A Classical Conversation

Thanks to radio, television, the Internet, and ubiquitous mobile devices, Americans appear to be more connected, more informed, and more in touch with one another than ever before.

I was reflecting on this while listening to terrible music on my way to work. The song had a familiar beat and was based on the same four chords used in every other song these days.

I began to wonder whether there are strict parameters regarding tempo or chord progressions for admittance to the “variety” radio station.

I began to wonder whether this “uniformizing” of music is a government conspiracy intended to alter people’s neurons in some advantageous way.

Then I began to wonder why I was listening to this music at all. Am I not interesting enough to travel with, alone, on a car ride?

I often hear from Classical Conversations families that there are not many family-friendly movies these days. So when one comes across my desk, I like to tell you about it. I recently received a screener’s copy of a new movie, Last Ounce of Courage. It was not produced by one of the five media conglomerates that control over 90% of the published media in America, but was created by a Christian organization: Veritas Entertainment. I was excited to hear that it beat the odds; it is being released in over 1,200 theaters and it is not a straight-to-DVD movie! My family decided to watch it, to be sure that it was something that we could stand behind and recommend to homeschooling families. We believe you will like the movie and that it will generate good discussions for you and your family regarding liberty, freedom, and God-given rights. I wanted to learn more about the film, so I sat down with writer/director, Darrel Campbell, and with Classical Conversations dad and the film’s executive producer, Doug Pethoud, to discuss their new movie, Last Ounce of Courage. What follows is a transcript of our interview, which I believe will be of interest to all families.

If you have read my short biographical description or visited my website, you probably know my leanings. For many of the ‘X’ generation, college was just what we did after high school. College opened up the spectrum of jobs available to us. College ensured we would earn higher wages than those who eschewed college. Because I had a degree, an American Express management position was made available to me shortly after graduation. The work I have done in collegiate marketing owes much to having a degree. College served me, and maybe you, well. But will it do the same for our children?

Sharpened pencils, new markers, clean binders, shiny new timeline cards, colorful math bears to weigh and count . . . I smile happily as I gaze at our homeschool shelves filled with supplies for the new school year. Next, I turn my start-of-the-year zeal toward our schedule and curricula. I figure out a routine I think will work, I order books from my favorite vendors and the library, and then I feel ready and prepared.

By lunchtime, I realized that our first day of school looked nothing like it did on paper. What I thought would take an hour and a half took at least three hours. My son cried because he froze up on his math drill. My five-year-old had a meltdown because she cannot read “the fast way.” My toddler ran around scattering math bears in her wake, generally bringing chaos into our schoolroom, and messing up my shiny new supplies. After stepping on the math bears for the fourth time, I dropped into my chair exhausted and discouraged. I think God has a great sense of humor when He says that His thoughts are not my thoughts and His ways are not my ways.

All good classical educators know about Susan Wise-Bauer’s book, The Well-Trained Mind. We would love to do everything she recommends, but before we can achieve a well-trained mind, I propose we begin with The Well-Made Bed.

I mentioned this at dinner with some fellow Classical Conversations moms. Everyone was talking about what they were doing to prepare for a new school year. Some had begun math and some were practicing the English grammar charts. I said, “We made our beds this week.” Everyone laughed thinking I was just joking, but I did not mean to be funny at all; I was serious. I spent a week concentrating on getting my children to make their beds well.

How could a well-made bed be nearly as important as math? Or English grammar charts? It is not required for college, so why do it? As is often the case, it was not the subject, but the skill that mattered. I wanted to begin training my children to do the right thing, even if nobody sees it. I just used the beds as a tool to begin to teach this idea.

Each time we approach Cycle 1 in Classical Conversations, we receive questions from parents wondering about memorizing the names of Greek and Roman gods with their young ones. Why would Christians want to know the names of pagan gods and goddesses? Can a study of the classical world really be Christian?

I would like to address these questions in two ways. First, when we talk about a “classical, Christian education,” Classical Conversations focuses on the primacy of skills over content. We therefore emphasize the skills associated with the Trivium: grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. In the Foundations program, students primarily practice grammar skills through memorization and recitation.  In the Challenge program, each hour of the day focuses on a specific skill. The practice of these skills in each seminar—under the formal titles of Debate, Exposition and Composition, Grammar, Logic, Research, and Rhetoric—takes precedence over the content of the seminars. For example, students who study Latin in Challenge are focusing on the skill of grammar. While reading literature and writing essays, students practice the skills of exposition and composition. As they read history from different time periods, students practice their debate skills through speaking, presenting, and formal debate. During the study of different sciences such as biology, chemistry, and physics, students are in essence practicing research skills.

At some point, however, in addition to the focus on skills, Classical Conversations must also consider what constitutes the most appropriate content for our programs. This is the subject of my second response.

Can an education be both classical and Christian? Many parents ask this question every year, unknowingly echoing an age-old query. Parents often associate a classical education with “non-Christian” content such as Greek mythology or philosophy. Naturally, they then wonder how these studies can be Christian. Tertullian, an early Church Father, was perhaps the first to consider whether these two ideas are compatible when he asked, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” The Church Fathers continued to wrestle with the question for centuries, most concluding that all ideas that are taken captive for Christ may be used profitably by Christians. Examining this ongoing conversation about classical, Christian education will serve to answer many of our own questions today. We will subsequently be able to perceive that our current understanding of classical, Christian education depends more on the medieval church’s idea of education than it does on the ideas of the Greeks and Romans.

Last month, my article entitled “Electronics for Everyone” covered the basics of how electronics work and what a circuit is. If you have not read that article, you will find it helpful to read it before continuing with this one. Today we are going to learn how to use one of the most important tools of an electronic hobbyist: the solderless breadboard.

What is a solderless breadboard? A solderless breadboard is a device which helps you: (a) place and hold electronic components in your circuit, (b) connect your components together easily, and (c) allows you to reuse your components again and again for each new project. It is called a “solderless” breadboard because “soldering” is the process used to attach electronic components together permanently. Therefore, the solderless breadboard allows you to attach components for the desired amount of time needed for your current project.

For this project, we are using the following components (part numbers and links are for Radio Shack):

Dr. Glen Arbery may well be right when he suggests in his book, Why Literature Matters: Permanence and the Politics of Reputation, that “of all the poems in the history of the West, actual scripture aside.... God loves the Iliad most.” But if so, Homer’s other poem, The Odyssey is a close second.

To adapt the language Dr. Arbery uses later in the same paragraph, when I even think about the wandering, interwoven world of hospitality and endurance and endlessly beautiful craftsmanship that the Odyssey brings before the imagination, I feel God’s pleasure.

To [almost] quote Dr. Arbery once more:

The [Odyssey] presents the broken world as it is, fallen and savage, but capable of noble formality and tender mercies; groaning ceaselessly for redemption but without undue self-pity; conscious of being kingly, masterful, and godlike, yet also mortally aware of being subject to every loss and humiliation, including the ultimate form, mortality itself.

The Odyssey is not the Iliad, but I have no doubt that Homer is the supreme poet of western literature.

Maybe the most amazing thing—no, only one of the many amazing things—about the Odyssey is the almost complete

To those of you who submitted Latin questions I say, "Thank you." Here are some answers to some frequently asked questions:

What is the difference between the dative and the accusative plus the preposition ad?

The dative is used as the indirect object with verbs of giving, showing and telling, and their synonyms or antonyms. For example, I give money (the direct object) to James (the indirect object). The dative is usually going to be a person (and sometimes an animal). Think of a sentence with the dative as one in which the subject is standing still while handing or saying something to someone else.

Use ad plus the accusative when you want to show motion towards something or someone. For example, when you are walking, running, sending, et cetera something to someone.

Try these sentences—should they use the dative or ad + accusative?

(a) Fabulam ______________ narrat.

(b) _____________________ ambulat.

"Tell me why I am the greatest teacher that has ever lived."

We laughed when Andrew Kern stood before us asking something so ridiculous. He is a deeply modest man, and we knew it. He knew we knew it. We knew he knew we knew it. He gave us an opening to do with as we pleased and let us know from his first move that we were all invited to play.

As he took an hour to go through the room and hear our responses, he drew out of us what we all knew: that we are repenting of the way of teaching we inherited and are pressing on to know how to teach classically. We know enough about Andrew Kern and The Lost Tools of Writing to understand he advocates a fresh new old way. There in that seminar he demonstrated mimetic teaching. Mimetic teaching engages the learner and guides him to learn from types (paradigms or models) until he can express and apply the new idea.

Let me paint a picture to show the difference between mimetic and didactic teaching. Let's say a mother gives her young son a sunflower seed, and together they plant it in the warm soil of a spring day. They water it, and crow over the first sprout. Day by day they marvel over its progress, and when its bright yellow head is framed by the dazzling blue sky in August the boy paints vivid pictures. He names it 'sky's-eye-flower.' Does he know what a sunflower is now? Will he always love sunflowers?

Grading a homeschooled child’s assignments requires a proper understanding of evaluation and assessment. We need to understand—and effectively communicate to our children—the expectations of each assignment. Consideration has to be made for whether the assignment is to be assessed quantitatively or qualitatively; that is, with numeric evaluation or feedback.

As a homeschooling father, I have often reverted to what I know how to do—what I learned simply as a result of my own educational background. That reversion has led me to err in some of the ways I have attempted to educate and even evaluate my own children. Are we raising our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord if we are using a system of assessment that promotes an unnecessary level of competition between peers, resulting in either pridefulness or dejection? When we assess our children, are we actually assessing them according to the reality of the expectations we, hopefully effectively, have communicated to them?

“What do you do?”

“Well, I work in a coffee shop, but I just finished a Ph.D. in literature.”

“Well, I work in sales right now, but I have a degree in biochemistry.”

“Well, I’m trained as a chiropractor, but now I’m a stay-at-home mom.”

“Well, I taught for thirty years, but I just recently retired.”

“Well, I used to be an engineer, but now I tutor math students part-time.”

“Well, I’m between jobs at the moment, but I’m an architect.”

“Well…”

It is such a simple word, yet with it we convey so much about the way a query makes us feel. We pause and drag out the vowel, attempting to delay our carefully rehearsed response. That simple letter “e” stands in for a string of phrases: “If you must know…I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that question…it’s a long story.” When we finally exhale our reply, it slides out smoothly, but inside, the subtext is something like this: “I know my situation doesn’t fit the mold. I know it violates some unspoken rule about meaningful careers, or modern ideals, or the American Dream, or industriousness, or personal ambition. I’m sorry. Please don’t judge me.”

I have heard the same tone of reluctant confession coming from recent college graduates who are confronting a shifting job market and living at home, parents who have opted out of mainstream careers in order to homeschool their children, employees who have been laid off as a result of the economic downturn, and retirees who find themselves floundering when they are cut loose from a lifelong career identity.  Each of these people felt the need to apologize because his or her version of work did not conform to the dominant paradigm.

I sometimes cringe when I hear Jesus called a great teacher. All too often, those words are used to label Jesus as "merely" a great teacher, and He is so much more. Nevertheless, He was a great teacher. Like Jesus, the best teachers lead by example. Think about the best teachers you have had. You might remember the subjects they taught, but you probably remember more clearly the way they taught, their mastery, their skill, and most importantly, their character. Maybe some were a bit disorganized, some a bit quirky, but they loved seeking the truth, were passionate in helping you to grow in knowledge, and they had humility. They were people whom you wanted to imitate. I am convinced that to become a great teacher one must believe and embody the twin ideas that teaching with love is greater than teaching with mastery, but teaching with true mastery is, inherently, to teach with love. Let's look at how Jesus taught.

Hollywood is now well into an age of remakes. Almost every big movie that comes out is based on a comic book, novel, video game, or prior movie. I used to think that this was because “they’re running out of ideas,” but as it continues, I have discovered reason to be optimistic about Hollywood’s creativity.

I am not saying that the most recent remakes have been increasing in quality—they may or may not have. At the moment, that is not what interests me. What interests me is that our very concept of what it means to  watch a movie may be changing.

For a century of filmmaking, individual movies were basically unique: Rear Window was called Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, not to differentiate it from other versions (there were no other versions), but simply to identify it as one of Hitchcock’s creations. When plays or novels were adapted for the screen, it was usually done once and for all. Remakes were rare. We would  even denounce a plot that was too similar to another as being “ripped off.”

A pastor friend began serving a plateaued traditional church many years ago. He helped the church grow tremendously, and the church continues to thrive under his leadership today. In the process of leading the change, he had to get rid of the old church constitution and bylaws. He persuaded some key people to just ignore the old rules and let the church write some new ones. It worked. He got away with it.

When Franklin Roosevelt came into office, he proposed sweeping legislation to begin government entitlement programs and work programs. Collectively, we call these programs The New Deal. He got away with changing the role of government in the lives of American citizens. When Congress and the courts challenged some of his other initiatives, the president tried to increase the number of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, from nine to fifteen. This would have allowed him to stack the new court with jurists sympathetic to his agenda and to remove the legal hurdles. He did not get away with expanding the Supreme Court.

I would like to take some time in this article revisiting what should be a very familiar story from the Bible, the occasion of Christ’s first miracle in the village of Cana (John 2). Not only will Christ and Cana be our first two ‘C’ words, but we will eventually proceed full circle and conclude with these two as well.

For now, however, let us take a closer look at this story. Jesus’ family and disciples were at a wedding feast when a lack of foresight on the part of the wedding planner—or extraordinarily thirsty guests, or a combination of the two—led to a potentially disastrous social faux pas. With plenty of time remaining at the wedding celebration, the wine had run out. Though Jesus had not performed a miracle up to this point, as the head of the household after the death of Joseph, Mary clearly expected much from her eldest son. Jesus made some protest with regard to His greater mission, but He also used this occasion to glorify His Father. Mary left after giving explicit instructions to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Here is a glimpse of Mary’s complete trust in Christ. Jesus had the servants fill the pots with water and without much ado or personal oversight, he had the servants deliver a cupful to the master of the feast. The wine was celebrated as being far better than the wine that had been served earlier in the feast.

Now we will suspend our thoughts on this story temporarily and pursue our next ‘C’, covenant. When God established His covenant, and then renewed His covenant, with the people of Israel, He told them to pass on the covenant to their children, our next ‘C’. First, realize that telling the people to pass on the covenant to their children was not a post scriptum to the covenant, or a lazy way out of having to reiterate the covenant to every generation. No, passing the covenant on to the children was just as much a part of the covenant as was keeping the Sabbath, or refraining from murder or adultery. Passing the covenant on to the children was the means which the Lord used to be in covenant with every generation thereafter. Keeping the covenant perfectly in every other sense, but failing to pass the covenant on to the next generation, would be to fail miserably.

How much do you think about the quality of your homeschooling?

If you are like many of the homeschoolers I know, you probably spend a great deal of time thinking about that. In one way, this is good; we are responsible for the education of our children and we should feel our accountability acutely. In another way, however, this intense examination may lead us to feel anxious, burdened, and discouraged.

It seems a homeschooling truism that a significant part of our lives involves a balancing act: setting desirable goals while experiencing the occasional feelings that we are not doing enough or not doing the right things…or even, it is likely, feeling that we are doing neither. In order to get a sense of how deeply we feel the weight of our task, you only have to survey the number of articles written encouraging homeschoolers to persevere despite their experiences of being overwhelmed. Don’t we spend endless hours looking over curriculum catalogs? Performing internet searches to locate the best resources and advice? Attending conferences? Talking with our fellow homeschoolers to discover what has worked for them? This endless scrutiny can be, in itself, exhausting.

Is it possible, however, that despite this preoccupation, we may often be overlooking the most basic components of successful homeschooling? In our eagerness to educate our children, we may be missing some of the simplest things we can do to encourage a love of learning…things that do not really have much to do with the nitty gritty details of schedules or curriculum choices. I think these basic components can be summed up in one word: environmentalism.