Classical Education News & Articles | April 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.
Amid the Pandemic, a Classical Education Boom
by Kevin Mahnken
What if the next big school trend is 2,500 years old?
Religious Public Schools? A Looming Legal Showdown Over Faith-Based Charters
by Andy Smarick
If every other nonprofit is allowed to run a public charter school, isn’t it anti-religious discrimination to exclude faith-based orgs?
Classical Education’s Woke Co-Morbidity
by Matthew Freeman
The classical education movement has caught the wokeness bug. It is fighting back, at least for the moment, but I fear symptoms will recur until the patient is terminal.
Diverse Classics and Whole Persons
by Jeremy Tate
Matthew Freeman raises important questions about the relationship between classical education and diversity in his article, “Classical Education’s Woke Co-Morbidity.” He paints with too broad of a brush, however, when he implies that many in the movement to restore classical education, myself included, have been “immunocompromised” by woke theories. Hardly.
As Black Educators, We Endorse Classical Studies
by Angel Adams Parham and Anika Prather
The growth in K-12 classical schools has ignited a frenzy of concern on the political left over race, politics and curriculums.
The Ends of “Mere Classical” Schools
by Clifford Humphrey
A recent dust-up in the classical education world is a healthy conversation that has been coming for a while. I welcome it, and I see in it a parallel to the issues recently brought up at American Reformer regarding “mere Christian” colleges. I want to suggest that “mere classical” is likewise not going to be a sufficient identity in the years ahead.
The Christian Liberal-Arts School at the Heart of the Culture Wars
by Emma Green
Conservatives like Ron DeSantis see Hillsdale College as a model for education nationwide.
Studying Politics without Politicizing: A Response to Rob Jackson
by Kathleen O’Toole
The world of classical education is relatively small, and when influential figures within our community speak out, their voices tend to carry. Rob Jackson's recent comments in The New Yorker about Hillsdale College draw a false distinction between the work of Hillsdale College in classical education and the work of Great Hearts. Based on his statements, it appears that he believes the work of Hillsdale is narrowly political, while considering the work of Great Hearts to be more academic and serious by comparison.
Classical Education is Not at the Heart of the Culture Wars
by Jesse Hake
Emma Green, a staff writer at The New Yorker focused on education and academia, wrote a story entitled “The Christian Liberal-Arts School at the Heart of the Culture Wars” that appeared online yesterday. . . . Without analyzing Green’s reporting or her account of Hillsdale College, I want to clarify that classical education itself obviously cannot be “at the heart of the Culture Wars.” While it is difficult for Americans to think about anything outside of a culture war framework, I suggest that the classical tradition of human formation is something irreducible to such categories.
Classical Schools for America’s Enlightened Age
by Rachel Alexander Cambre
Are Enlightenment principles responsible for the decline—or the growth—of classical education?
The Joys and Rigors of a Classical Education
by Danyela Souza Egorov
Serving a largely low-income student body, a New York City charter school has flourished by emphasizing proven pedagogical approaches.
The End of the English Major
by Nathan Heller
Enrollment in the humanities is in free fall at colleges around the country. What happened?
The Real Reasons Why the English Department Died
by Adam Ellwanger
I’ve worked as a professor in an English department for the last 15 years, and I spent the 10 years prior to that as a student in English. Over the course of that time there was never a period when the English major wasn’t in decline. For the first half of the 20th century, English departments occupied a critical and celebrated position in the American university. But by the time of Sputnik and the beginning of the space race, the field had begun a long slide into obscurity.
A Renaissance from Below
by Ted Hadzi-Antich Jr.
A recent article by Nathan Heller in the New Yorker paints a rather bleak picture of a higher-education landscape in which the humanities are eclipsed by STEM-focused career training. . . . I’ve been teaching political science and interdisciplinary humanities at a community college in Austin, Texas for thirteen years, and I couldn’t recognize my own experience in Heller’s account.
Why the Liberal Arts Matter
by Bishop Robert Barron
A recent article in The New Yorker titled “The End of the English Major” revealed that during the past decade, the study of English and history at the collegiate level has fallen by a full third.
Do the liberal arts still matter? Why should people study them? That’s what I discuss with Brandon Vogt on today’s episode of “The Word on Fire Show.”
Education and the English Language
by Caroline Breashears
As George Orwell observed in 1946, most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way. In “Politics and the English Language,” he sought to persuade readers that something could and should be done about it. Today most readers would agree, though we are divided on the solution.
Why Kids Aren’t Falling in Love With Reading
by Katherine Marsh
These days, when I explain to a fellow parent that I write novels for children in fifth through eighth grades, I am frequently treated to an apologetic confession: “My child doesn’t read, at least not the way I did.” I know exactly how they feel—my tween and teen don’t read the way I did either.
The War on Phonics Is Crippling the Next Generation
by Daniel B. Coupland
When it comes to the world of literacy, phonics has long been deemed a “political” venture contrived by Republicans. As a result, an increasing number of American education programs now reject it outright — to the detriment of literacy education and K–12 students everywhere.
Dramatic New Evidence That Building Knowledge Can Boost Comprehension and Close Gaps
by Natalie Wexler
A long-term study found that a content-rich curriculum closed the test-score gap between low- and high-income students.
At Long Last, E.D. Hirsch, Jr. Gets His Due: New Research Shows Big Benefits from Core Knowledge
by Robert Pondiscio
A remarkable long-term study by University of Virginia researchers led by David Grissmer demonstrates unusually robust and beneficial effects on reading achievement among students in schools that teach E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge sequence. The working paper offers compelling evidence to support what many of us have long believed: Hirsch has been right all along about what it takes to build reading comprehension. And we might be further along in raising reading achievement, closing achievement gaps, and broadly improving education outcomes if we’d been listening to him for the last few decades.
Brave Learning: The Virtue of Fortitude in Education
by Christopher Perrin
What makes a man brave? Something good that he loves and wishes to keep or attain.
That is the simple answer that comes to us from the classical tradition. Fortitude (also called bravery, courage) as a virtue is not the love of display or the enjoyment of pain and suffering. Nor is fortitude the absence of fear. A brave man may fear death and yet be willing to face and endure death for something he holds dear like his friend, his family, or his country.
Georgia’s Laudable Addition of Great Works to Its English Standards
by Mark Bauerlein
The Georgia Department of Education has released a new version of proposed English language arts standards for public comment, and they contain a big surprise.
Real Talk about That First Year
by Jennifer Mulvey
I have wanted to be a teacher since I was in kindergarten. I remember countless times as a child forcing my little sister to be my student as I played school in our family room. I have always loved working with children and am excited whenever I get to share some new insight with them. The night before my first day of real teaching, I could hardly get any sleep I was so excited and nervous. For those first few days, everything was like how I had dreamed. My students were all eager and excited to learn. I had prepped out every question I would ask in every detailed lesson plan I had written for that first week. Everything was going splendidly. And then, week three hit.
How Shakespeare Changed Everything
by Daniel Hannan
The First Folio at 400