The Scholé way has transformed my family. It is helping my husband and I reclaim yr foundation of faith in our home and choose to educate our children without pressure, anxiety and competitiveness. They are thriving in curiosity, empathy, deep thinking (sometimes too much for their mom!!) and they have matured as they are taught to measure their efforts with virtues versus vices.
Rigor, in a former classical tutorial, meant assigning full grades of children curriculum intended for 1-2 levels above them and condensing the lessons from 40 weeks into 30. My kids adapted in most areas, but I felt like I was as drinking from a water hose as we embraced a new style of education.
We left the tutorial and slowed the pace, taking time to enjoy narrations with art work, picture studies, music and family devotions. We found Scholé Academy while seeking a tutor for the tutorial and switched over the next semester with a special needs instructor.
The love, warmth and direction to order your loves and embrace the beauty, truth and goodness in all of creation has been soul redeeming for us.
My 9 year old started teaching himself Japanese and my 10 year old fell in love with a formerly hated subject: math!
In my opinion, rigor relates more to rigormortis than high standards of excellence. In fact, I find it quite bragadocious in our current day and age to cling to the competetive ideal of reaching the top of the ever elusive ladder. One can never be satisfied in that kind of mindset.
Thank you for your efforts and leadership.
Brenda T
Daughter of Christ, Mom, Scholé Groups Co-director, Scholé Academy Instructor and Tutor
I am purchasing your book and look forward to reading it. I was educated in parochial Catholic schools from K-12 and although I was successful, the academic rigor, intensity, and competition killed my love of learning. I’m hoping to reclaim it now with my children! Thank you!
A little more strategic speculation sees classical Christian (Protestant-Evangelical if we’re being precise) in significant competition with other private schools (many Christian/Catholic) which are “college prep”. Here a well oiled machine geared to successful college application and vocational planning is stiff completion for our classical friends. And so “rigorous” starts to appear in classical school marketing. The idea that classical Christian doesn’t prepare one for higher education is certainly rubbish. It can especially prepare a young mind for future excellence. The one exception is if the classical school nods to fundamentalism and skips/denies evolutionary biology. Here truth has been suppressed and a great deal of future damage has been done.
Well said and well worth saying (and putting into practice). A colleague recently suggested that we replace the word ‘rigor’ with ‘vigor’ in our pedagogical vocabulary. I couldn’t agree more. What a difference one letter can make to transform both what we teach and how we teach.
My gratitude for your continued labors on behalf of virtuosity in education.
Yes, I have said the same thing elsewhere. "Vigor" emphasize energy and life but without the connotation of rigidness and severity... Thanks for this comment!
Mr. Perrin,
The Scholé way has transformed my family. It is helping my husband and I reclaim yr foundation of faith in our home and choose to educate our children without pressure, anxiety and competitiveness. They are thriving in curiosity, empathy, deep thinking (sometimes too much for their mom!!) and they have matured as they are taught to measure their efforts with virtues versus vices.
Rigor, in a former classical tutorial, meant assigning full grades of children curriculum intended for 1-2 levels above them and condensing the lessons from 40 weeks into 30. My kids adapted in most areas, but I felt like I was as drinking from a water hose as we embraced a new style of education.
We left the tutorial and slowed the pace, taking time to enjoy narrations with art work, picture studies, music and family devotions. We found Scholé Academy while seeking a tutor for the tutorial and switched over the next semester with a special needs instructor.
The love, warmth and direction to order your loves and embrace the beauty, truth and goodness in all of creation has been soul redeeming for us.
My 9 year old started teaching himself Japanese and my 10 year old fell in love with a formerly hated subject: math!
In my opinion, rigor relates more to rigormortis than high standards of excellence. In fact, I find it quite bragadocious in our current day and age to cling to the competetive ideal of reaching the top of the ever elusive ladder. One can never be satisfied in that kind of mindset.
Thank you for your efforts and leadership.
Brenda T
Daughter of Christ, Mom, Scholé Groups Co-director, Scholé Academy Instructor and Tutor
Brenda--Thank you for this moving note. I am going to save this to consult on those rainy days when I need encouragement.
I am purchasing your book and look forward to reading it. I was educated in parochial Catholic schools from K-12 and although I was successful, the academic rigor, intensity, and competition killed my love of learning. I’m hoping to reclaim it now with my children! Thank you!
A little more strategic speculation sees classical Christian (Protestant-Evangelical if we’re being precise) in significant competition with other private schools (many Christian/Catholic) which are “college prep”. Here a well oiled machine geared to successful college application and vocational planning is stiff completion for our classical friends. And so “rigorous” starts to appear in classical school marketing. The idea that classical Christian doesn’t prepare one for higher education is certainly rubbish. It can especially prepare a young mind for future excellence. The one exception is if the classical school nods to fundamentalism and skips/denies evolutionary biology. Here truth has been suppressed and a great deal of future damage has been done.
Christopher,
Well said and well worth saying (and putting into practice). A colleague recently suggested that we replace the word ‘rigor’ with ‘vigor’ in our pedagogical vocabulary. I couldn’t agree more. What a difference one letter can make to transform both what we teach and how we teach.
My gratitude for your continued labors on behalf of virtuosity in education.
Adam Taylor
St. Martin’s Academy
Yes, I have said the same thing elsewhere. "Vigor" emphasize energy and life but without the connotation of rigidness and severity... Thanks for this comment!