Classical Education News & Articles | March 2023
In addition to reviewing books, ClassicalEd Review provides our readers with a monthly compendium of recent articles and news stories related to classical education and the liberal arts.
The Defenders of Classical Education Are Destroying It
by Annie Abrams and Roosevelt Montás
The Western canon is too diverse to be used as a political pawn.
America Needs an Education in Leisure
by Rachel Cambre
Classical K–12 schools, colleges, and universities introduce their students to the intrinsic joys of exploring “nature and humanity’s place in the cosmos,” not only through the written word, but through forms of leisure.
To Improve Student Outcomes, Ask Teachers to Do Fewer Things Better
by Robert Pondiscio and Jessica Schurz
Let’s not ask what more teachers can do. Ask instead what are the things that only a teacher can do. Everything else should be a job for someone else.
Are the Great Books Gone?
by Dominic Green
Of the unmaking of great books, there is no end. Such is life. Only in fiction does the plot resolve in a tidy closing of narrative threads. Life is messier. If it does not dribble to a close, it ends with banging and whimpering. The "Great Books" course, a one-stop humanities shop, was born at Columbia University in 1919. After 1968, the banging and whimpering of the culture wars sent enrollments into decades of decline.
New Study Suggests Standardized Reading Tests Miss a Lot of Learning
by Natalie Wexler
It can take years to acquire enough new vocabulary to yield an increase in measures of general reading comprehension.
Unstacking the Deck Against Moral Education
by Adam Carrington
Education must involve cultivating the will in light of what we consider morally good and how our desires react to that good.
Florida seeks to replace SAT with CLT, following Classical Education Trend
by Gabrielle M. Etzel
Creators of the Classical Learning Test (CLT) met with top Florida education officials last week as the DeSantis administration seeks alternatives to the SAT and AP classes.
Reconnecting Knowledge and Virtue in Higher Education
by Jennifer Frey
Classical education seeks to develop the whole person by reconnecting knowledge and virtue. On this model, to become educated is, at least in part, to become a person of good character—to become habituated into recognizable patterns of correct thinking, acting, and feeling so that one is disposed to judge and choose well on the whole, in order to live a purposeful and meaningful life that contributes to the common good.
Jewish Classical Education Master’s to Debut in Fall
It is a joint project of the Tikvah Fund and the University of Dallas.
A Message for Humanities PhDs
by Mark Bauerlein
You should be part of it. Classical schools don't need ed school theory—they need your knowledge. Classical schools value your learning, and the parents do, too. You are why they have chosen to send their children to the school. Spring is coming. Schools are counting the open teaching slots they will have to fill for September. Check them out.
Why Not Censor Shakespeare Next?
by Charles C. W. Cooke
One finds ‘non-inclusive’ material throughout the playwright’s canon.
Don’t Give Up on the Liberal Arts!
by Bishop Robert Barron
It has just come to my attention that Marymount University, a Catholic institution in Arlington, Virginia, has announced its intention to cut ten traditional majors from its program, including philosophy, religious studies, theology, art, history, and sociology. It will also apparently eliminate a master’s degree in English literature. The president of the university has explained that this move is designed to make her school more competitive: “Students have more choices than ever for where to earn a college degree and MU must respond wisely to the demand.” Well, okay, but one wonders why she bothers remaining competitive, for she has effectively undermined the purpose of her university.
For Catholic Schools, Time to Innovate
by Ray Domanico
In what has become an all-too-frequent ritual, the Archdiocese of New York has announced the closure of 12 Catholic elementary schools, along with the merging of four other schools into two. Fourteen schools, then, all in New York City, will be shuttered. This follows the closure of 20 schools in 2020, 24 in 2013, and 26 in 2011.
Special Ed Shouldn’t Be Separate
by Julie Kim
In the fall of 2020, as my son and his neighborhood friends started to trickle back out into the world, my daughter, Izzy, stayed home. At the time, Izzy was 3 years old, ripe for the natural learning that comes from being with other kids. I knew by the way she hummed and flapped her hands around children at the playground—and by her frustration with me at home—that she yearned to be among them.
Learning to Wonder: A Deep Dive into the World of Geometric Thinking
by Patrick Egan
The painting of Saint John the Baptist by Leonardo da Vinci seems to be one of his final paintings. Leonardo depicts John the Baptist with a similar enigmatic smile as the famous Mona Lisa. Yet, there is no background and the hues are dark enough that the viewer struggles to identify the Baptist’s garments. Leonardo poses his subject in such a way that he points upward while looking downward. In many respects, the Baptist pulls us into a contemplation of a spiritual enigma. How does the spiritual relate to the physical?
Why Teaching Strategies Don’t Make You an Expert Teacher
by Kate Parker
John Hattie has changed his mind about the importance of teaching strategies.
Educating the Moral Imagination: The Truth of Beauty
by Benjamin Lockerd
Moral imagination is capable of grasping truth and goodness in ways that move us passionately to live in those objective realities. The answers to the errors of modern times need to be given in philosophy and theology, but it is essential that we also experience the truth imaginatively.
The Critical Link Between Athletics and School Culture
by Mike Roberts
It’s rare that championships are won by talent alone. As sports fans prepare to dive into the college basketball tournament phenomenon known as March Madness, we’re going to hear a lot of punditry surrounding the value of “chemistry,” “locker-room culture,” and “team-first spirit.” Rightly so. But these things don’t just become necessary or valuable at the professional or college level. In reality, they’re part of the essential effort of building a positive culture that begins with K-12 education.