I’ve found that life presents a series of bizarre paradoxes. One of the more profound of these paradoxes is the desire of everyone to fit in. We all want to belong to something, to feel at home in it—whether it’s a family, a group of friends, a club. But simultaneously, we each like to conceive of ourselves as unique, not like anyone else. We want … Continue reading On Rearranging My Classroom (Mundane Meditations Series)
By Albert Cheng, Guest Author Albert Cheng is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Education Reform in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas, where he teaches courses in education policy and philosophy. He is the director of the Classical Education Research Lab, where he conducts research on the effects of classical education on character formation. He is a Senior Fellow at … Continue reading You Should Teach Poetry: Science Demonstrates It
In his collection of poetry on loss and lament, Poet-Priest Malcolm Guite offers the following comparison of the use of a Drone in some forms of music to the experience of Loss in our lives. He says, “[“Drone” is] the word that describes that continuous repetitive sound we hear in some early forms of music, especially the Gaelic lament. The drone of the bagpipe grounds … Continue reading In Assigning Seniors Somber Sonnets
Most of us in the Midwest found ourselves hiding indoors from winter weather this week. While we curled up beside families and fireplaces, the snow just kept falling. City maintenance trucks rounded our neighborhood repeatedly like cars on a racetrack, but to no avail. With temperatures hovering in the single digits and teens, there was little opportunity for melting, and the snow kept us home … Continue reading Waiting for the Sun
At the 2012 ETS Annual Meeting in Milwaukee, Stephen Dempster of Crandall University presented a paper entitled “Resurrection on the Third Day in Accordance with the Scriptures.” As suggested by the title, Dempster set out to explain what Paul may have been thinking when he said that Christ’s resurrection on the third day was “in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3). Dempster ultimately concluded … Continue reading Forty Days of Faithful Waiting (An Ash Wednesday Reflection)
Merry Christmas from The Classical Thistle! We pray that you will enjoy this season with your family and friends and remember that God has become flesh and that our Savior will come again. I wanted to share with you a Christmas poem that I performed for our church’s Christmas Eve services. The goal of the poem is to put the Christmas story in a whole … Continue reading The Promised King Has Come
By Ian Mosley, Instructor of Latin, School of the Ozarks “But isn’t the whole point of our movement that we already are doing things the way they were done two centuries ago?” The way we describe our own movement can sometimes be confusing. It is sometimes framed as a “recovery” of a way of education that has been lost, which would seem to imply that … Continue reading A Classical Christian School—Two Centuries Ago
“O race of men, born to fly heavenward, how can a breath of wind make you fall back?” The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio Canto XII, lines 95-96 The above lines reiterate the oft-repeated and self-incriminating truth that the heart of man is corrupt, quickly returning to the entanglements of sin (Heb. 12.1). The greatest enemies of man are the sin planted deep in their hearts (Jer. … Continue reading The Adulteress: Guarding Your Students From Her Destruction
By Christine Norvell I found when I first visited with Dr. Robert Woods by phone in 2011 that he had a winning way. I was simply calling to learn more about the Great Books graduate programs at Faulkner University in Montgomery, Alabama. I told myself I was just investigating, but by the time our conversation ended, I found myself agreeing with his pivotal question, “When … Continue reading Book Review: Dwelling on Delphi: Thinking Christianly about the Liberal Arts
(Spoiler warning: I will discuss aspects of the most recent Star Wars film as if my readers have seen it or simply don’t care if I ruin it, so if you wish to see the film and not know what happens before you go, stop reading, go see the movie, and come back and read this afterwards) I have undertaken to write an apology for … Continue reading An Apology for Star Wars
2018 is almost upon us, and it would be sad to forget the best of 2017 on The Classical Thistle. Here are the top five posts from this past year. What Scares Me About Classical Education In the most popular article of 2017, Josh Dyson describes the fear that grips him with passing on classical education to our children. Insightful and worth a read … Continue reading Top 5 Posts of 2017
My boss at School of the Ozarks is a big Lonesome Dove fan, so despite my admittedly poor knowledge of westerns, I have a good many lines of this movie memorized on account of their frequent usage around school. One of my favorites is a line by Woodrow Call after a particularly violent scene leaves some beat-up bad guys and a crowd of stunned villagers. … Continue reading What I Can’t Tolerate In A Student
The Classical Thistle 