Tales, one which is both aware of our cultural need for virtue formation and  the roots these stories have planted in our common imagination.

Jonathan's website: https://thesymbolicworld.com/

Learn about His Current Project
Snow White and the Widow Queen Kickstarter

Show Notes
On today’s show we have an artist who shares with us a passion for fairy tales. Jonathan Pageau reminds us that a fairy tale will awaken beauty in the formation of our minds and souls. Jonathan joins Adrienne to discuss the relevance of fairy tales and how they can shine a light into our souls. Fairy tales help us make sense of the world and the reality we live in. Adrienne and Jonathan discuss a few important ideas that have a positive impact on the Classical movement 

• Why are fairytales important?
• Jonathan is working on a fairytale project and explains why this project is important to him and for all of us. 
• Why fairytales are for all ages, not just children?
• How fairytales help us recognize truth in the Holy Scriptures
• What are monsters and fairies?

Books and Resources Recommended
This page contains affiliate links. I may be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases through them. This helps to support the podcast and keep it free of advertising.

"The Fantastic Imagination" by George MacDonald
The Audiobook Fairy Tales by George MacDonald published by Naxos (The Carasoyn is in this audiobook)
The Collected Fantasy of George MacDonald (contains the Fantastic Imagination essay)
Bible story of Jairus’s daughter: Mark 5:21-43

Rapunzel 

Sleeping Beauty

Snow White 

Cinderella 

The Valiant Little Tailor 

Little Thumb 

Jack and The Beanstalk

God's' Dog: Monster by Jonathan Pageau and Matthieu Pageau

Goldilocks and The Three Bears by Robert Southey

The Symbolic World Logo: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peridexion_tree

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri 

• Affiliate Link to the translation that Adrienne loves and that University of Dallas uses in their classes. 
• Affiliate Link to the translation that Richard Rohlin loves and reads with his family and folks in DFW. 

Richard Roland with Jonathan Pageau on The Symbolic World Podcast: Universal History - Anglo Saxon Myths and the Origin of Fairies

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This podcast is produced by Beautiful Teaching, LLC.

Support this podcast: ★ Support this podcast ★
Website: https://www.beautifulteaching.com/

OUR MISSION
We exist for the benefit of both parents and teachers who are seeking to understand classical education. Teaching is an art and teachers need opportunities to cultivate their craft. Parents need to feel confident that their children are receiving the best education possible. Therefore, our goals are to help parents make well-informed decisions about the education of their children, and to help teachers experience true joy in their vocation. We help bridge gaps that currently exists between many classical schools and the parents who send their students to these schools. 

We guide teachers and parents on the path of a beautiful education. We help teachers delight in their sacred work. We help parents understand that a good education should fill students with wonder and delight! Join in the conversation of discovering the joy and beauty of a well-ordered education. 

OUR SERVICES
If you like our podcast, you will love our online sessions!
Meet our Team of Master Teachers: https://www.beautifulteaching.com/about

We offer immersion sessions so you can experience classical pedagogy. A complete listing of our courses is at  https://beautifulteaching.coursestorm.com/

_________________________________________________________

Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic

© 2023 Beautiful Teaching LLC. All Rights Reserved

About The Guest
Mark Signorelli currently serves as Headmaster at Lumen Gentium Academy, a classical Catholic high school located in Boonton, NJ.  Prior to occupying this position, he was the Director for a Classical Studies program within the Chesterton Network of Schools.  In addition to over twenty years of experience as an educator, Mark has also written extensively for a wide variety of journals, including the Imaginative Conservative, Arion, Modern Age, Public Discourse, the University Bookman, and Front Porch Republic.  He currently writes at his own site, The Classical Corner, and has authored several books.

Show Notes

Part 1: As a master teacher, Mark brings years of experience to us about what classical writing ought to look like. Reflecting on a few of his substack essays, we explores many of his ideas and how he incorporates them into his teaching approach. In this episode, Mark unpacks what our goals are for teaching students to write while taking us back to the classical tradition of teaching excellent composition.  He also gives evidence that traditional classical writing instruction actually better prepares students for the College Board exams! 

Some questions and topics we cover in this episode:

• What is the purpose of writing? Is it simply to help student prepare for college or is there something more?
• How do want our students to think? 
• How classical writing builds authentic confidence in students
• What texts to use to help students learn how to write well
• How does a research paper approach differ from the classical rhetorical approach to writing?

Part 2: Mark discusses poetry!  His experience is that students find great joy in poetry and it awakens their sense of play. It helps them develop style and voice in writing. This is a fun discussion that you will not want to miss! 

Resources and Books & Mentioned In This Episode

The Classical Corner with Mark Signorelli (Mark's Substack)
Down with the Research Paper by Mark Signorelli
Poetry as a Form of Life by Mark Signorelli
Some Principles for a Classical Writing Program by Mark Signorelli

Cicero: Rhetorica ad Herennium
Quintillian
The Art of Rhetoric by Aristotle
Categories by Aristotle

Shakespear Sonnets
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
The Writer's Workshop: Imitating Your Way to Better Writing by Greg Roper
The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Richard Feynman

"Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins
Dana Gioia poetry
New Science by Giambattista Vico 

Mark Twain
George MacDonald
Tolkien
Montaigne
Friedrich Schiller's Play Drive
Notes Toward A New Rhetoric by Francis Christensen
John Witherspoon 

William Wordsworth

From Plato to Postmodernism: Understanding the Essence of Literature and the Role of the Author by Professor Louis Markos

A Generative Rhetoric of the Sentence by Francis Christensen

Tales from Shakespeare by Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

Aesop's Fables by Aesop

Norms and Nobility by David Hicks

Essays by Michel de Montaigne

Lectures on Rhetoric and belles lettres by Hugh Blair

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This podcast is produced by Beautiful Teaching, LLC.

Support this podcast: ★ Support this podcast ★ https://www.classicaleducationpodcast.com/support

OUR MISSION
We exist for the benefit of both parents and teachers. Teaching is an art and teachers need opportunities to cultivate their craft. Parents need to feel confident that their children are receiving the best education possible. Therefore, our goals are to help parents make well-informed decisions about the education of their children, and to help teachers experience true joy in their vocation. We desire to bridge a large gap that currently exists between most classical schools and the parents who send their students to these schools.

Immersing both parents and teachers into the beauty of good teaching is paramount to our goals! Our formative sessions are designed to be LIVE so that you can experience classical education through participating and doing. This is what is expected in classical education. In order to mentor you well, we invite you to participate for a full classical experience. Our online sessions assume modeling, imitation, and meaningful conversation as the basis of experiencing good teaching.

OUR SERVICES
If you like our podcast, you will love our online sessions! We offer immersion sessions so you can experience classical pedagogy. A complete listing of our courses is at  https://beautifulteaching.coursestorm.com/

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Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic

© 2023 Beautiful Teaching LLC. All Rights Reserved

About our Guest

Kon Bouzikos is currently the President and cofounder of ACES (Australian Classical Education Society). The Australian Classical Education Society Inc. is an association for students, parents, educators, politicians, experts and like-minded individuals who wish to see classical education introduced within the Australian educational landscape.

The roots of education are based on the seven Liberal Arts (the Trivium and Quadrivium) and it is now time that this type of education which is not elitist is offered to students in Australia. A broad based education that is concerned with human formation, reading the great books and allowing students to see connections between the different subjects is so vital and necessary today. The renewal for classical education which began in America 40 years ago is urgently needed in Australia. The educational landscape is about to change in Australia!

He is an experienced Primary and Secondary School Teacher and has worked in Orthodox, Catholic, Government and Independent Schools. His subject areas include: the Humanities, Religious Education and Modern Greek. He values the Seven Liberal Arts and the importance of a Christian Classical education. Kon enjoys dialogue and critical thinking in order to elicit the truth during conversations. Greek philosophers such as Plato, Socrates and Aristotle continue to shape his views of education. 

Kon’s  educational qualifications are

Educational Qualifications

2008-2009: Graduate Certificate in Catholic Studies

Australian Catholic University Melbourne Campus – St. Patrick’s

2003-2005: Master of Education, Leadership & Management in Educational

Organizations

The University of Melbourne

1995: Graduate Diploma in Education, (SOSE, History, Modern Greek)

Monash University

1989- 1991 Bachelor of Arts, Politics and Modern Greek

Sign up for their newsletters at the ACES website: http://www.classicaleducation.org.au/

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Show Notes

This enlightening podcast conversation with Kon Bouzikos and Adrienne is all about the spreading passion for education reform across Australia. Australia Classical Education Society (ACES) was formed in 2021, and it reaches far and wide. For the love of learning, ACES has a deep interest in sharing experiences with others. 

With great passion, Kon affirms that the Australians need and want Americans who are immersed in the classical education movement to teach them and help direct them. They need our help as the endeavor to awaken Australia to the beauty of a liberal arts education.  Kon and Adrienne discuss topics of great importance for all educators. This episode will even inspire Americans who wish to know more about the classical education movement at large.

Some Topics and Ideas in this Episode Include: 

• Why reform education in Australia?
• What are the responses from educators when you invite them to ACES ? 
• Do you have home schools and charter schools in Australia?
• What resources for Classical Education are available in Australia?

Sign up for their newsletters at the ACES website: http://www.classicaleducation.org.au/

Resources and Books & Mentioned In This Episode

The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis

Poetic Knowledge by James Taylor

How to Read a Book: The Art of Getting a Liberal Education by Mortimer Adler

St. Basil, Address To the Youth (AKA: Young Men on the Right Use of Greek to Men)

Pastor Douglas Wilson books

The Australian book distributor for classical education resources is Sara Flynn. Email her at: contact@logosaustralis.com

Her website is: https://logosaustralis.com/

Campion College:

https://www.campion.edu.au/

On-line Courses with Beautiful Teaching Consultants: https://beautifulteaching.coursestorm.com/

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SUPPORT
This is a listener supported podcast. Considering the drama we have seen on Patreon and other social media platforms, we encourage listeners to support this podcast through donations. Part of your support goes to fund professional editing, hardware, software as well as other fees. It also frees Adrienne up to be more involved in the content creation, participation on other platforms, and public speaking.  You can donate by visiting our website at https://www.classicaleducationpodcast.com/support

Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic

© 2023 Beautiful Teaching LLC. All Rights Reserved

About Our Guest

Diana Cunningham is the founding headmistress of Lindisfarne Hall, a classical Anglican school in Fernandina Beach, Florida.  

Learn more about the good work going on at this school at https://www.lindisfarnehall.com. 

Notes

In this episode, Diana Cunningham shares with Trae how a homeschool resource center at a church turned into a full-scale classical Christian school. 

From a very young age, Diana was touched by the importance of atmosphere within places of education. Now that she serves as a school headmistress, she can intentionally nurture an atmosphere informed by classical principles, aimed at beauty, and structured by tradition and worship.  

Some Topics and Ideas in this Episode Include: 

• Creating an Atmosphere Worthy of 10,000 Hours of a Student’s Classroom Life 
• How Academics Can Create Tunnel Vision 
• Designing a School Schedule as a Christian Oasis 
• Incorporating a Contemplation Period (An Unexpected Student Favorite) 
• How Non-Churched Students Fall in Love With Traditional English Hymns 
• The Faculty is the School 
• The Church as an Authority 
• Learning by Listening to Church Bells 
• The “Hidden Curriculum” 
• Charlotte Mason’s Principals of Education 
• “Socratic Narration” 
• Teaching History with Primary Sources 
• Avoiding Workbooks (How to “Keep the Words in their Habitat”)
• Initiating Teachers into the Philosophy of Classical Education 
• The Limitations of the Scientific Method 
• The Church Calendar and the Life of the School 
• Sorting Students into Houses (Yes, like Harry Potter)  
• The Lives of the Saints 

Resources Mentioned / Referenced

• Read More about the Classical Approach at Lindisfarne Hall Here
• Find Academic Plans and Sample Reading Lists Here 
• Get a Peak into the Life of the School on Facebook 

On-line Courses with Beautiful Teaching Consultants: https://beautifulteaching.coursestorm.com/

_________________________________________________________

Credits:
Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel
Logo Art: Anastasiya CF
Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic
 
© 2022 Beautiful Teaching LLC. All Rights Reserved

About Our Guest
"Autumn Kern is a wife, mother, and keeper of an actual commonplace book. When she was twenty-one, she sat under a tree with a man who told her the woman he married would homeschool his children. Handsome as he was, she didn’t anticipate being that woman, but here she is with three little ones in tow, and, as in all God’s providential ways, it has been the greatest gift" (TheCommonplacePodcast.com).

Autumn writes, produces, and hosts The Commonplace Podcast and Youtube channel.

Consider joining a community of Charlotte Mason mother teachers (and Trae) and supporting Autumn's work through Patreon here.

Notes
In this episode, Autumn Kern shares with Trae some of her journey from discovering classical education through an internet quiz taken on a lark to becoming someone who delights in reading Plato and Aristotle and putting into practice the educational philosophy of Charlotte Mason. While Autumn has grown in knowledge and reading abilities, she has not lost touch with the common things of life, including common people. If anything, she finds joy in being a "common mom" called to join The Great Conversation, share in fine culture, and relate rightly to all things in the pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. And better yet, she gets to share all that with Mr. Kern and their little kernels.

Some Topics and Ideas in this Episode Include: 

• What if Education Was Not Utilitarian? 
• Charlotte Mason's Place Within the Classical Tradition 
• Responding to the Herbartian "Mind Bucket"
• Synthetic Knowledge Before Analytical Knowledge 
• Charlotte Mason's Principal #4: "Authority is not a license to abuse children, or to play upon their emotions or other desires, and adults are not free to limit a child's education or use fear, love, power of suggestion, or their own influence over a child to make a child learn."
• How What you Motivate With is What You Motivate Towards 
• Moving Backwards Into the Future 
• Searching for "Marks of Authenticity" 
• Solving Problems and Sanctification Through Marriage
• Avoiding Sin in the Pursuit of Ideals
• Wonder Working Mothers (Doing What's Best for Children)

Resources and Books Mentioned / Referenced 

• Grove City College
• The CiRCE Institute's Definition of Classical Education 
• Norms and Nobility by David Hicks 
• The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis 
• Confessions by St. Augustine 
• Institutes of Oratory by Quintillian 
• On the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius  
• Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport 
• Jason Barney on Charlotte Mason and the Liberal Arts Tradition 
• Margarita Mooney Clayton on John Dewey
• Sean Johnson on Technology in the Home 
• Joshua Gibbs on The Teacher Who Points 
• Karen Glass 
• Brandy Vincel 
• Heidi White  

About Our Guest

Margarita Mooney Suarez (Clayton)* is an Associate Professor in the Department of Practical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. She founded The Scala Foundation in 2016 and continues to serve as Scala’s Executive Director. Scala Foundation’s vision is to restore meaning and purpose to American culture by focusing on the intersection of artists (culture creators), liberal arts education, and religion (liturgy, personal prayer, theology).

Notes

In this episode, Trae and Margarita Mooney Suarez (Clayton) take a closer look at the philosophical underpinning of modern education. 

The late American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer John Dewey maintains a massive influence on how contemporary schools and families think about learning and the role of the school and its teachers. Dewey’s philosophy of education, while seemingly positive on some points, is ultimately grounded in the denial of the spiritual needs of students and a rejection of tradition. As a result, Dewey's views have contributed to the rise of beliefs and practices that effectively turn teachers into little more than bureaucratic therapeutic reformers, cut off from tradition with little to no approaches to teaching outside the scientific method applied across subjects. 

Today, most schools strip students of traditional beliefs and practices and expect them to build a future on no sure foundation. If we want to undo the influence of Dewey and restore a common unity between the church, the household, and the school, we will need some help. Enter Jacques Maritain and Luigi Giussani. 

* Margarita married David Clayton after this recording and now shares his last name.  

Some topics and ideas in this episode include:

• Deep Rot in Our Education System 
• The Influence of Philosophy on Education 
• Jacques Maritain and Luigi Giussani's Concerns with John Dewey 
• Teachers as Beuarocratic Therapeutic Reformers
• Truth and The Scientific Method   
• All Education as Moral Education 
• The Freedom to Choose What’s Right 
• Teaching as an Art 
• Common Unity Between Household, Church, and School  
• Tradition and Authority 
• Deconstruction, Questioning, and Scepticism 

Resources and Books & Mentioned In This Episode

• After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre
• A Common Faith by John Dewey 
• Letters to a Young Education Reformer by Frederick M. Hess
• The Crisis of Western Education by Christopher Dawson
• The Burnout Society by Byung-Chul Han
• Education at the Crossroads by Jacques Maritain
• The Risk of Education: Discovering Our Ultimate Destiny by Luigi Giussani 

Margarita’s Foundation and Books

•  SCALA Foundation 
• The Acton Institute 28th Anniversary Speech
• The Love of Learning: Seven Dialogues on the Liberal Arts 
• The Wounds of Beauty: Seven Dialogues on Art and Education

_________________________________

Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Used with permission. cellists: Sara Sant' Ambrogio and Lexine Feng; pianist: Alyona Waldo

 © 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved

About our Guests

Dax Stokes is the host of the award-winning podcast "The Vampire Historian," and a frequent lecturer on the topics of Dracula and vampire folklore. As an academic librarian in the North Texas area, he has organized two symposia on vampire studies featuring scholars from across the United States. His published works on Dracula can be found in IndieJudge Magazine, the Fantastika Journal, Vamped.org, and at thevampirehistorian.com. 

Melissa Smith-Lauro is a corporate writer and content strategist who taught literature & composition at the university level for eight years. She’s the indefatigable mother of four sons who play baseball and attend in-person classes at the Flint Academy in Arlington, TX, and online classes with Miss Esther’s Integrated Homeschool Curriculum through the Classical Learning Resource Center. For fun, she works with local creatives to produce collaborative, beautiful, story-driven multimedia children’s content. Melissa is a proponent of Charlotte Mason principles, classical education content, and Montessori education methods. She is a gentle parenting enthusiast and an advocate for ADHD and autism awareness, accommodation, and inclusion in classical schools. 

Show Notes

Trae and Adrienne invited Dax and Melissa to discuss the two most famous monsters in gothic fiction literature, Frankenstein and Dracula. The big ideas in these classics help us wrestle with what it means to be a human being through exploring the rich stories of these two monsters. What is a monster, and why should we read these books? Should students in classical schools read them? Join us as we explore these two famous monsters and their authors.

Be sure to check out The Vampire Historian podcast with Dax Stokes too!

Movies Mentioned

• Dracula (1992) The Coppola Version- Portrays all forms of Dracula
• Gothic: Movie with Julian Sands and Shelley
• Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
• Count Dracula: BBC 70’s version with Louis Jourdan
• The Search of Dracula: documentary
• Dracula Dead and Loving It (Mel Brooks and Leslie Nielson)
• Nofaratu (destroyed from law suit)
• Young Frankenstein with Gene Wilder (a Mel Brooks film)
• YouTube on Albertus Magnus, St. Thomas Aquinas and the Robot 

Books mentioned

• 1818 version of Frankenstein
• 1831 version of Frankenstein
• Transylvanian Superstitions by Emily Gerard
• In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracual and vampires 
• The Icelandic Dracula , 1901 - Powers of Darkness: The Lost Version of Dracula by Bram Stoker
• Swedish version of Dracula  - not translated into English yet
• Varney the Vampire (Penny Dreadfuls)
• The Vampire Book (Now the Vampire Almanac)
• Dr. John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819)

_________________________________________________________
Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF
Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic

Special Music: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 561; Public Domain classics sourced from the: https://archive.org/.

 
© 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved 

About Our Guest

Ferdi McDermott studied Languages at Edinburgh University before a decade in Catholic publishing in London. In 2002 he founded Chavagnes International College, an international Catholic school for boys (www.chavagnes.org). He now combines leadership of the school with a lectureship in English literature at the Vendée Catholic university, ICES (www.ices.fr). He is pursuing a doctorate in Education through the University of Buckingham.

Notes

In this episode, Adrienne and Trae join Headmaster Ferdi Mcdermott on a journey through the French countryside and into the historic site of a Roman villa turned thirteenth-century monastery, turned junior seminary now operating as a Catholic boarding school for boys that offers a classical Christian education for students from all over the world. To support this good work, please visit their website here.

Some topics and ideas in this episode include:

• Living and Teaching in a Place with a Long History 
• Teaching and Modeling Physical, Intellectual, and Spiritual Virtues 
• The Key Role of the Chapel in the Life of a School 
• The History of Classical Education in Europe 
• The Influence of Ancient Egypt on Education 
• Traditional Catholic Education  
• What Makes a Good Teacher? 
• Why Should Teachers Sing to Their Students? 

Resources and Books & Mentioned In This Episode

• Letters to Captains by Andre Charlier 
• Godliness and Good Learning by David Newsome 
• John Senior on the cultural soil being depleted 
• “The Twelves Virtues of a Good Teacher” by Br. Agathon  
• The National Association of Private Catholic and Independent Schools (NAPCIS)
• “Lay Catholics in Schools” by The Sacred Congregation of Catholic Education 
• “The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium” by The Sacred Congregation of Catholic Education 
• “Divini Illius Magistri” by Pope Pius XI

Ferdi’s Favorite Quote (Corrected):

“To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”
- St. John Henry Newman 

Don’t miss Mr. McDermott singing a hymn in honor of St. John Henry Newman at the end!

Please Support us on Patreon.
_________________________________________________________
Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic

 
© 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved 

About Our Guest
Daniel Olushola is the founder and former headmaster of Reformation Wall School. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from Covenant University and was trained in Business Management and Entrepreneurship by African Management Initiate (AMI), Kenya, and Global Business Foundation, Nigeria.

Daniel Olushola is reforming education in Nigeria. What started as a small gathering in a two-bedroom apartment has grown into a thriving classical Christian school in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria.

In our interview, we observed that Daniel constantly uses one phrase throughout our conversation: "I'm still learning."  We are delighted that Daniel and his staff have taken on the task of learning and bringing classical education to their part of the world. We hope you are encouraged by hearing the story of Reformation Wall School. Please visit the school's website here if you want to see more and support this good work.

Some topics and ideas in this episode include:

• The state of education (materially and philosophically) in Nigeria
• How discovering a Youtube video about a classical Christian school in the states encouraged Daniel to investigate classical education for his own country 
• The importance of educating virtuous human beings
• The joys of reading great books like The Iliad and Plato's Republic for the first time as an adult 
• The universality of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty 
• Charlotte Mason and "living books" 

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

• The Rafiki Foundation 

If you want to support the work at Reformation Wall School, please consider sponsoring a student. Read more about how to become a sponsor here.

If you would like to discuss sending books, supplies, or other means of support, please contact Reformation Wall School through their website here. 

Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic

 
© 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved

About our Guest: 

Dr. Angel Parham is Associate Professor of Sociology and senior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia.  Her area is historical sociology, where she engages in research and writing that examine the past in order to better understand how to live well in the present and envision wisely for the future.  Her research and teaching are inspired by classical philosophies of living and learning that emphasize the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty. She shares this love of history and of classical learning through Nyansa Classical Community, an educational non-profit focused on K-12 students which provides lower and upper school curricula in the humanities to schools and homeschools. Parham is the author The Black Intellectual Tradition: Reading Freedom in Classical Literature, published with Classical Academic Press (2022). She is also the President of the Board of Academic Advisors for the Classic Learning Test (CLT) which takes an approach to academic testing that seeks to reconnect knowledge and virtue.  Parham completed her B.A. in sociology at Yale University and her M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

If you would like to volunteer or write for Nyansa Classical Community, email Angel. Angel.Adams.Parham@Gmail.com or visit Nyansa Classical Community here.
 

Show Notes
Dr. Paham discusses her Christian outreach through Nyansa Classical Community (a non-profit Classical after-school program).  Nyansa works alongside schools to help them give beautiful classical texts in public schools for the children who stay for after-school care. We also dive into the debate between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois in the eduation of African-Americans.  We also discuss "What is a liberal arts eduation and why does it matter?" The origins of "liberal" means that it is freeing and to truly flourish. 

Some topics in this episode include:

• Why Homer is important for all students and to help develop good foundations for understanding a virtue-based learning environment
• What is the African-American tradition?
• The education debate between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois
• Why a liberal arts education casts a vision for the future and why it matters. 
• Anna Julia Cooper's impact on the tradition of African-American education
• What is the true heritage of the African-American education in The United States? 
• The grammar, logic, and rhetoric stages according to the essay, "The Lost Tools of Learning" by Dorothy Sayers. 
• What is the black intellectual tradition? 
• The importance of learning languages from other cultures to fully explore other cultures and their literature

Books In This Episode
The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Omeros by Derek Walcott
Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington

Musicans in the Black Tradition
Joseph Bologne
Opera Créole

Book she wishes she had read earlier
The Republic by Plato

Please Support us on Patreon
_________________________________________________________

Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic

 
© 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved

About our Guest: Steve Mittwede, PhD, EdS

Dr. Mittwede is privileged to be a teacher of Earth Science at Randolph School in Huntsville (Rocket City!), Alabama, after having taught at two great classical schools in Texas for the past seven years. Heartily committed to lifelong learning, his most recent degree was an EdS in Educational Leadership from Columbia International University (CIU), following degrees in geology from The College of William and Mary (BS) and the University of South Carolina (MS and PhD), the last two while concurrently working as a full-time mineral resources geologist for the South Carolina Geological Survey.  During that time in South Carolina, he married Dana, and they were blessed with four sons in close succession – all now grown, married, and raising their own broods (13 grandchildren and counting!). Steve also has an MA in intercultural studies from CIU and an MTh in theology from Union School of Theology/University of South Wales (UK). With his family, Steve lived for 23 years in Ankara, Turkey where he worked as an educator, academic researcher, consulting geologist, and scientific/technical editor. His main research “squeeze” over the last few years has been the great Peripatetic, Theophrastus, a paragon of scholarly virtues that are especially applicable in science education.

Show Notes

Adrienne interviews master teacher, Dr. Steve Mittwede on the art of teaching science. As an expert in the classroom, Steve brings practical ideas for teachers to consider for good, truth-driven instruction. He discusses in detail how to help students use good language (grammar mode of the trivium) to help them in habits of attending and defining their observations. We also discuss the truth pursuits around the unity of knowledge and how important this is to the foundation of integerated instruction. If truth is a foundation to classical education, then integrating all the "subjects" together ought to matter! His Three Realms of Knowing is a construct he developed about 20 years ago showing students that everything fits together. 

Some topics in this episode include:

• What is a good definition of science?
• How should science text books be used?
• What are best practices in the art of teaching science?
• How to engender conversations for good scientific hypothese
• Why nature study is critical for good science practices with students
• How scientific thinking can help us integrate and make connections to all truth and reality. 
• The Law of Noncontradiction
• Horizontal integration of science with poetry and Socratic inquiry

Books & Resources In This Episode
Aristotle's Metaphysics
"Learning Scholarly Virtues from Theaphrastus" by Dr. Mittwede, published by SCL
Opus Majus by Roger Bacon

Poems for Science class
Hymn before Sun-rise, in the Vale of Chamouni By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I Am Like a Slip of Comet by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Quotes that Dr. Mittwede uses in his science classes
"Truth, like gold, is not be obtained by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold."- Leo Tolstoy

"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."- Jack London

Please Support us on Patreon
_________________________________________________________

Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic

 
© 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved

About our Guest

Amy Sloan and her husband John are 2nd-generation homeschoolers to 5 children from 7 to 17 years old. The Sloan family adventures together in NC where they pursue a restfully-classical education. If you hang out with Amy for any length of time you’ll quickly learn that she loves overflowing book stacks, giant mugs of coffee, beautiful memory work, and silly memes. At any moment she could break into song and dance from Hamilton, 90s country music, or Shakespeare. Amy writes at HumilityandDoxology.com and hosts the  “Homeschool Conversations with Humility and Doxology” podcast.

Follow Amy on her website Humility & Doxology and her podcast Homeschool Conversations.

Show Notes

Adrienne interviews Amy and discusses the ins and outs of homeschooling. Amy shares her experience as a second generation homeschooler. She discusses how classical education shaped her life as a student and now as a homeschool mom.  Many golden nuggets of wisdom are shared between Adrienne and Amy as they explain the common experiencs typical in the life of a homeschooler. Listen and be encouraged not to give up or to seriously consider homeschooling as a solid educational choice for your family. 

Some topics in this episode include:

• The hard realities in homeschooling
• Prioritizing sibling frienships in a homeschool
• The common stresses in most homeschools
• Cultivating integrative learning: being purposeful to connect all the subjects
• The Christian classical idea of teaching with a spirit of humility
• Amy discusses the end goals to help answer the question, "why should I homeschool?".
• How to consider outsourcing needs and options as a homeschool

Books & Resources In This Episode

Missy Andrew's memoir, My Divine Comedy
The Liberal Arts Tradition by Clark and Jain
Better Together by Pam Barnhill
Teaching From Rest by Sarah MacKenzie
For the Children's Sake by Susan Schaeffer Mcaulay

Podcasts from Homeschool Conversations mentioned in this episode as most helpful for getting started in homeschooling:

• Dr. George Grant interview
• Ann Karako Interview
• Jami Marstall interview
• Pam Barnill and Heather Tully interview
• Karen Glass Interview
• Adrienne Freas Interview
• Cindy Rollins Interview

Curriculum Mentioned:
Sonlight Curriculum
AmblesideOnline Curriculum
Saxon Math
Math-U-See
RightStart Math

The quote that Amy shared:

"What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth. This has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert, himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt, the divine reason. Huxley preached a humility content to learn from nature, but the new skeptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. Thus, we should be wrong if we had said hastily that there is no humility typical of our time. The truth is there is a real humility typical of our time, but it so happens that it is practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest protrations of the aesthetic. The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping, not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether."
- G.K. Chesteron, Orthodoxy (ch. 3)

Please Support us on Patreon
_________________________________________________________

Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic

 
© 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved

Guest Biographies

Dr. Laura Eidt received her BA in English Literature and Linguistics from the University of Hamburg (Germany) and her MA and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Texas at Austin. She has been teaching Spanish, German, Comparative Literature, and Humanities at the University of Dallas since 2006 and has published on German and Spanish poetry and on ekphrasis. For many years she taught an applied foreign language pedagogy class that sent students to local area schools to teach their language to elementary children, and she was a mentor at a bilingual school in Dallas for four years. Her courses include classes on foreign language pedagogy, teaching classical children’s literature, and great works in the modern world. She is the faculty advisor for UD's Classical Curriculum team and is currently writing a Latin curriculum for K-5rd grade.

Robin Johnston

Robin Ann Johnston is a daughter, sister, wife, mother of five, grandmother of four (so far,) and a convert to Catholicism.  She graduated from Loyola University of New Orleans in 1985, cum laude, with a bachelor's degree in Cognitive Psychology and a minor in music. When her children were all old enough to go to school, she returned to the workforce as a teacher for Mount St. Michael Catholic School (MSMCS) in south Dallas. Robin taught mostly ELAR and World History during her years there, for grades ranging from 4th to 12th. As the lead middle-school teacher, she was instrumental in transitioning the school’s culture and curriculum instruction to a classical model. During those decades, Robin was given the “Work of Heart” award for excellence in teaching (twice) by the Catholic Diocese of Dallas.  After retiring from teaching full time, she began writing classical ELAR and Humanities curriculum lessons and novel study guides. Robin’s passion is for igniting students’ hearts with a love for learning and helping teachers have a toolbox of ideas that are easy to use while making a real difference in the classroom.  She is now working on a master's degree in Humanities and Classical Education. In her free time, she likes to craft, read, swim, and, along with her husband of 35 years, babysit the grandchildren. 

Show Notes

In this episode, Adrienne, Robin, and Laura continue their conversation on teaching literature. They delve deep into the art of narration, responding to common objections, and ways to use narration as a life-giving assessment.     

Some topics and ideas in this episode include:

• How to Assess Narrations
• Read-Aloud Recommendations
• Modeling Delight and Play Through Narration 
• What is a “living book”?
• Is Narration Just a Tool? 
• What About Violence in Fairy Tales? 
• Book Recommendations for Pre-K - Elementary, Middle School, and High School  

Resources and Books & Mentioned In This Episode

• The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
• Institutes of Oratory: or, Education of an Orator by Quintilian 

Pre-K - 5 

• Eric Carle 
• Jan Brett
• Tasha Tudor 
• Jerry Pickney 
• Astrid Lindgren (Dr. Eidt’s favorite) 
• George MacDonald 
  • The Princess and the Goblin (Librivox Recording) 
  • The Wise Women 
  • Undine 
• The Complete Tales of Winnie The Pooh by A.A. Milne 
  • Audio Drama with Judy Dench, Stephen Fry, et al. 
• Rabbit Ears Radio 
• Barbara Cooney 
• Ingrid D'Aulaires
• William Steig 
• Beatrix Potter