When I slogged my 12 years through hell, it was in no way the greatest time of my life. Granted, gender studies wasn't a thing, nor was the critical racist theory, but for my brain, it was pure torture. I had to learn the math tables (Which I am proud to say that I remember and am trying to teach to my children,) science, literature (which I still love,) art, music, and physical education.
I was bored in school, and I pissed my teachers off by not paying attention and still being able to recite back their lessons verbatim. The only time I had fun was when I was introduced to informal geometry and Algebra. I finally had a challenge.
I rarely use informal geometry, but I remember the challenges.
I learned to speak Castilian Spanish, which introduced my love of languages, French, Latin, German, etc.
I agree that we need "invisible universities" that teach classical education. I think county seats should have, at least, annexes to state colleges so that people don't have to leave their homes to learn the classics.
There is a problem with what you want, and that is: the teaching universities are hotbeds of DIE, ESG, and CRT nonsense. Those are the accreditation centers, and until they are fixed, any new education system you devise will be tainted.
Private school teachers are not required to have state certification, at least in the places I would set up shop. Longer term, however, I think a march up through the institutions would be in order; look at the fine job Mr. Rufo is doing in Florida. I don't agree with everything, but the right people are angry.
Yes, a private school might be able to get around that, but will your accreditation also be able to get around it? Even private schools have to meet certain standards in order to give out Bachelor's and Masters's degrees, or are you considering just giving out general degrees?
Although I write of my prospective school as 'the invisible college' I intend for it to be a secondary school that only offers limited numbers of college classes. There will only be normal high school diploma-level records. Private secondary schools have a number of options for accreditation, most of which require that faculty have academic knowledge at a certain level rather than education courses or state certification.
That makes sense. So it's a program like my niece is studying, where she will graduate with a High school diploma and also have at least an associate's degree through doing college work. Yes, that could work.
I also think that local county seats should invest in some kind of local post-high school education so that they can keep the kids at home. Too many small towns are dying because their kids are moving to big cities.
My professors told me I could be a great teacher. But toxic only begins to describe my former university, so I learned how to build and remodel a house instead. Reading the first two articles in this series I was thinking I want to teach in this school. Reading the third installment, I'm thinking I need to go to this school before I teach at it.
The school aims, as Aristotle would have it, to teach children to like what they should like. The learning then follows. Since it seems you already have a clear idea of what the correct things to learn are, you are halfway there already. If you finish your degree program, anywhere, in any subject, you will have the credential the system wants in order for you to enter the system and do the sort of work I envision here. Just make sure that along the way you are going deep into the Classics. You’ll do great; I have confidence in you.
Thanks LC, I intend to study and teach for the rest of my days.
Also, I am coming close to 500 subscribers and I noticed you have an average 40+ likes, while I average maybe 20, even less of late, so I probably can learn a few things from you...
I don’t really do anything special to be liked. My content varies greatly in tone and subject matter. I write what I think should be read without thinking much about who might read it or the reaction it might get. One thing that might be getting me likes is that I am a giver of them. I subscribe to a very large list of account. Most of them do not actually write newsletters, but they do comment on my work and the work of others. When I go through my notes feed I always select “subscribed” as a filter and I go through and like and restack notes, especially those of smaller accounts and those who don’t wrote longer pieces. I don’t do this expecting reciprocity; rather, I genuinely think there are some great takes on the feed that get overlooked because they’re not so prolific. But that seems to be the result: I like people’s work, and they take the trouble to like mine. You are a great writer and we have about the same number of subscribers, so all things being equal I might try that.
"If young red state males are convinced they have no future in New York or Chicago, so much the better for Ottumwa."
I like much of what you have to say and I share your appreciation for the classics.
I find your circumscription of your own views to a "rightist" or "reactionary" sphere to be self-limiting and self-quarantining. Like you, I have a Romantic and (regrettably) utopian streak and find the future in Ottumwa, not in New York City or Chicago. I don't think Ottumwa will become a more interesting place, necessarily, for having more "young red state males" in it; Ottumwa will require all varieties of people to function coherently.
Your point that "young red state males" should be better educated is a sound one.
I only describe myself as a reactionary because it helps people get a more immediate idea of my outlook. For my part, I consider myself a reasonable, moderate, broadminded person surrounded by a society full of extremists. I fully agree with Evola on this point- "my principles are only those that, before the French Revolution, every well-born person considered sane and normal."
Young people, particularly young men, are the motive energy of a society, the dynamic force that propels a civilization. I don't know that Ottumwa will become more interesting (though I suspect it will) from their presence, but their presence is necessary as a precondition for it to thrive. To the degree they wander from tradition they become like seeds cast on rocks. Young red state males that put their energy to work for places that despise their culture are a contradiction in terms- they lose the red, they lose their state, and before they lose their youth they all to often lose their maleness.
It is my fond hope to not only educate red state males, but females, and any blue folx that wander in unawares.
I am reminded here of the wonderful line in the film Green Card - when the Andy MacDowell character says in exasperation (to her lover) "Oh you're SO right WING!" and the Gerard Depardieu character replies (French accent here) "I am not wing; you are wing...."
🗨 anarch, the inwardly liberated and outwardly pragmatic individual, who lives peacefully in the heart of Leviathan and is yet able to preserve his individuality and freedom
↑↑ succinct description of envisioned invisible college graduate 😉
It is my hope that more blue folx wander in unawares. Think of yourself as the sundew plant. A benign name and visage is key. "Everybody likes sun and dew!"
A sundew consumes and gives back nothing. I would prefer to be an oak, with chittering little animals taking up what I produce and carrying it off to virgin soil.
It is a natural thing to fear death, I think -- the mind recoils at the unimaginable concept of no-mind -- but I have always found the concept of small animals recycling my corpse, whether it be my physical remains or the ideas I left behind, to be deeply comforting. At the end one wants nothing to be wasted.
Morotatos should be confident that teaching Latin is very practical if you want more rightist men in biology and history. But even that aside a good translation of Homer like Fagles or Chapman's would be good to reintroduce to a child's curriculum in place of some of the awful books I have currently seen being purchased for school use.
On a side note, I think this envisioned school structure is wonderful for experimenting with more obscure but effective teaching methods. A mathematician from Russia figured out a method of teaching kids math much faster but no math teacher has implemented it at a public school so far despite test scores being at their lowest. There's probably other examples out there that could be worked into a system like this, even if language is the focus
Considered in a purely practical sense, Latin could function in the future like DEI does today, as a signal that one has the right reverence for the correct ideas. The advantage would be that someone who took the trouble to learn Latin would actually be doing something good and worthwhile as well.
The signalling of the right values is also a good idea, though one of my personal concerns is the left-wing occupation of history departments. Often times smaller Classics departments have one old man who knows Latin or the ancient Greek and a dozen or so 30s left-wing women who are there to look at muscular statues and write essays about how the ancients were gay. When the old men are gone the corruption of the past will begin in truth unless we flood the Classics field with right-wingers who have the advantage of actually being able to read the primary sources.
The future belongs to those who show up for it, and Classics belongs to those who can read the Classical languages. Wherever they are, there is Classics. Making Classics the foundation of future reform creates an enormous barrier against leftist infiltration, not foolproof, but anything involving years of reverent study of the Ancients and mastering challenging language skills tends to skew right.
The truth is the weakness of the left is lack of discipline and respect for the previous generations, and thus anyone inclined to study "dead languages" tends to lean right. Classics is a great method of filtering
If you can’t explain (teach/tutor) it you don’t really understand it. This was used to great effect in my calculus classes. Being required to explain/teach something helps solidify the knowledge into more definite form in the mind of the teacher.
I am a fan of the immersion method. You can go deeper, farther, faster if you focus on one thing at a time until competency is achieved as per the learning curve. Mastery takes a lot more time.
Morning PT sets you up for the day and improves learning.
Life Skills-based learning can drive engagement. Learning how to cook can include math, chemistry, nutrition, biology, business, timing, safety, hygiene, planning, budgeting, etc. You can further explore food, agriculture, history, culture, law, government, shopping habits and skills, philosophy and on and on.
The Waldorf method has a lot to offer in this regard. We used to have to memorize stuff. Building memory muscles from an early age is extremely important and beneficial.
Will have to get to reading Aristotle again, and it has been a long time since I picked up and skimmed Plato, will do better by reading the latter thoroughly.
I was also thinking of re-reading Meditations and City of God to help cope with depression and the waiting period before departing east.
I’m puzzled by your requirement that instructors hold a masters degree. If modern universities are as awful as you say (and I believe they are!) then how will this dread sieve yield the right kind of instructor for your schools?
I gave an allowance for exceptional people, but my main reason for the stipulation is that colleges require an MA to teach college classes, and dual enrollment would not be possible without the instructors being thus credentialed.
I have always found his treatise, "Humanistic and Theanthropic Education" to be very profound. I only hesitate to base my program on it out of humility that I would botch some aspect.
Thank you for outing the pathetically wishy-washy use of the term "Classical." I do wonder what your terminus for the Classical period would be. I would run it up to the end of Late Antiquity, at least. Eastern Rome continued, of course, and the educational program in Constantinople pretty much continued the ancient program.
I would say that Late Antiquity would be a good cut off point, as one could make a strong argument that it was at that point that a new synthesis of Greco-Roman and Christian culture had taken shape, and that the periods prior to that were distinct and formative.
🗨 [Dorothy] Sayers, like Dewey, places the process of education above its content and purpose. We moderns are obsessed with methodology. We think that the way we do something is just as—if not more—important than what we are doing—or why we are doing it.
Quite shockingly, even the impeccably clear-cut ancient concept of trivium is very much not immune to humpty-dumpty-ish rehash 🤦 The baddest kind of 'cultural appropriation'; designed with the sole purpose—to obfuscate.
In fairness to Sayers, she never claimed to be the new guru for Classical education. Her essay just seemed to strike a chord among people with the right general motives but without the patience to actually learn all the stuff Sayers did. You see that “trivium” framework everywhere in the normiecon version of Classical ed; it’s its diagnostic determinant.
However, it's always a highly risky endeavour to repurpose long-established terms for flimsy modern usage. A learned scholar that she was, Sayers' recklessness won't escape my measured blame 😏
It is posts like this that make me belive that there is hope for the future. While I do not have the necessary skills to be a teacher in such a school I would enthusiasticly support such a school in any way I could. I really love the point about learning Latin.
I have a Winnie the Pooh book that is in Latin and it sparked my interest in learning the language. This post has just made me more determined to learn it
The go to text for most college programs I’m aware of is Wheelock’s Latin. You can get used textbooks and workbooks online for pretty cheap. Legonium is a fun resource aimed at a younger crowd but I find it useful even at my age. When I was studying for my language test I used Disce, which worked well.
So, tell me. Will you find yourself compelled to expel smart, capable, leadership-quality boys who challenge the orthodoxies you teach them?
It's a normal, necessary part of maturing to rebel against authority, and especially that of one's parents. Why should the best of these boys not do so?
It seems from what you write in this series that what you truly desire is smart-enough, capable-enough boys fully malleable to the shape you want them to harden into, but true achievements are always accomplished by those who refuse to be molded.
You're dreaming of little Oxfords for the high school years. But the history of the grand intellectual universities includes those towering thinkers who rebelled against the received truths they were handed and fought to freely express other viewpoints. There's a reason Christianity isn't a whole, but a landscape of many sects and that landscape is, of course, quite bloody.
So back to my question. What will be the fate of the quality of boy you say you want but who won't submit to being fed the diet you want for him?
I imagine that anyone who didn’t like the school would simply leave. It’s a private association and everyone is there of their own free will, presumably because they want something particular that they feel my school offers. There’s plenty of room for debate about a lot of things, but in the end I’m attempting to create an environment of reverence and respect. As Robert E. Lee said, “deference to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character.” In my experience most people, including most children, find intellectual disputation interesting and stimulating. On the other hand, people who simply show up to argue pointlessly about trifles are irritating even to those with the least intelligence and maturity.
Not talking, of course about those who don't like the school. But you have a strong worldview powerfully informed by your Christian beliefs. How will you deal with a child from a Christian family who also considers himself a Christian but whose interpretations of the faith diverge from what the curriculum instructs?
Trifles and pointless disputations are often in the eye of the beholder, I think.
It might not be good for children to revere their teachers though they ought to respect them, and behave with courtesy. Part of intellectual growth is realizing that even the best teacher is only human.
The school I envision is nonsectarian, on the grounds that our mission is supplemental to that of the family, and doctrine is their province. I don’t plan to dispute theology anymore than I do in my current nonsectarian private school. Reverence is essential for education because it is bound up with the fundamental precondition of learning, humility.
Reverence for education--absolutely. That's foundational.
I think humility is a process. Young creatures begin with enthusiasm and often too much of a degree of self-confidence, and many schools of the past were determined to beat humility into them, one way or another, physically or otherwise.
As one matures, one looks back and realizes how little one knew or understood at various earlier times in life. Young people often confuse intelligence with maturity and the difference can't be taught from outside.
But a really effective teacher is one to whom evidence of a possible error, if he might have made one, can be offered without fear. Too much humility in the child's diet will make him afraid to trust his instincts where they might be most needed.
When I slogged my 12 years through hell, it was in no way the greatest time of my life. Granted, gender studies wasn't a thing, nor was the critical racist theory, but for my brain, it was pure torture. I had to learn the math tables (Which I am proud to say that I remember and am trying to teach to my children,) science, literature (which I still love,) art, music, and physical education.
I was bored in school, and I pissed my teachers off by not paying attention and still being able to recite back their lessons verbatim. The only time I had fun was when I was introduced to informal geometry and Algebra. I finally had a challenge.
I rarely use informal geometry, but I remember the challenges.
I learned to speak Castilian Spanish, which introduced my love of languages, French, Latin, German, etc.
I agree that we need "invisible universities" that teach classical education. I think county seats should have, at least, annexes to state colleges so that people don't have to leave their homes to learn the classics.
There is a problem with what you want, and that is: the teaching universities are hotbeds of DIE, ESG, and CRT nonsense. Those are the accreditation centers, and until they are fixed, any new education system you devise will be tainted.
Private school teachers are not required to have state certification, at least in the places I would set up shop. Longer term, however, I think a march up through the institutions would be in order; look at the fine job Mr. Rufo is doing in Florida. I don't agree with everything, but the right people are angry.
Yes, a private school might be able to get around that, but will your accreditation also be able to get around it? Even private schools have to meet certain standards in order to give out Bachelor's and Masters's degrees, or are you considering just giving out general degrees?
Although I write of my prospective school as 'the invisible college' I intend for it to be a secondary school that only offers limited numbers of college classes. There will only be normal high school diploma-level records. Private secondary schools have a number of options for accreditation, most of which require that faculty have academic knowledge at a certain level rather than education courses or state certification.
That makes sense. So it's a program like my niece is studying, where she will graduate with a High school diploma and also have at least an associate's degree through doing college work. Yes, that could work.
I also think that local county seats should invest in some kind of local post-high school education so that they can keep the kids at home. Too many small towns are dying because their kids are moving to big cities.
I plan to write about how current trends will impact education in the future in my next and final post.
My professors told me I could be a great teacher. But toxic only begins to describe my former university, so I learned how to build and remodel a house instead. Reading the first two articles in this series I was thinking I want to teach in this school. Reading the third installment, I'm thinking I need to go to this school before I teach at it.
The school aims, as Aristotle would have it, to teach children to like what they should like. The learning then follows. Since it seems you already have a clear idea of what the correct things to learn are, you are halfway there already. If you finish your degree program, anywhere, in any subject, you will have the credential the system wants in order for you to enter the system and do the sort of work I envision here. Just make sure that along the way you are going deep into the Classics. You’ll do great; I have confidence in you.
Thanks LC, I intend to study and teach for the rest of my days.
Also, I am coming close to 500 subscribers and I noticed you have an average 40+ likes, while I average maybe 20, even less of late, so I probably can learn a few things from you...
I don’t really do anything special to be liked. My content varies greatly in tone and subject matter. I write what I think should be read without thinking much about who might read it or the reaction it might get. One thing that might be getting me likes is that I am a giver of them. I subscribe to a very large list of account. Most of them do not actually write newsletters, but they do comment on my work and the work of others. When I go through my notes feed I always select “subscribed” as a filter and I go through and like and restack notes, especially those of smaller accounts and those who don’t wrote longer pieces. I don’t do this expecting reciprocity; rather, I genuinely think there are some great takes on the feed that get overlooked because they’re not so prolific. But that seems to be the result: I like people’s work, and they take the trouble to like mine. You are a great writer and we have about the same number of subscribers, so all things being equal I might try that.
"If young red state males are convinced they have no future in New York or Chicago, so much the better for Ottumwa."
I like much of what you have to say and I share your appreciation for the classics.
I find your circumscription of your own views to a "rightist" or "reactionary" sphere to be self-limiting and self-quarantining. Like you, I have a Romantic and (regrettably) utopian streak and find the future in Ottumwa, not in New York City or Chicago. I don't think Ottumwa will become a more interesting place, necessarily, for having more "young red state males" in it; Ottumwa will require all varieties of people to function coherently.
Your point that "young red state males" should be better educated is a sound one.
I only describe myself as a reactionary because it helps people get a more immediate idea of my outlook. For my part, I consider myself a reasonable, moderate, broadminded person surrounded by a society full of extremists. I fully agree with Evola on this point- "my principles are only those that, before the French Revolution, every well-born person considered sane and normal."
Young people, particularly young men, are the motive energy of a society, the dynamic force that propels a civilization. I don't know that Ottumwa will become more interesting (though I suspect it will) from their presence, but their presence is necessary as a precondition for it to thrive. To the degree they wander from tradition they become like seeds cast on rocks. Young red state males that put their energy to work for places that despise their culture are a contradiction in terms- they lose the red, they lose their state, and before they lose their youth they all to often lose their maleness.
It is my fond hope to not only educate red state males, but females, and any blue folx that wander in unawares.
I am reminded here of the wonderful line in the film Green Card - when the Andy MacDowell character says in exasperation (to her lover) "Oh you're SO right WING!" and the Gerard Depardieu character replies (French accent here) "I am not wing; you are wing...."
If I'm going to be any sort of wing, I'd prefer to be one of use to a Condor.
https://www.telospress.com/store/Eumeswil-paperback-p53032948
🗨 anarch, the inwardly liberated and outwardly pragmatic individual, who lives peacefully in the heart of Leviathan and is yet able to preserve his individuality and freedom
↑↑ succinct description of envisioned invisible college graduate 😉
Anarch, coyote, etc.
I try to steer fellow Jünger fans to Victor Serge if they aren't into him already.
https://www.nyrb.com/products/unforgiving-years
Depardieu wanted Russian citizenship until he didn't. It's one thing to not want to pay taxes; it's another thing to cross globohomo.
https://www.rferl.org/a/depardieu-criticizes-putin-war/31781711.html
It is my hope that more blue folx wander in unawares. Think of yourself as the sundew plant. A benign name and visage is key. "Everybody likes sun and dew!"
https://predatoryplants.com/collections/sundews-drosera
A sundew consumes and gives back nothing. I would prefer to be an oak, with chittering little animals taking up what I produce and carrying it off to virgin soil.
It's all about the chittering little animals.
It is a natural thing to fear death, I think -- the mind recoils at the unimaginable concept of no-mind -- but I have always found the concept of small animals recycling my corpse, whether it be my physical remains or the ideas I left behind, to be deeply comforting. At the end one wants nothing to be wasted.
Blue folx are often much more discerning than our Librarian here wants to believe. My own kid took Latin, by choice, in a public high school.
Morotatos should be confident that teaching Latin is very practical if you want more rightist men in biology and history. But even that aside a good translation of Homer like Fagles or Chapman's would be good to reintroduce to a child's curriculum in place of some of the awful books I have currently seen being purchased for school use.
On a side note, I think this envisioned school structure is wonderful for experimenting with more obscure but effective teaching methods. A mathematician from Russia figured out a method of teaching kids math much faster but no math teacher has implemented it at a public school so far despite test scores being at their lowest. There's probably other examples out there that could be worked into a system like this, even if language is the focus
Considered in a purely practical sense, Latin could function in the future like DEI does today, as a signal that one has the right reverence for the correct ideas. The advantage would be that someone who took the trouble to learn Latin would actually be doing something good and worthwhile as well.
The signalling of the right values is also a good idea, though one of my personal concerns is the left-wing occupation of history departments. Often times smaller Classics departments have one old man who knows Latin or the ancient Greek and a dozen or so 30s left-wing women who are there to look at muscular statues and write essays about how the ancients were gay. When the old men are gone the corruption of the past will begin in truth unless we flood the Classics field with right-wingers who have the advantage of actually being able to read the primary sources.
The future belongs to those who show up for it, and Classics belongs to those who can read the Classical languages. Wherever they are, there is Classics. Making Classics the foundation of future reform creates an enormous barrier against leftist infiltration, not foolproof, but anything involving years of reverent study of the Ancients and mastering challenging language skills tends to skew right.
The truth is the weakness of the left is lack of discipline and respect for the previous generations, and thus anyone inclined to study "dead languages" tends to lean right. Classics is a great method of filtering
The Learning Curve
Apprentice-Journeyman-Master
Disciple-Guru
If you can’t explain (teach/tutor) it you don’t really understand it. This was used to great effect in my calculus classes. Being required to explain/teach something helps solidify the knowledge into more definite form in the mind of the teacher.
I am a fan of the immersion method. You can go deeper, farther, faster if you focus on one thing at a time until competency is achieved as per the learning curve. Mastery takes a lot more time.
Morning PT sets you up for the day and improves learning.
Life Skills-based learning can drive engagement. Learning how to cook can include math, chemistry, nutrition, biology, business, timing, safety, hygiene, planning, budgeting, etc. You can further explore food, agriculture, history, culture, law, government, shopping habits and skills, philosophy and on and on.
The Waldorf method has a lot to offer in this regard. We used to have to memorize stuff. Building memory muscles from an early age is extremely important and beneficial.
Will have to get to reading Aristotle again, and it has been a long time since I picked up and skimmed Plato, will do better by reading the latter thoroughly.
I was also thinking of re-reading Meditations and City of God to help cope with depression and the waiting period before departing east.
I’m puzzled by your requirement that instructors hold a masters degree. If modern universities are as awful as you say (and I believe they are!) then how will this dread sieve yield the right kind of instructor for your schools?
I gave an allowance for exceptional people, but my main reason for the stipulation is that colleges require an MA to teach college classes, and dual enrollment would not be possible without the instructors being thus credentialed.
And thank you for the list of political theorists, some of whom were unfamiliar to me. Why do you mention St. Justin Popovic?
I have always found his treatise, "Humanistic and Theanthropic Education" to be very profound. I only hesitate to base my program on it out of humility that I would botch some aspect.
Thank you.
Thank you for outing the pathetically wishy-washy use of the term "Classical." I do wonder what your terminus for the Classical period would be. I would run it up to the end of Late Antiquity, at least. Eastern Rome continued, of course, and the educational program in Constantinople pretty much continued the ancient program.
I would say that Late Antiquity would be a good cut off point, as one could make a strong argument that it was at that point that a new synthesis of Greco-Roman and Christian culture had taken shape, and that the periods prior to that were distinct and formative.
I would include Cassiodorus and St. Isidore of Seville in Late Antiquity.They were not dependent solely on books for their knowledge.
Precious essence capably distilled in one of your [pleasantly concise 😊] links (memoriapress.com/articles/classical-education-is-more-than-a-method):
🗨 [Dorothy] Sayers, like Dewey, places the process of education above its content and purpose. We moderns are obsessed with methodology. We think that the way we do something is just as—if not more—important than what we are doing—or why we are doing it.
Quite shockingly, even the impeccably clear-cut ancient concept of trivium is very much not immune to humpty-dumpty-ish rehash 🤦 The baddest kind of 'cultural appropriation'; designed with the sole purpose—to obfuscate.
In fairness to Sayers, she never claimed to be the new guru for Classical education. Her essay just seemed to strike a chord among people with the right general motives but without the patience to actually learn all the stuff Sayers did. You see that “trivium” framework everywhere in the normiecon version of Classical ed; it’s its diagnostic determinant.
However, it's always a highly risky endeavour to repurpose long-established terms for flimsy modern usage. A learned scholar that she was, Sayers' recklessness won't escape my measured blame 😏
💬 They will learn what to hate only as a consequence of learning what to love. ⚡🔥!
What are we waiting for? 🎥🎶 youtu.be/f3LAHvGG2PM 🤸
Nice song, but those noob Fremen didn’t even think to summon a sandworm.
Doncha scuttle ahead of plot timeline! 😂
It is posts like this that make me belive that there is hope for the future. While I do not have the necessary skills to be a teacher in such a school I would enthusiasticly support such a school in any way I could. I really love the point about learning Latin.
I have a Winnie the Pooh book that is in Latin and it sparked my interest in learning the language. This post has just made me more determined to learn it
Winnie ille Pu is a classic.
I am currently waiting for Imperium Press's Latin curricula to come out. While I wait you k ow of Amy other good resources to start learning it?
The go to text for most college programs I’m aware of is Wheelock’s Latin. You can get used textbooks and workbooks online for pretty cheap. Legonium is a fun resource aimed at a younger crowd but I find it useful even at my age. When I was studying for my language test I used Disce, which worked well.
Wheelock's Latin, 7th Edition (The Wheelock's Latin Series) https://a.co/d/2NaiAdn
http://www.legonium.com/
Disce! An Introductory Latin Course, Volume 1 https://a.co/d/8sXci8G
https://howdoihomeschool.com/trivium-classical-education/
So, tell me. Will you find yourself compelled to expel smart, capable, leadership-quality boys who challenge the orthodoxies you teach them?
It's a normal, necessary part of maturing to rebel against authority, and especially that of one's parents. Why should the best of these boys not do so?
It seems from what you write in this series that what you truly desire is smart-enough, capable-enough boys fully malleable to the shape you want them to harden into, but true achievements are always accomplished by those who refuse to be molded.
You're dreaming of little Oxfords for the high school years. But the history of the grand intellectual universities includes those towering thinkers who rebelled against the received truths they were handed and fought to freely express other viewpoints. There's a reason Christianity isn't a whole, but a landscape of many sects and that landscape is, of course, quite bloody.
So back to my question. What will be the fate of the quality of boy you say you want but who won't submit to being fed the diet you want for him?
I imagine that anyone who didn’t like the school would simply leave. It’s a private association and everyone is there of their own free will, presumably because they want something particular that they feel my school offers. There’s plenty of room for debate about a lot of things, but in the end I’m attempting to create an environment of reverence and respect. As Robert E. Lee said, “deference to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character.” In my experience most people, including most children, find intellectual disputation interesting and stimulating. On the other hand, people who simply show up to argue pointlessly about trifles are irritating even to those with the least intelligence and maturity.
Not talking, of course about those who don't like the school. But you have a strong worldview powerfully informed by your Christian beliefs. How will you deal with a child from a Christian family who also considers himself a Christian but whose interpretations of the faith diverge from what the curriculum instructs?
Trifles and pointless disputations are often in the eye of the beholder, I think.
It might not be good for children to revere their teachers though they ought to respect them, and behave with courtesy. Part of intellectual growth is realizing that even the best teacher is only human.
The school I envision is nonsectarian, on the grounds that our mission is supplemental to that of the family, and doctrine is their province. I don’t plan to dispute theology anymore than I do in my current nonsectarian private school. Reverence is essential for education because it is bound up with the fundamental precondition of learning, humility.
Reverence for education--absolutely. That's foundational.
I think humility is a process. Young creatures begin with enthusiasm and often too much of a degree of self-confidence, and many schools of the past were determined to beat humility into them, one way or another, physically or otherwise.
As one matures, one looks back and realizes how little one knew or understood at various earlier times in life. Young people often confuse intelligence with maturity and the difference can't be taught from outside.
But a really effective teacher is one to whom evidence of a possible error, if he might have made one, can be offered without fear. Too much humility in the child's diet will make him afraid to trust his instincts where they might be most needed.