Classical Education News & Articles | January 2024
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.
Classical Education Is Human and American, Not Partisan
By Adam M. Carrington | National Review
Classical education is not a threat. Don’t bash it. Let it thrive as a good for our republic.
A New Birth of Leadership
by Andrew Carico | The American Mind
Recovering statesmanship in an age of mediocrity.
Homer and the Poetry of Forgiveness
By Dwight Lindley | Church Life Journal
Forgiveness is a poetic act. I am going to explain and support this claim in various ways, but here at the start, I want to turn to an unlikely source, the ancient and very pagan epic poet Homer.
Jane Austen’s Advice to Instagram Girls
By Colleen Sheehan | Law & Liberty
Social media thrives on the superficiality of unexamined or first impressions—the very problem Jane Austen examines.
Educating Boys for the Arena
by Rachel Alexander Cambre and Giana DePaul | The American Conservative
A Heritage conference points the way forward in righting our education system’s gender imbalance.
Athens, Jerusalem, and Manhattan
by Joshua T. Katz | First Things
If you want to see what Athens has to do with Jerusalem, and with Rome, check out Emet Classical Academy, a Jewish school in Manhattan for grades six to twelve that the Tikvah Fund launched on December 19.
School Choice Is Leading America’s Civic Revival
by Tim Minella | Goldwater Institute
For those citizens who worry about the decline in civic knowledge and patriotism, school choice offers an excellent way to revitalize education for American citizenship.
The Debates Over—and Within—Classical Education
by Maggie Phillips | Tablet
As the educational movement is embraced by the religious right and seen by others as a Trojan horse for Christian nationalism, its leaders seek to transcend political associations
Compulsory Learning Just Does Not Stick
by Joshua Gibbs | CiRCE Institute
A little more than half way through Plato’s Republic, Socrates says something that’s bold, honest, and dispiriting enough to send even the heartiest of high school teachers on a two-day bender: “Compulsory intellectual work never remains in the mind.”
Eva Brann, National Treasure
by Shaun Rieley | The Imaginative Conservative
In a moment when the forces of ideology seem to threaten to overwhelm the voice of sanity and civility, Eva Brann’s imaginative conservatism offers another way—a way rooted in, as she has put it, “talking, reading, writing, listening.”
Teachers are Fed Up with No-Consequence Discipline
by Daniel Buck | Fordham Institute
I used to judge teachers who quit midyear. How could they abandon their students? Didn’t they sign a contract? Could they just really not cut it? Well, now I get it. Midyear quitting may be unseemly, but it’s understandable. When teachers must abide relentless chaos or fear outright brutality, I get it.
Banning Smartphones at Schools: Research Points to Higher Test Scores, Less Anxiety, More Exercise
by Kevin Mahnken | The 74
Teachers in the U.K. will soon be prohibiting mobile phone use during the school day. Experts suggest the U.S. should consider doing the same.
Has School Become Optional?
by Alec MacGillis | The New Yorker
In the past few years, chronic absenteeism has nearly doubled. The fight to get students back in classrooms has only just begun.
To Revitalize Higher Ed, Colleges Should Care About Character
by Jim Gash | Newsweek
Higher education must realize and reclaim its foundational higher purpose, which is to develop and equip people of value and virtue who in turn infuse value and virtue in their communities, countries, and the rest of the world.
To Own the Future, Read Shakespeare
by Paul Ford | Wired
Tech and the liberal arts have always been at war. Don’t assume Silicon Valley will win.
The Place of Economics in a Classical Education
by Clara Piano | Public Discourse
Whatever approach is best for your students at your school, know that you are serving not just the mind but the whole person. To educate the whole person, we must not leave gaps where others may rush in to fill the void. Economics began with the late scholastics and ought to continue today as part of a full classical curriculum.