True North Classical Academy’s First Annual Symposium
RESTORING THE HEART TO EDUCATION
On the Promotion of the Humanities in K-12 Education
April 22 - 24, 2022 Miami Dade College Kendall Campus “The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.”
Welcome From True North Foundation
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Marc Snyder
.S. Lewis once said in his Abolition of Man that to create ‘Men with Chests’ it would be necessary to attune the hearts and minds of the young towards those things which are objectively good, true, and beautiful, that a failure to do so would result in the weakening of one’s sentiments towards heroic virtue, creating men without chests, and effectively resulting in the “abolition of man.” It is man’s capacity for truth, for good and noble things, for virtue, that makes us human and makes education towards these things “humane.” Since the time of Lewis’s prophetic book (mid-late 20th century), humanities education has been in decline. Critical thinking, the acquisition of skills, teaching to a test, disregard for the content and quality of the text being used, failure to teach traditional virtues in schools, have all contributed to a confusion about the purpose of education and a general weakening of humanities education across the country. This can be seen most clearly in our K-12 public schools, but has infiltrated private schools as well, both sectarian and non-sectarian. Many of our schools are declining and have “lost their way’” regarding their true purpose and end. They are failing to educate our students by ‘cutting down jungles, as opposed to irrigating deserts.’ They are creating ‘Men without Chests.’ And yet, despite this decline, humanities education at the K-12 level is a seeing a resurgence of classical education. Classical schools are taking root in their hope of restoring the “chest” to education by delivering an excellent educational model rooted in the liberal arts and classical tradition. However, the success of any classical school, or humanities program, which is its core, is having school and community members who have a thorough understanding of the tradition, including its canon, and, most importantly, are able to come to the table of truth in Socratic discussion. Authentic virtue education and leadership training must be restored as well. It is my hope that this three-day program on the promotion of K-12 humanities education will help deepen the conversation around classical education and
present possible solutions to how we might “Restore the Heart to Education.” Gathering national leaders, local and national educators, community members, and high school students, through a series of keynote presentations, seminars, and interactive breakout sessions will reawaken one’s understanding about the true purpose of education, and spark a conversation around bettering humanities programs at the K-12 level, both locally, statewide, and nationally. Having successful humanities programs at the K-12 level is thus sure to have an impact on the humanities on the level of higher education and in the workforce in general.
Keynote Speakers Michael Bileca Mr. Michael Bileca is the Founder & President of True North Classical Academy located in Miami, Florida. True North was founded in 2015. Under Mr. Bileca’s leadership, True North has risen to the top as one of the premier classical academies in the State of Florida. It is now a network of five schools serving over 1,400 students. Mr. Bileca has played a pivotal role in Florida education reform serving as Education Chair for the State of Florida from 2008 - 2016. He played a key part in rewriting the Florida education standards in both language arts and civics. He also serves as the Chair of Miami Dade College’s Board of Trustees.
Daniel Scoggin Dr. Scoggin is the President of Great Hearts Foundation and the cofounder of Great Hearts America, having overseen the network’s growth from 300 students at one school to 15,500 students at 28 academies across Phoenix, San Antonio, and Dallas. An Arizona native, Dr. Scoggin attended public schools and went on to complete his undergraduate degree in English Literature from Santa Clara University in California. Dr. Scoggin completed his Ph.D. in English Literature at the Claremont Graduate University. He is a 20082009 Piper Fellow, attended the Executive Education Program at Stanford University, and is currently a Pahara-Aspen Fellow.
Andrew Zwerneman Since 1983 Andrew J. Zwerneman has led secondary students in Socratic seminars, developed new classical academies and helped renew established ones, coached teachers and headmasters, authored classical curricula, and spoken at national conferences on classical education. In 2016, he co-founded Cana Academy where he currently serves as president. Zwerneman is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and St. John’s University, NYC. He is the author of History Forgotten and Remembered, a monograph written to help teachers understand and restore the place of history in the humanities.
Karen Bohlin Dr. Karen E. Bohlin is a recognized thought leader in applied virtue ethics and character education. She is director of the Practical Wisdom Project at the Abigail Adams Institute (AAI) in Cambridge, MA. A veteran educator at the middle, secondary and university level, she just completed her 18 year tenure as head of Montrose School, a liberal arts independent day school, where she founded the LifeCompass Institute for Character & Leadership. Director Emerita and Senior Scholar at Boston University’s Center for Character and Social Responsibility and former Assistant Professor of Education at BU, she has taught teachers and school leaders and continues to serve as a professional development provider.
Symposium Speakers
Tim Brent Miami Dade College
Michael Lucas True North Classical Academy
John Paul Russo University of Miami
Panel Discussion
Panel Discussion
The Impact of K-12 Classical Education on Higher Education
The Restoration of Virtue in K-12 Classical Education
Daniel Coupland Hillsdale College
Matthew Post University of Dallas
Brian Williams Templeton Honors Collegel
Tim Brent Miami Dade College
John Paul Russo University of Miami
Michael Dauphinais Ave Maria University
Michael Lucas True North Classical Academy
Keynote Sessions & Food (Gymnasium / G) • • • • • • • • •
Friday Dinner Keynote Speaker 1 Saturday Breakfast Keynote Speaker 2 Saturday Lunch Keynote Speaker 3 Panel Discussion Sunday Breakfast Keynote Speaker 4
Welcome Reception / Wine & Cheese Social (Pool Deck) • Friday Welcome Reception • Saturday Wine and Cheese Social
Breakout Sessions (Building R) • • • • • • • •
R350 (classroom) R351 (classroom) R352 (classroom) R353 (classroom) R402/403 (conference room) R451 (classroom) R452 (classroom) R453 (classroom)
Rooms that begin with “R3” are on the 3rd floor / Rooms that begin with “R4” are on the 4th floor
Parking • Lot 4: Presenters / Vendors • Garage (L): Participants
TRACK ONE
The Classical Liberal Arts & Great Books
Friday, April 22
This track will include talks on the liberal arts and great books, its core texts, and the great tradition of the West. Topics to be covered include (but are not limited to):
6:00 PM..............................Reception (Pool Deck)
An Introduction / History to Classical Education; Classical Pedagogy; The Liberal
7:00-8:15 PM.....................Welcome (Gym)
Arts Tradition (trivium and quadrivium); Great Books; Logic; Rhetoric; Math; Latin & Greek; Poetry, etc. This track will tend to be more scholarly in nature.
Marc Snyder (Executive Director of True North Foundation)
Opening Plenary Address (Gym)
Socratic Inquiry
8:20-9:30 PM.....................Dinner (Gym)
This track’s format will be discussion-based, as it will include both theory and practice on how to lead Socratic seminars and actual seminars on core texts. Core text will include (but are not limited to): selections from Plato; Aristotle; C.S. Lewis; selected short stories and poems, etc. This track will tend to be more practical in
Saturday, April 23
nature (how to lead Socratic discussions), and participative as well.
TRACK THREE
7:30-8:10 AM....................Breakfast (Gym)
Virtue and Leadership
TRACK FOUR
TRACK TWO
Mr. Michael Bileca (Founder & President of True North Classical Academy)
Best Practices in K-12 Humanities Education
This track will include talks on Virtue and Leadership. This track will focus on the importance of virtue, character and morals as the sole purpose of education and practical knowledge on how to lead classical schools in building up students of character. Topics to be covered include (but are not limited to): Aristotle’s Ethics; grammar school teaching and leadership; upper school teaching and leadership; essential school leadership; school culture, etc. This track will be more practical in nature.
This track will be more workshop-based on best practices in K-12 Humanities Education. Topics to be covered include (but are not limited to): humanities teachers’ testimonies (from the trenches); how to best lead a humanities classroom in the 21st century; classical pedagogy in Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric School; classroom aesthetics, etc.
8:15-9:30 AM....................Keynote Address (Gym)
Dan Scoggin (Co-founder of Great Hearts / President of Great Heart Foundation)
9:45-10:45 AM...................Saturday Morning (Breakout #1) | Building R Track 1: The Classical Liberal Arts & Great Books An Answer to the Question - Why a Humanities Education? Kevin Clark, Ecclesial Schools Initiative | R402-3 Quarrying the Rocks with Razors: The Limits of the Great Books for Character Formation Brian Williams, Templeton Honors College | R350
Track 2: Socratic Inquiry Literature and Socratic Instruction: A Discussion of the “Whirligig of Life” by O. Henry Martin Cothran, Memoria Press | R351 Key to the Classics: The Power of the Socratic Method Ian Andrews, Center for Lit | R352
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Track 3: Virtue & Leadership
Track 4: Best Practices in K-12 Humanities Education
The Cultivation of Virtue & the Telos of Education David Diener, Hillsdale College | R353
A View from the Trenches Tyler Graham, Rhodora J. Donahue Academy | R452
Mentoring as a Pathway to Virtue with K-12 Students Joe Palos, Shelton Academy | R451
What is Classical Pedagogy? Martin Cothran, Memoria Press | R453
Track 4: Best Practices in K-12 Humanities Education Tried & True: A Primer of Sound Pedagogy Daniel Coupland, Hillsdale College | R452 Re-engineering the Humanities Instructor Lilith Haynes, Harvard University (retiree) | R453
12:10-1:10 PM.......................Lunch (Gym) 1:15-2:30 PM.........................Keynote Address (Gym) Andrew Zwerneman (President of Cana Academy) 2:45-3:45 PM.........................Saturday Afternoon (Breakout #3) | Building R Track 1: The Classical Liberal Arts & Great Books
11:00-12:00 PM.................Saturday Morning (Breakout #2) | Building R Track 1: The Classical Liberal Arts & Great Books What Makes the Great Works Great? Not Tradition, According to Socrates, but Soul Matthew Post, University of Dallas | R402-3 Florence Nightingale’s Contribution to Mathematics Lilith Haynes, Harvard University (retiree) | R350 Track 2: Socratic Inquiry Asking Better Questions Andrew Zwerneman, Cana Academy | R351
Plato: Understanding the Foundation of the Classical Education Tradition David Diener, Hillsdale Academy | R402-3 The Great Conversation: Women, Color, and the Canon Brian Williams, Templeton Honors College | R350 Track 2: Socratic Inquiry The Road Not Taken Tyler Graham, Rhodora J. Donahue Academy | R351 “A Wardrobe of Images”: Classical Literature and the Moral Imagination Daniel Coupland, Hillsdale College | R352 Track 3: Virtue & Leadership
How to Train Your Student to be a Scholar: Key Practices that Help Students Love Learning Joelle Hodge, Classical Academic Press | R352
Track 3: Virtue & Leadership Learning from Rodents: Images of Mentorship in the Wind and the Willows Dan Coupland, Hillsdale College | R353 Education the Head and Heart: Lesson from C.S. Lewis Michael Dauphinais, Ave Maria University | R451
Proaeresis: Teaching Students How to Make Sound Moral Judgements Robert Ingram, The Geneva School | R353 The Relationally Wise Leader (for Aspiring Heads of School) Eric Cook, Society for Classical Learning | R451 Track 4: Best Practices in K-12 Humanities Education
Building a Memory and Teaching Reason with a Topoi of Invention Andrew Smith, Veritas School | R452
To Test, or Not to Test? Is that Really the Question? Soren Schwab, Classic Learning Test | R453
\ 4:00-5:00 PM.......................Panel Discussion (Gym)
The Impact of K-12 Classical Education on Higher Education
Panelists: Daniel Coupland, Matthew Post, Brian Williams, John Paul Russo, Tim Brent, Michael Dauphinais
5:00-6:30 PM.......................Wine & Cheese Social (Pool Deck) 7:00-9:30 PM.....................Dinner (we will meet up at the Hilton Dadeland Hotel at 6:45 PM)
Sunday, April 24, 2022 7:30-8:10 AM....................Breakfast (Gym) 8:15-9:30 AM....................Closing Keynote Address (Gym)
Karen Bohlin (Director of the Practical Wisdom Project at AAI)
9:45-10:45 AM..................Sunday Morning (Breakout #4) | Building R
Track 1: The Classical Liberal Arts & Great Books
Maintaining the Balance Between Orators and Philosophers Robert Jackson, Institute for Classical Education | R402-3
Boethius’s Education of Character Out of Suffering and Anxiety Matthew Post, University of Dallas | R350
Track 2: Socratic Inquiry
Leading Students Through Marx Andrew Zwerneman, Cana Academy | R351
Logic for the Real World: How to Apply Logic in Today’s Chaotic and Often Irrational World Joelle Hodge, Classical Academic Press | R352
Track 3: Virtue & Leadership
The Use of the Common Reading as an Administrative Tool Lilith Haynes, Harvard University (retiree) | R353
The Relationally Wise Leader (for Current Heads of School) Eric Cook, Society for Classical Learning | R451
Track 4: Best Practices in K-12 Humanities Education Teaching the Art of Rhetoric: Purposes, Parts, and Practices Andrew Smith, Veritas School | R452 Reaching the Reluctant Writer Andrew Pudewa, Institute for Excellence in Writing | R453 11:00-12:00 PM.................Panel Discussion (Gym) The Restoration of Virtue in K-12 Classical Education Panelists: Mallory Winston, Daniel Maryanovich, John Mathews, Bethely Cameron, Monica Suarez, Michael Lucas 12:15 PM...............................Closing (Gym)
Speaker Abstracts
What is Classical Pedagogy?
Key to the Classics: The Power of the Socratic Method Join Ian Andrews for a discussion of the use of generic questions to teach sound literary analysis. Ian presents model discussions of two classic stories, demonstrating the extraordinary power of a Socratic discussion template to make complex and intimidating works easily accessible. Along the way, he explains how this method nourishes in students a habit of mind marked by humility and curiosity before the texts and their authors: asking questions, rather than supplying answers. By modeling this humble approach to reading, teachers can initiate their students into the Great Conversation as full participants, equipped for a lifetime of fruitful engagement with the classics.
Martin Cothran Memoria Press
Aristotle said that the method of teaching should be appropriate to the subject. Is there a method for teaching a skill that is different from that of teaching a science? Is there a specifically classical approach to either of these that is different from that of modern progressive pedagogy? When the subject is the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, what is the appropriate method of teaching? We will discuss the two fundamental views of education (classical and progressive) and the implications of these two views for instruction in the classroom. We will cover a set of basic educational distinctions in govern debates over the instructional emphases of content and process, verbal vs. hands-on instruction, and modeling vs. innovation. We will cover the “three modes” of teaching and their origins in Aristotle’s rhetoric; and Mortimer Adler’s “Three Columns” of instruction and how they clarify the practice of classroom teaching. We will also discuss the central disagreement that underlies differences in the approach to basic reading and math instruction.
Ian Andrews Center for Lit
A Discussion of the Whirligig of Life by O. Henry The central methodology of classical education is modeling: learning through the imitation of great models. In this session we will discuss a model narrative written by a master storyteller. We will employ Aristotle’s distinction between form and matter to analyze both the structure of the story (form) and its content (matter). How, in a few short words, can a writer create a believable world, fully describe three unique characters, and create an almost perfect plot with a beginning, middle, and end? In answering this question, we will learn a little bit about what goes into great writing, what questions we should ask about the literature we teach our students, and how these things are best brought out through Socratic teaching, as well as why literature is so fundamentally important to the education of a human being.
An Answer to the Question - Why a Humanities Education?
Kevin Clark Ecclesial Schools Initiative
Despite the variety of arguments one encounters for the importance of studying the humanities, the best is that the historical, aesthetic, and philological disciplines of the traditional humanities cultivate the qualities of moral judgment, common sense (sensus communis), and taste. The Western intellectual tradition has understood the distinctively human element of civilization to consist in the acquisition and exercise of these qualities because they constitute the conditions for human rationality itself. Put most simply then, the best reason for pursuing a humanities education is that it cultivates the moral and intellectual qualities necessary for human flourishing. It is also, as we will see, perfectly attuned to the needs of our cultural moment.
Educating the Head and Heart: Lessson from C.S. Lewis
The Relationally Wise Leader
Eric Cook Society for Classical Learning
In most classical schools, wisdom and virtue are the stated goals in our mission and philosophy statements. However, when it comes to leading our schools, it is not clear how our classical aspirations translate to the practices of our administrators. Are leaders trained to be wise? Do they know how to navigate the 85% of decisions that have no obvious answers? Knowledge and skill will never be enough. Leaders must learn to be self-aware, listen to others, manage change, resolve conflict without escalation, be persuasive, and bring people together around a common vision. In this session, Eric Cook, President of the Society of Classical Learning and Head of School at Covenant Classical School, will show that every leader must exercise relational wisdom and prudence, not only to lead well, but to embody the ideals we articulate as classical educators.
Michael Dauphinais Ave Maria University
Contemporary society often approaches education as a means to developing reason—the head—for the sake of technological progress or to fostering sentiments—the heart—for the sake of political progress. Ironically, these approaches share in common the belief that learning is primarily about manipulating and changing the world around us to meet our wishes. No longer is the primary focus on helping human beings to cultivate themselves to become more in line with the objective reality of the world. In his well-known book The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis identifies the contemporary approach to education—and to societal life in general—as resulting from a loss of the moral law or what he memorably calls the Tao. This lecture will explore several of Lewis’s writings to identify his diagnosis of the problem and what he offers in terms of a solution. Educating the whole person necessitates an full engagement with both the head and the heart—both the reason and the imagination.
Learning From Rodents: Images of Humanity in the Wind in the Willows C. S. Lewis once said, “Consider Mr. Badger in The Wind in the Willows—that extraordinary amalgam of high rank, coarse manners, gruffness, shyness, and goodness. The child who has once met Mr. Badger has ever afterwards, in its bones, a knowledge of humanity…which it could not get in any other way.” This session will explore some of the most vivid images of humanity in Kenneth Grahame’s classic children’s tale. Can we learn what is means to be more fully human by observing the lives of these memorable characters? C. S. Lewis certainly thinks so.
Dan Coupland Hillsdale College
The Cultivation of Virtue & the Telos of Education
David Diener Hillsdale College
Every model of education has a telos, a goal or purpose. Unfortunately, contemporary discourse on education typically avoids discussions of education’s overarching purpose and instead focuses on techniques. When the telos of education is discussed at all, seldom is the cultivation of virtue taken to be a central goal. In this seminar we will address these issues by first examining the central role that the cultivation of virtue plays in the educational thought of Plato. We then briefly will look at a number of other key educational thinkers throughout history who all concur that the central purpose of education is the formation of students who are virtuous.
Plato: Understanding the Foundations of the Classical Education Tradition Plato is one of the principal founders of the western intellectual tradition, and his understanding of education has had a profound impact on the development of educational theory and practice around the world for nearly two-and-a-half millennia. The study of his views is thus of great benefit, both as a means of examining fundamental questions about the nature of education addressed in his work, and also as a means of better understanding the historical roots of the western educational tradition. This seminar offers an introduction to Plato’s educational thought by examining the historical and educational context in which he lived, his understanding of the nature and purpose of education, his proposal for a program of education, and some contributions that his thought has for our own educational thought and practice in the 21st century.
“A Wardrobe of Images”: Classical Literature and the Moral Imagination A central purpose of reading literature is ethical in that great stories teach us what it means to be genuinely human. Stories form our character by giving us a “wardrobe of images” that we draw upon to make moral choices in life. This wardrobe is the moral imagination. This session will define the moral imagination, explain why it is such an important part of a classical education, and explain why classic literature is an especially effective means of cultivating it.
The Road Not Taken
Tried & True: A Primer of Sound Pedagogy Teaching is an incredibly complex human act in which the best of the profession marshal their knowledge, skill, experience, personality, and character to educate their students. But the truism “teaching is an incredibly complex human act” (like “teaching is an art” or “good teaching: you know it when you see it”) is often unhelpful to new teachers who have yet to become the classroom masters they often long to be. New teachers (and those who train, mentor, and evaluate them) need specific, unambiguous statements that are concrete enough that these neophytes can understand them and move toward them. So rather than trying to nail down the hazy and mysterious features of great teaching, this session will establish a baseline for good—or sound—pedagogy.
Tyler Graham Rhodora J. Donahue Academy
This session provides a hands-on experience of seminar-based inquiry into a classic poem, “The Road Not Taken,” by Robert Frost. Those who attend the seminar will be asked to read the poem and answer a key interpretive question about the text, justifying their response with concrete support. In sharing and listening to others, participants in the dialogue will then proceed toward a deeper understanding of the poem as well as the reality of interpretation itself. In light of the conference, this experience will shed light on the reality of seminar-based inquiry and teaching itself. This lesson is a good introduction to seminar-style learning for those just beginning to teach with this method and may provide some benefit for those with experience in the craft. No experience with poetry, poetry teaching, or Robert Frost is necessary to attend; at the same time, I have found that this lesson -- which I have used with students and adults alike for over 20 years -- has an ability to surprise even those who thought they’d already traveled all the paths of interpretation of Frost’s classic text.
A View from the Trenches
Re-Engineering the Humanities Instructor
This talk presents anecdotes from humanities and mathematics teaching in a classical setting. From an autobiographical perspective, it tries to provide a heuristic for gauging when and how to use seminar; when and how to engage the reticent students; when and how to develop content knowledge for framing discussion; and when and how to link core texts, discussion, writing, and rhetoric. For example, in leading freshman geometry students to a contemplation of the beauty in the proof of the Pythagorean theorem, how much detail in the various proofs of the theorem should be described and explained first? I will explain a lesson used in this area and try to provide a framework for answering such a question. Having taught for over 20 years in high school and over 10 years in a classical school, I speak from both my successes and failures with an attempt to develop principles for guiding future classes in classical education.
If instructors in most K-12 schools in the USA may justifiably assume themselves to be powerless to effect curricular or pedagogical change in their systems, it is to humanities instructors in classical/liberal schools -- who inhabit contexts that profess to honor informed analysis and collegial interaction -- that we might best look for the re-engineering that would preserve -- and even enhance -- their schools’ professed values. Becker (What a Liberal Arts Education is… and is Not, 2003), has identified “the nexus among administration, curriculum, and pedagogy: the infrastructure that makes a liberal arts education possible” as the most important focus of liberal arts education. In this paper, many of the methods and tenets of re-engineering that proved successful in equipping students to transition into, as well as prosper in, various academic and professional environments are applied to the preparation and performance of humanities instructors. By citing and evaluating the responses of the practitioners who underwent and delivered the pedagogical aspects of this re-engineering, the paper also outlines difficulties involved in engendering the requisite cooperation, collaboration, and receptivity to change which were reported. Enlightened leadership in the areas of cost and accreditation are no less vital to the success of re-engineering, and aware of the polarized sociopolitical environment which currently envelops K-12 education in the USA, this presentation hopes to also elicit and assess the concerns of those responsible for employing instructors, deciding on coherent text selections, researching pedagogical effects, and supporting the continuous use of re-engineering.
Proaeresis: Teaching Students How to Make Sound Moral Judgements
Lilith Haynes Harvard University (retiree)
The prospect of human flourishing lies at the heart of classical education. The “good life” and “the good man well spoken” were, and continue to be, virtuous goals that distinguished the ancients from other cultures and nations. The good man or woman is formed over time; he or she is not born fully formed and complete with wisdom as was Athena when she sprang forth from the head of Zeus.
Robert Ingram The Geneva School (retiree)
In this seminar we will discuss the topic of “proaeresis” coming out of the work of Aristotle and John Milton. Seldom used today, the word proaeresis refers to the need of students to be educated with wisdom and sound moral judgment adequate to contemplate and choose between moral good and evil. These categories must be impressed upon the minds and hearts of students; their moral imagination must be stirred and character must be formed. There is an inherent danger and risk involved, however, as students learn by contrast between these moral opposites of good and evil. The contemplation of evil and its attendant vices must never be a siren voice luring students into the shipwreck of their souls. The good must sound the more lovely note; virtue must be evocative; proper moral choices must be made. Making sound moral choices, and not merely contemplating them in the academic classroom, is at the crux of proaeresis. How can we as educators assist students in this life-long process of moral formation? What will be sufficient to animate students to do the good and eschew the evil? As habit is an acquired disposition to perform certain types of action (Aristotle) students of all ages must be nurtured. The ancient question of “how then should we live?” needs to be addressed in each generation of students.
Florence Nightingale’s Contributions to Mathematics It is well known that Florence Nightingale, who was named for the Italian city of her birth in 1820, was able to creatively parlay into globally renowned contributions to nursing the unique classical education that her wealthy and “liberal-humanitarian household” (Magnello, 2010) had provided her from an early age. However, it is only very recently that serious attention has been paid to the mathematical and statistical heft that Nightingale demonstrated, also on a widely geographical scale, for over sixty years, until her death at 90 in 1910. This paper presents an apparatus for carefully studying the intersections of religious calling, intellectual rigor, Platonic philosophy, feminist independence, and ethical sociopolitical activism that Nightingale’s life epitomized. In doing so, the paper underscores the scholarly benefits of applying the lessons of historical texts to the solution of modern problems – in this case, outstanding epidemiological guidance for responding to the current Covid pandemic -- and thereby also calls attention to the ridiculous folly of excluding women from the canon of classical scholarship. By additionally considering the life and work of Mary Seacole, Nightingale’s Jamaican contemporary whose service to the British army in Crimea she devalued, the paper places Nightingale’s sociopolitical limitations in perspective, and offers modern students a thoroughgoing appreciation of the importance of linking comprehensive academic work to principled humanistic conduct for the improvement of the human condition.
The Use of the Common Reading as an Administrative Tool
How to Train Your Student to be a Scholar: Key Practice that Help Students Love Learning
As Google would quickly demonstrate, the term Common Reading has myriad popular interpretations. In this paper, the term applies specifically to the initial reading assignments which were prescribed for several hundred international students to independently download and read at the beginning of each teaching session in the Institute for English Language Programs at Harvard University between the Fall semester of 2000 and the Summer Session of 2014, in 49 teaching sessions which also included a number of January Wintersessions. These readings permitted refinement of students’ scores on the computerized placement test by giving rise to the topics for graduated essay questions that were administered in the first meeting of each class, along with Common Listening prompts that provided the data establishing the teachability of the classes, and permitted rapid registration changes reflecting the oral, aural, and writing proficiency of individual students. The readings were selected in each case to represent the content of a discrete and overarching programmatic theme that was deemed to be simultaneously topical and of enduring importance, and their use was augmented by a common apparatus with gradations of exercises that allowed students at all levels of proficiency to engage the content throughout the teaching session. Here, Martin Luther King Jr’s 1964 Nobel Prize Lecture and Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, the Common Reading and Common Listening choices for the 2013 Summer Session, are used to demonstrate the union of administrative, pedagogical, and humanistic efficacy in the service of the liberal arts.
So many parents preparing their kids for college and lifelong learning have expressed interest in better understanding the practical and applicative areas necessary to achieve these goals. Scholarship is more than being a student and “studying.” Many eager and engaged students are missing out on the rich practices of restful learning. Are our students truly reading, or are they consuming information? What is the vice of acedia (mental sloth), and how can scholé provide part of the solution to acedia’s negative effects? What are the chief student scholarship areas that can change the way students manage their education with increasing maturity and delight? This seminar will introduce and discuss the essential practices of student scholarship, the resources available to parents and students, and a few exercises everyone can do to change the way their students attend to their scholarly responsibilities.
Maintaining the Balance Between Orators and Philosophers
Logic for the Real World: How to Apply Logic for Today’s Chaotic and Often Irrational World
Joelle Hodge Classical Academic Press
Now more than ever it seems our culture is in need of thoughtful, reasoned discourse and argument. Far from being merely an academic subject, logic brings clarity to our own thinking and also enables us to engage with ideas across disciplines, media, and culture. Sometimes teaching students how to think can seem like a daunting, abstract, nebulous exercise. During this seminar, we will introduce and discuss the best pedagogical practices for teaching logic to middle and high school students; we will also suggest ways that new teachers of logic can best prepare for teaching this important art. We will consider four aspects of reasoned, logical thinking: (1) how to develop a personal, internal dialogue; (2) learning what the “right” questions are and how to ask them; (3) learning to discern the real issues at the heart of complex discussions; and (4) how to avoid falling prey to the irrelevant, presumptive, and unclear fallacies that cloud so many conversations, discussions, and debates. The seminar will feature several examples of logical fallacies and provide other pertinent resources for teaching logic well, including ways of incorporating “capstone” projects to culminate a year of teaching logic.
Robert Jackson Institute for Classical Education
One of the primary tensions that exists within classical education is the relationship between the philosophical quest for knowledge and the oratorical tradition of eloquence. The former focuses on the importance of Socratic inquiry and the ways we come to understand the cosmos, given human nature and its limitations; the latter emphasizes the value of received wisdom (e.g., Great Books) and the ability to emulate “the best that has been thought and said” through imitation and eloquent expression (both verbal and written). While both the philosophical and oratorical are essential to the Tradition, various times and places typically emphasize one end of that continuum. This talk will provide an overview of both “schools of thought,” outlining their characteristic features and exploring the intrinsic tensions between them—and culminating in a proposed “balancing act” that incorporates both.
Mentoring as a Pathway to Virtue with K-12 Students
Joe Palos Shelton Academy
This presentation will share the transformative experience of one school’s student mentoring program. We will review the rationale, implementation, and outcomes of a school-wide program that personalizes a school’s mission while assisting parents in raising young men and women to achieve their full potential. How can adult mentors in a school serve as a link between parents, their children, and the mission of the school? How can we as educators better support, encourage and advise individual students through their academic struggles and successes, their study habits, their friendships, their personal improvement and other aspects of a student’s personal growth and development? More experienced members of a community have always guided younger ones towards the acquisition of knowledge or good habits. In Homer’s Odyssey it was Mentor who was appointed to guide, protect and support the young Telemachus while his father was absent during the Trojan War. In his Divine Comedy Dante needed the support, encouragement, and wise advice of Virgil to travel through the afterlife. Schools that promote character development and a life of virtuous living can build on this tradition by encouraging, guiding, and supporting individual students so that they will strive for academic excellence and personal growth. As Jacques Maritain once wrote, “the prime goal of education is the conquest of internal and spiritual freedom by the individual person, or, in other words, his liberation through knowledge and wisdom, good will, and love.” A school-wide student mentoring program can make this goal a reality by helping students reach their full potential and become virtuous, happy, and loving people.
What Makes the Great Works Great? Not Tradition, According to Socrates, but Soul
Matthew Post University of Dallas
Advocates of the great books may be challenged by such questions as “What makes these works greater than any others? Aren’t they just what the prejudices of past élites thought great? Should we not move beyond them to works relevant to our times?” A common response, that these works have stood the test of time, is potentially self-defeating. We should explain why these works have stood the test of time and why that’s worthwhile. Otherwise, we risk appearing arbitrary, incapable of exercising the self-reflection that we claim to teach. To offer a better response, we can turn to
Socrates’s critique of poetry from the Republic. This critique has been dismissed as censorship or mere irony, but it’s actually about how we respond viciously to literature, about how we demand that it satisfy our desires to be amused and affirmed in our self-indulgent conduct. Socrates then shows how truly great literature and the proper appreciation of it must respond to the soul as a whole and guide it toward its proper ends. He shows how great works—even Homer’s, which he otherwise seems to criticize—stand the test of time by speaking concretely to what is perennial. An education that changes too much with the times responds to what is changeable in us, ignoring our more profound and powerful yearnings for the eternal. Tradition is important, but Socrates offers a way to judge greatness for ourselves in light of unchanging truth.
Boethius’s Education of Character Out of Suffering and Anxiety When Aristotle describes how someone learns and exercises virtue, he describes someone who’s born to well-off, moral caregivers, living in a community that offers good models to emulate and opportunities to exercise virtue. But what about those of us not blessed with all these favorable conditions, those who’ve had to endure tribulation and injustice, those who’ve experienced the hard truth that those of good character often do not prosper? Enter Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy. Anticipating the educational problems of our time, Boethius notes that the greatest temptation is to give in to anxiety. He diagnoses the source of our anxiety in our insecurities about our shortcomings and traces how our attempts to address this anxiety so often prove destructive, to ourselves and others. As an alternative, he explains how we can take suffering as an occasion to encounter a transcendent order sustained by truth, goodness, beauty, and, above all, love. He explains not only how to build character but how to become models for others, the kind of people who address and do not perpetuate injustice. His teaching is not always easy, and we may not wish to embrace all of it, but it offers important insights for teachers whose students may need to learn to rise above their circumstances, because those teachers, much as they would wish, cannot take away the hardships that their students have faced and may continue to face.
Reaching the Reluctant Writer
Teaching the Art of Rhetoric: Purposes, Parts, and Practices
Many students really don’t like to write. Why? This workshop will anser that basic question and teach a specific and successful method of separating the complex process of writing into the smallest possible steps, making it possible for even the most reluctant writer to produce short but complete compositions. He or she will be proud and motivated to write again. If you remove the problem of what to write, you will be free to help your student learn how to write, using source texts, key word outlines, and “dress-up” checklists. Results guaranteed!
As one of the verbal arts of the trivium, Rhetoric plays a central role within the liberal arts tradition and ought also to play a central role within a K-12 education. While the discipline may appear to be too ornamental to some, or too formulaic to others, it is neither of these. As the skill of truthful persuasion, Rhetoric is the integration of wisdom and eloquence and, as such, is crucial to being human. In this session, we will explore the purposes and philosophy of Rhetoric, the five major divisions of Rhetoric, and the practices of Rhetoric that can most effectively be implemented by your school.
Andrew Smith Veritas School
Andrew Pudewa Institute for Excellence in Writing
Building a Memory and Teaching Reason with a Topoi of Invention
To Test, or Not to Test? Is that Really the Question? Classical schools have rightfully been skeptical of testing, especially of standardized assessments. After all, teaching to the test and test prep seem antithetical to a true classical education. The disconnect between what students learn in the classroom, and what these tests assess has become even more apparent since the creation of the common core standards. So is it time to give up on testing altogether? Or rather, is there a need for better and more meaningful assessments?
Soren Schwab Classic Learning Test
These are important questions that are being asked in the classical educational renewal movement. This workshop will address these questions and look at some of the key factors that have contributed to the current tension with standardized assessments that so many humanities departments face. We will discuss how the right assessment can complement and validate, rather than compromise, a classical school’s mission and curriculum.
In the liberal arts tradition, training the student’s memory is seen as one of the crucial tasks of the educator. Without a trained memory, the student could not be considered to be educated, because the evidence and demonstration of his education would be lacking. More than merely a container for storage and retrieval, though, a memory includes the ability to produce things, namely, compositions of thought. Therefore, building a memory is closely connected to teaching the student how to think and how to reason, which necessarily includes training in the verbal arts. How does a teacher go about building such a memory and teaching the student to reason? At the center of this kind of education are the topoi, the topics, of invention. This session will explain what the topoi are, how they function, and how a teacher at any grade level can and should utilize them in the classroom.
Brian Williams Templeton Honors College
The Great Conversation: Women, Color, and the Canon
Asking Better Questions
This session considers multiple reasons and ways women and authors of color should and could be incorporated into a classical great books curriculum. Some classical educators and schools may be wary of such a venture, fearing it could surrender something important to a passing cultural zeitgeist, weaken the integrity of some perceived “canon,” or smack of insulting tokenism. These are legitimate concerns that we will address before considering how classical schools might improve student education and formation by creating a curriculum that maintains integrity with the longer tradition while expanding the conversation about the true, good, beautiful, holy, healthy, and useful.
That teachers ask questions when teaching literature is so obvious a feature of classroom experience that we may well give it little thought. Nothing, however, is as important to leading a good discussion on a classic literary work than asking good questions. This practicum will challenge participants to reflect on what makes questions good ones and how to improve questions that are poorly crafted. Having identified some tried and true standards by which to measure the quality of a question, we will work through a set of poor ones asked of a range of beloved classics representing the range of imaginative genres: epics, dramas, novels, short stories, and lyric poems. For each example, we will identify what is missing. Then, we will work together toward a better version of the initial question or craft an altogether new one that meets best standards.
Quarrying the Rocks with Razors: The Limits of the Great Books for Character Formation In his well-known Idea of a University, John Henry Newman famously critiques the popular 19th century belief that assumed intellectual formation would lead inexorably to moral formation. He writes, “quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk; then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the passion and the pride of man.” This session develops his argument that education, including the liberal arts, great books, and humanities cannot alone form virtuous souls, but must be embedded within a wider culture of character within by the school.
Andrew J. Zwerneman Cana Academy
Leading Students Through Marx In many classical academies, teachers and students study the writings of Karl Marx, if for no other reason his thought fomented the rise of revolution in Russia, China, and elsewhere, collectively, one of the most devastating turns in modern history. Today, academies have at least one other reason: in spite of the lessons taught by the outbreak of communism last century, Marx has made a comeback, even here in America. The most oftread of his texts is The Communist Manifesto. Unlike genuine works of expository literature, Marx’s tract does not illuminate reality, it distorts it for purposes of political action, for revolution. As such, it is not best used for seminar discussion but as a historical document that plays an important role in modern revolutionary movements. Because of its complex ideological content, teachers need to be careful in how they lead their students through the Manifesto. There are significant pitfalls to avoid: (1) Marx’s rhetoric is often deceptive, his purposes sometimes hidden. (2) Although he rejects religion as fiction, close reading exposes his tract as tractarian, religious in character. (3) Although he rejects the tradition of philosophy as directed toward understanding, he feigns in the direction of analysis and science. This practicum will offer an effective, practical approach to Marx’s most revolutionary work. Participants will be given a set of interpretive keys. Then, together, we will work through a handful of the most important passages in the Manifesto.
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