Classical Education News & Articles | January 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.
Return to the Classics
by Jeremy Tate
An astonishing thing is happening at traditional, faith-based colleges. While national college enrollment has decreased by 13 percent over the last decade, these institutions have demonstrated that it is possible to emerge from COVID, economic recession, and a smaller national pool of applicants with record-breaking enrollment.
Classical Education Gets A Renaissance Of Its Own
by Angela Morabito
Classical education made headlines this month when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tapped six new members of the Board of Trustees at the New College of Florida and charged them with remaking the college as a classical liberal arts institution.
DeSantis Aims to Turn Public College Into ‘Hillsdale of the South’
by Josh Moody
“It is our hope that New College of Florida will become Florida’s classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South,” DeSantis chief of staff James Uthmeier told The Daily Caller.
How the pandemic ushered in a new era of hybrid homeschooling
by Greg Toppo
Rosario Reilly didn’t set out to be an educational publisher—she just wanted to give her kids a classical education that respected their Catholic faith.
Has Academia Ruined Literary Criticism?
by Merve Emre
Of the character sketches that the English satirist Samuel Butler wrote in the mid-seventeenth century—among them “A Degenerate Noble,” “A Huffing Courtier,” “A Small Poet,” and “A Romance Writer”—the most recognizable today is “A Modern Critic.” He is a contemptible creature: a tyrant, a pedant, a crackpot, and a snob; “a very ungentle Reader”; “a Corrector of the Press gratis”; “a Committee-Man in the Commonwealth of letters”; “a Mountebank, that is always quacking of the infirm and diseased Parts of Books.”
Logos in Savannah
by Joshua T. Katz
Joseph Conlon looked out over the 24 students in his care, said “Let’s begin!” and launched into a discussion of the rhetoric and imagery of the depiction of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in chapter 11 of the Gospel of John. Not remarkable in itself—except that nearly every word Conlon spoke for 90 packed minutes, starting with arxōmetha (“Let’s begin!”), was in John’s language: ancient Greek.
The Vital Importance of Teaching Civics
by Daniel Helms
When my teaching career began nearly 20 years ago, I considered our Civics course a straightforward, cut-and-dry course. I would teach the structure of the U.S. Constitution, how each branch of government works, and principles such as checks and balances. In the end, the students would have the academic knowledge to understand the society in which they lived. It was almost as if I were preparing them to pass the Citizenship test. I did my duty to promote civic knowledge with my students.
Is White Supremacy a Bug or a Feature of Classical Christian Education?
by Jessica Hooten Wilson
White supremacy has zero place in classical Christian education. It must be rooted out with the same force with which abolitionists sought to purge America of the evil of slavery. We must separate ourselves from those who knowingly support any form of racism and misogyny, while also undergoing an honest self-examination in the process.
Wokeness Is Coming For Classical Christian Education
by David Goodwin
Classical Christian education is not ‘racist’ or ‘misogynist.’ Its texts address the universal truths about the human condition.
The Problem Facing Liberal Arts Education Is Not Subject Matter—It’s Application
by Christopher Rim
In 1971, Louis G. Geiger wrote in the American Association of University Professors Bulletin: “As faculties and administrators become more and more uncertain about the value of knowledge for its own sake and about what a curriculum should include, the colleges’ dependence on the whims of their late teenager clientele is not only increased, but the very reason for the continued existence of the liberal arts college is being whittled away.”
Assessment for Classical Schools, Part 1: A Philosophy of Leisure
by Carrie Eben
For students to focus on loving the right things, they need assessment practices which align with a schole education, or an education at leisure.
Yes, we still need the humanities
by Adam Carrington
The Broadway musical Avenue Q includes a song titled “What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?” The song answers its own question with a comedic lament: “Four years of college / And plenty of knowledge / Have earned me this useless degree! / I can't pay the bills yet / 'Cause I have no skills yet.” While many college students may not know the song, they’re certainly singing along with its sentiment.
The Seven Pillars of Western Civilization
by Joseph Pearce
This past week I gave a lecture on “Why Shakespeare Matters” at Colorado Christian University. In the dinner prior to the talk, the president of the university asked me to name what I considered to be the six foundational texts of Western civilization. Scurrying and scrambling to pull from the top of my head six titles that could plausibly fit the bill, I thought that such an exercise might provide inspiration for a thought-provoking essay.
Homeschool Students Trounce Public And Private School Peers In Rigorous Standardized Test
by Ben Zeisloft
Homeschool students excel beyond their peers in private, charter, and public schools on the Classic Learning Test, a rigorous standardized college entrance exam oriented toward classically educated students.