Blog
Much of the debate surrounding schools and education centres on falling standards, teacher quality, school funding and what constitutes the most worthwhile curriculum and effective pedagogy. While such matters are important, more significant is the question: what constitutes the purpose of education? Given the rise of AI and chatbots and the fear humans will soon be replaced by computers, the question is even more urgent.
Barry Spurr
There is no question that the study and appreciation of poetry have been under active threat or at best regarded with indifference for too long, even in those very places where one might have imagined that their nurturing would have been safeguarded – in school English curricula and university English Departments. Schoolteachers of English are heard to say that they ‘don’t like’ poetry (and, no doubt, say so to their students) and, because of sufficient syllabus flexibility, they can avoid teaching very much of it, or any of it. Many years ago, I met a prospective high-school English teacher who was finishing her studies and already doing some teaching stints in schools. She proudly declared – to me, of all people - that, not liking poetry, she had been able, by a careful negotiation of her choice of courses, to avoid studying poetry almost entirely during her undergraduate years in which she was (nonetheless) majoring in English Literature.
Andrew J. Zwerneman
(Please see the special offer at the end of this article, made exclusively for our friends in Australia!)
School as school just does not cut the proverbial mustard any longer. Fortunately, there is a mounting interest in recovering our bearings about education, and the turn toward an education with classical roots and liberal purposes is catching a great wind in its sails.
After Perugino’s Pietà
Denise O’Hagan
And in the granite tenderness
with which she lays her hand
over his long pale body laid out
stiffly across her knees, is written
every mother’s deepest fear, that it should
come to this. She’s set apart;
the portico around her makes sure of that,
framing her in air. And yet—
Andy McLaurin
The mainstream educational landscape stresses an understanding of history that is characterised by an economy of power and oppression. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of ‘social capital’ verbalises the status of individuals based on the sum total of their group identities, e.g., race, sexuality, and economic class. It is the dominant currency through which students are called to understand their own place in the world. By extension, literature serves as an important discourse through which these phenomena may be articulated.
The Italian Renaissance is rightfully recognised as having rediscovered some of the glory of Ancient Greece and Rome. It did not look back to the past impartially but interpreted it through, and ultimately married it with, a burgeoning Christian humanism. Much of the content of these movements forms the basis of what we understand as Western liberal arts (classical) education, and they arguably found their climax in the eighteenth century through another fusion: the French Enlightenment as expressed in neoclassical art.
- Written by: Jonathan Hili
The St John of Kronstadt Academy is a new Orthodox classical school due to open in Queensland in 2024 subject to receiving accreditation through the Queensland Non-State Schools Accreditation Board. The initial intake of students will be from Preparatory to Year 3, with an additional grade being added each year.
(See inside for the sign-up link)
What does it take to homeschool well? How do I find community for myself and my children? How can I give my children the education I didn't receive? What does virtue mean and how do I teach my children's souls? What is Classical Conversations?
Join us for a public lecture with Greg Sheridan, foreign editor at The Australian. His most recent book, Christians, the urgent case for Jesus in our world, became a best seller weeks after publication. It makes the case for the historical reliability of the New Testament and explores the lives of early Christians and contemporary Christians.
29 March 2023, 5:30pm for 6pm start.
Cheree Harvey
With her dying breath, Rachel named her newborn “Son of My Sorrow” (Gen. 35:18). Jacob knew that this would be a terrible legacy, so he renamed him Benjamin - “Son of My Right Hand.” What a difference!
21-22 April 9am - 4pm (AEST)
When we search for harmony, coherence, or meaning in our public discourse we are tempted to give up in despair. Increasingly, our age seems to believe the world itself has no meaning or coherence. On the one hand, they see it as liberation: it means we are free to choose ourselves and make our own meaning. On the other hand, it means that in a world of mechanism and force, each of us is on our own. Freedom is an escape from reality into chaos. Meanwhile, virtue is as needed as ever, but the path to its discovery is lost.
[Download brochure - PDF 2.33MB]
An online five week course examining the thoughts of the ancient thinkers: the Presocratics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aurelius, for their impact on the formation of Western thought. We compare and contrast their views of reality focusing particularly on concepts such as teleology, being, the soul, virtue, the social and creative nature of persons, and how we ought to live. We explore theories of human nature, human behaviour and instincts, ethics, personality, and identity.
As one of the members of the Australian Classical Education Society who recently completed a three-month training for Paideia Pedagogy Certification with Dr Robert Woods through Kepler Education, I want to put this training to work by starting an online book club for children (ages 7 – 11).
Join ACES for immersive classical pedagogy sessions with practical classroom application.
Saturday, 1 April 2023 8AM-12PM (AEDT) 7-11AM (AEST - QLD)
Download Conference Flyer [PDF 309KB]
