By Christine Norvell, Guest Author Since we’ve moved to Siloam Springs, I’ve spent plenty of time watching my cat happily climb the old dogwood tree by our garage. Bark chips off as he climbs higher. He often looks back at me as if he wants to know whether he should jump or keep going on his elevated scratching post. It brings to mind the wonder of tree … Continue reading Climbing Trees
By Jenny Crockett, Guest Author “Pupils develop a well-disciplined attitude toward the ‘hard work principle’ in terms of heavy, energy-output type of activities.” This is a quote from Stan LeProtti’s program guide for the La Sierra High School PE program. He expected his students to do hard things. He took a whole man approach to physical education to produce students who were both physically and physiologically fit, … Continue reading The Case for Classical P.E.: A Practical Application for Upper School
By Dr. Brad Dolloff, Guest Author As head of a classical Christian school, I could not be more thrilled my oldest child has started a career as a classical Christian school teacher. He graduated from School of the Ozarks, the school I helped found on the campus of College of the Ozarks, went on to study at John Brown University (where he studied under Jessica … Continue reading Letter to a First Year Teacher
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 Christine Norvell, Guest Author I confess. I have asked students to make revisions to their essays. In fact, I may have casually said, “You just have some light revision work,” or “This needs heavy revision.” It sounds flippant to my ears now. Trite. But those comments all beg the same question—what does it really mean to revise our writing? One of my former students … Continue reading Re-Visioning Our Writing
By Sara Osborne[1] As a college writing instructor, I have noticed a disturbing trend in my students’ ability to choose and use words appropriately. These same students also appear increasingly unable to comprehend critical vocabulary used in non-fiction writing. The unfortunate result of these challenges is an inability to contribute to class discussions on important ideas and the inevitable struggle with articulating a coherent response … Continue reading Fighting “The Death of Words” (Explorations in the Art of Grammar Series #3)
I was reading an article earlier this spring[1] that talked about literacy and the importance of content knowledge and vocabulary for understanding. The article revisited a 1988 published study by Recht and Leslie, oftentimes referred to as “the baseball experiment.” In short, the article, and the study by Recht and Leslie, addressed how after reading a passage about a half-inning of baseball, “good readers” who … Continue reading Words in Context (Explorations in the Art of Grammar Series #1)
Hello friends! It’s been a while since we have posted articles on here, especially with any frequency, and we wanted to reach out and give you an update. We apologize for the long silence, but we backed off for some good reasons. Why the limited content for two years? COVID-19 had a significant impact on us personally, forcing us into a heavier administrative load at … Continue reading An Update from The Classical Thistle
The stresses of the past calendar year have been numerous. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic colliding with regular responsibilities, many of us have found ourselves somewhat disoriented. Shifting priorities, schedules, and communities have forced creative personal and professional pursuits to the bottom shelf, and we’re struggling to find a way towards normalcy—much less excellence—again. Mental, emotional, and even physical energy is in short … Continue reading Little by Little
Story is a powerful thing. As educators, we know this to be true. In fact, we endeavor to read as many good, true, and beautiful stories to our young students as possible during the grammar stage. Line after line, page after page, we invite them into the stories we hope will inform their understanding for years to come. Much of the time, we read to … Continue reading The Power of Story in Connecting With Teens
“My days were spent in close attention, that I might more speedily master the language; and I may boast that I improved more rapidly than the Arabian, who understood very little and conversed in broken accents, whilst I comprehended and could imitate almost every word that was spoken. “While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters as it was taught to … Continue reading Can Virtue Be Taught?
After several busy weeks filled with end-of-summer travel, my husband and I hit the track yesterday for our first jog in a while—and it was hard! I’ve been a runner for about twenty years now. Those two decades have seen me train for long-distances races, jog slowly with a double stroller, break PR’s, and nurse numerous injuries. My running has changed with seasons of life … Continue reading Perseverance Will Have Its Reward
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