Yes! This is so timely! We just sent the request to withdraw our children from a Classical Hybrid program at our local Chrstian school because of this very reason. The kids had 10 subjects and it was just out of control. We hope we can strike a better balance homeschooling. Looking forward to the follow up where you share what you think can be cut.
I don't think that a list of what can be cut is sufficient. Like the founding of St John's college, a radical reconstruction of education is required. For a full outline of a radical reconstruction, I wrote a brief 1250 word essay which is too long for a comment. One paragraph of the essay should give you the idea of a radical change.
If the purpose of education is to beautify the soul and mind, the student is anyone since every human being has a soul and a mind worth beautifying and adorning. Liberal education is not meant to prepare a person to be indoctrinated into a discipline; that is, to become a disciple and eventually an “expert.” The result of a liberal education is lifelong learning and teaching. Patrick Buchanan wrote in The Seven Sleepers: “A great book is the product of the liberal arts; the authors are liberal artists, masters of the arts. The great books improve the mind because they introduce the formal habits of learning in the reader and the discussant. The aim of the liberal arts is insight, understanding, imagination, and finally the transformation of the student into his own teacher and the teacher of others. The result of liberal education is lifelong learning and teaching. The social fruit of the tree of knowledge is an intellectual culture. The rediscovery of the liberal arts could be the much needed beginning of the reconstruction of education in this country.”
The basic great books are the Bible, The Elements by Euclid, Shakespeare, the Dialogues of Plato. I would add The Confessions of St. Augustine for Catholics.
I’m glad I took the time to read the comments because I love your comment that I just read.
These words gave me pause: “If the purpose of education is to beautify the soul and mind”...
What about the spirit?
Is there often confusion between “soul” and “spirit”?
Soul being OF the world. Spirit being IN the world. The mind chooses between them.
The soul is the idea of separation. Spirit is the idea of Oneness. The soul engages in duality and the spirit remembers nonduality; the mind functions as the decision maker, on the journey to Truth, Reality.
It reminds me of the Native American parable about the two wolves, the good wolf and the bad wolf inside each of us, each vying for dominance. The wisdom imparted is that, which wolf wins is the wolf you feed.
The exact words "beautify the soul and mind" come from Henry Billingsley introduction to the first English translation of Euclid published in 1570. I do not think Billingsley would even use the word "spirit" (I think back then even the Holy Spirit was the Holy Ghost). I think that for modern people who have seemed to accept materialism, the first step is to accept that there are two realities which can be categorized for simplicity as mind and matter. The next step would be philosophical and I would follow Josef Pieper in saying that everything that exists is known and knowable: known by the absolute Spirit (God) and knowable to limited spirits (humans and angelic beings).
What a critique! This was very insightful and speaks to a lot of my own concerns as a classical teacher. My personal thought is that we need to condense things into Latin and make the priority about teaching the classics through a study of Latin (and Greek). Yes, we might not make as much 'progress' but what students know will be so much richer, and speed will come with familiarity with the language.
Which subjects might you condense into Latin? We've been using Memoria Press and I often wonder if the English Grammar Recitation and Spelling (in 3rd and 4th grade) could be skipped to go deeper on Latin (and start adding in Greek).
I'm not familiar with the Memoria Press books too much, but I do weave their grammar recitation booklet into our English classes. History, Literature, Grammar, Poetry, Philosophy, and Rhetoric used to all be mere offshoots from the Latin course in bygone days. One would learn these subjects while translating a work of Cicero, Livy, Horace, etc. It would take a lot of condensing and a more thorough knowledge of Latin than I currently have, but that seems to be the only option for truly releasing the vice-grip on time our schools are currently experiencing as well as the overloaded school day.
Thank you for this article, Dr. Perrin! I immediately shared it with my daughter and two other relatives who are classically homeschooling their children. It may be encouraging for them to know that a jam packed day is not the goal. I also fall into the trap of wanting to share "too much of a good thing" with my grandchildren, who are still at the stage of foundation building.
I was also intrigued by the fact that you have a pot luck lunch at your church EVERY Sunday! How does your community manage to keep up that system, (it much be a sizeable parish) and how do you arrange for such a variety of foods?
Even on the university model schedule in classical Christian schools where students take “less” classes, the amount of work assigned in each class can be so overwhelming that the healthy school-life balance is hard to achieve. Academically, our children are excelling but I’m concerned about what is happening in the whole child as we continue to work at this pace and level. I love the content and skills taught in classical Christian education…it’s the volume of work at such an accelerated pace expected from the students that I continue to struggle with. How and why do we continue to think assigning such a large volume of work is the norm and the best practice?
I agree completely with this. They key is that in any subject, the first principles are not just for chapter 1. The deep understanding of first principles takes time and informs the rest of information on a topic. In the 1980's and 1990's, the Magdalen College Program of Studies had the best science curriculum of all the classical colleges due to the influence of George Stanciu. Most physics students do not really understand Newton's three laws. Most physics text books do not correctly describe how an airplane wing creates lift. (A simple example makes this clear: if lift came only from shape, how do stunt planes fly upside down without crashing to earth?) We would spend weeks on the first pages of Newton's Principia and also on short scientific American Articles applying Newton's three laws to billiard balls, why boomerangs come back, what really causes lift in airplane wings including why an airplanes forward slots imitate a hawks alula for low speed lift.
Also, in philosophy and the humanities, entire semesters were spent on single books. One semester on Plato's Republic. One semester on Augustine's City of God. One year on Euclid's Elements. One Semester on Christology: the four Gospels and one main book The Lord by Romano Guardini. One Semester on Ecclesiology: mostly Dei Verbum, Lumen Gentium, and Gaudium et Spes. We would read Dante's Inferno, The Prince by Machiavelli, and Shakespeare's Henry V to delve into the question of what first principles moved the character Henry V: Machievelli's materialistic pragmatism or Dante's eternal view of political action.
We did not try to read the whole Summa Theologica: but we spent a lot of time reading the Treatise on Law and comparing Thomas' principle of what is law to the American view of law.
Can you please talk to the BCSI team!? Would love for middle school and high school to not be as buffet like. Even for my smart kiddo, it’s exhausting! I wouldn’t mind a block schedule for them so they can delve deeper in each subject in a day
Yes! This is so timely! We just sent the request to withdraw our children from a Classical Hybrid program at our local Chrstian school because of this very reason. The kids had 10 subjects and it was just out of control. We hope we can strike a better balance homeschooling. Looking forward to the follow up where you share what you think can be cut.
I don't think that a list of what can be cut is sufficient. Like the founding of St John's college, a radical reconstruction of education is required. For a full outline of a radical reconstruction, I wrote a brief 1250 word essay which is too long for a comment. One paragraph of the essay should give you the idea of a radical change.
If the purpose of education is to beautify the soul and mind, the student is anyone since every human being has a soul and a mind worth beautifying and adorning. Liberal education is not meant to prepare a person to be indoctrinated into a discipline; that is, to become a disciple and eventually an “expert.” The result of a liberal education is lifelong learning and teaching. Patrick Buchanan wrote in The Seven Sleepers: “A great book is the product of the liberal arts; the authors are liberal artists, masters of the arts. The great books improve the mind because they introduce the formal habits of learning in the reader and the discussant. The aim of the liberal arts is insight, understanding, imagination, and finally the transformation of the student into his own teacher and the teacher of others. The result of liberal education is lifelong learning and teaching. The social fruit of the tree of knowledge is an intellectual culture. The rediscovery of the liberal arts could be the much needed beginning of the reconstruction of education in this country.”
The basic great books are the Bible, The Elements by Euclid, Shakespeare, the Dialogues of Plato. I would add The Confessions of St. Augustine for Catholics.
I’m glad I took the time to read the comments because I love your comment that I just read.
These words gave me pause: “If the purpose of education is to beautify the soul and mind”...
What about the spirit?
Is there often confusion between “soul” and “spirit”?
Soul being OF the world. Spirit being IN the world. The mind chooses between them.
The soul is the idea of separation. Spirit is the idea of Oneness. The soul engages in duality and the spirit remembers nonduality; the mind functions as the decision maker, on the journey to Truth, Reality.
It reminds me of the Native American parable about the two wolves, the good wolf and the bad wolf inside each of us, each vying for dominance. The wisdom imparted is that, which wolf wins is the wolf you feed.
The exact words "beautify the soul and mind" come from Henry Billingsley introduction to the first English translation of Euclid published in 1570. I do not think Billingsley would even use the word "spirit" (I think back then even the Holy Spirit was the Holy Ghost). I think that for modern people who have seemed to accept materialism, the first step is to accept that there are two realities which can be categorized for simplicity as mind and matter. The next step would be philosophical and I would follow Josef Pieper in saying that everything that exists is known and knowable: known by the absolute Spirit (God) and knowable to limited spirits (humans and angelic beings).
What a critique! This was very insightful and speaks to a lot of my own concerns as a classical teacher. My personal thought is that we need to condense things into Latin and make the priority about teaching the classics through a study of Latin (and Greek). Yes, we might not make as much 'progress' but what students know will be so much richer, and speed will come with familiarity with the language.
Which subjects might you condense into Latin? We've been using Memoria Press and I often wonder if the English Grammar Recitation and Spelling (in 3rd and 4th grade) could be skipped to go deeper on Latin (and start adding in Greek).
I'm not familiar with the Memoria Press books too much, but I do weave their grammar recitation booklet into our English classes. History, Literature, Grammar, Poetry, Philosophy, and Rhetoric used to all be mere offshoots from the Latin course in bygone days. One would learn these subjects while translating a work of Cicero, Livy, Horace, etc. It would take a lot of condensing and a more thorough knowledge of Latin than I currently have, but that seems to be the only option for truly releasing the vice-grip on time our schools are currently experiencing as well as the overloaded school day.
Thank you for this article, Dr. Perrin! I immediately shared it with my daughter and two other relatives who are classically homeschooling their children. It may be encouraging for them to know that a jam packed day is not the goal. I also fall into the trap of wanting to share "too much of a good thing" with my grandchildren, who are still at the stage of foundation building.
I was also intrigued by the fact that you have a pot luck lunch at your church EVERY Sunday! How does your community manage to keep up that system, (it much be a sizeable parish) and how do you arrange for such a variety of foods?
Even on the university model schedule in classical Christian schools where students take “less” classes, the amount of work assigned in each class can be so overwhelming that the healthy school-life balance is hard to achieve. Academically, our children are excelling but I’m concerned about what is happening in the whole child as we continue to work at this pace and level. I love the content and skills taught in classical Christian education…it’s the volume of work at such an accelerated pace expected from the students that I continue to struggle with. How and why do we continue to think assigning such a large volume of work is the norm and the best practice?
I agree completely with this. They key is that in any subject, the first principles are not just for chapter 1. The deep understanding of first principles takes time and informs the rest of information on a topic. In the 1980's and 1990's, the Magdalen College Program of Studies had the best science curriculum of all the classical colleges due to the influence of George Stanciu. Most physics students do not really understand Newton's three laws. Most physics text books do not correctly describe how an airplane wing creates lift. (A simple example makes this clear: if lift came only from shape, how do stunt planes fly upside down without crashing to earth?) We would spend weeks on the first pages of Newton's Principia and also on short scientific American Articles applying Newton's three laws to billiard balls, why boomerangs come back, what really causes lift in airplane wings including why an airplanes forward slots imitate a hawks alula for low speed lift.
Also, in philosophy and the humanities, entire semesters were spent on single books. One semester on Plato's Republic. One semester on Augustine's City of God. One year on Euclid's Elements. One Semester on Christology: the four Gospels and one main book The Lord by Romano Guardini. One Semester on Ecclesiology: mostly Dei Verbum, Lumen Gentium, and Gaudium et Spes. We would read Dante's Inferno, The Prince by Machiavelli, and Shakespeare's Henry V to delve into the question of what first principles moved the character Henry V: Machievelli's materialistic pragmatism or Dante's eternal view of political action.
We did not try to read the whole Summa Theologica: but we spent a lot of time reading the Treatise on Law and comparing Thomas' principle of what is law to the American view of law.
Can you please talk to the BCSI team!? Would love for middle school and high school to not be as buffet like. Even for my smart kiddo, it’s exhausting! I wouldn’t mind a block schedule for them so they can delve deeper in each subject in a day