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About our Guest
Karen Glass is part of the Advisory of AmblesideOnline. She has four children, ages 13 to 27, who have been homeschooled using Charlotte Mason’s methods from beginning to end. Karen has been studying and writing about Charlotte Mason and Classical Education for over twenty years and has written the popular books Consider This: Charlotte Mason and The Classical Tradition, Know and Tell: The Art of Narration, In Vital Harmony, and her newest book A Thinking Love: Studies from Charlotte Mason's Home Education.
Online Consulting and Courses with Karen
Karen also serves as a consultant for our podcast support team, Beautiful Teaching: Consulting in Classical Education.
She leads a book study for our listeners through our online sessions.
Click the links to register for her online Book Studies
January, 2023- Norms & Nobility
March, 2023- Know & Tell: The Art of Narration
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Show Notes
Karen has lead book studies with Norms & Nobility in the past and is well-versed in this seminal book. We discuss why this book is so important and what exactly Hicks is inferrring with his title. We discuss Adrienne's favorite passage in the book and how it impacts our teaching methods.
Resources and Books & Mentioned In This Episode
Norms & Nobility by David Hicks
Consider This by Karen Glass
Plato's Republic
Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis
For the Children's Sake by Susan Sshaeffer-Macauley
How Then Shall We Live? by Francis Schaeffer
A Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason
On-line Courses with Beautiful Teaching Consultants: https://beautifulteaching.coursestorm.com/
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Credits:
Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel
Logo Art: Anastasiya CF
Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic
© 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved
About Our Guest
"Autumn Kern is a wife, mother, and keeper of an actual commonplace book. When she was twenty-one, she sat under a tree with a man who told her the woman he married would homeschool his children. Handsome as he was, she didn’t anticipate being that woman, but here she is with three little ones in tow, and, as in all God’s providential ways, it has been the greatest gift" (TheCommonplacePodcast.com).
Autumn writes, produces, and hosts The Commonplace Podcast and Youtube channel.
Consider joining a community of Charlotte Mason mother teachers (and Trae) and supporting Autumn's work through Patreon here.
Notes
In this episode, Autumn Kern shares with Trae some of her journey from discovering classical education through an internet quiz taken on a lark to becoming someone who delights in reading Plato and Aristotle and putting into practice the educational philosophy of Charlotte Mason. While Autumn has grown in knowledge and reading abilities, she has not lost touch with the common things of life, including common people. If anything, she finds joy in being a "common mom" called to join The Great Conversation, share in fine culture, and relate rightly to all things in the pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. And better yet, she gets to share all that with Mr. Kern and their little kernels.
Some Topics and Ideas in this Episode Include:
Resources and Books Mentioned / Referenced
About Our Guest
Margarita Mooney Suarez (Clayton)* is an Associate Professor in the Department of Practical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. She founded The Scala Foundation in 2016 and continues to serve as Scala’s Executive Director. Scala Foundation’s vision is to restore meaning and purpose to American culture by focusing on the intersection of artists (culture creators), liberal arts education, and religion (liturgy, personal prayer, theology).
Notes
In this episode, Trae and Margarita Mooney Suarez (Clayton) take a closer look at the philosophical underpinning of modern education.
The late American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer John Dewey maintains a massive influence on how contemporary schools and families think about learning and the role of the school and its teachers. Dewey’s philosophy of education, while seemingly positive on some points, is ultimately grounded in the denial of the spiritual needs of students and a rejection of tradition. As a result, Dewey's views have contributed to the rise of beliefs and practices that effectively turn teachers into little more than bureaucratic therapeutic reformers, cut off from tradition with little to no approaches to teaching outside the scientific method applied across subjects.
Today, most schools strip students of traditional beliefs and practices and expect them to build a future on no sure foundation. If we want to undo the influence of Dewey and restore a common unity between the church, the household, and the school, we will need some help. Enter Jacques Maritain and Luigi Giussani.
* Margarita married David Clayton after this recording and now shares his last name.
Some topics and ideas in this episode include:
Resources and Books & Mentioned In This Episode
Margarita’s Foundation and Books
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Credits:
Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel
Logo Art: Anastasiya CF
Music: Used with permission. cellists: Sara Sant' Ambrogio and Lexine Feng; pianist: Alyona Waldo
© 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved
About our Guests
Dax Stokes is the host of the award-winning podcast "The Vampire Historian," and a frequent lecturer on the topics of Dracula and vampire folklore. As an academic librarian in the North Texas area, he has organized two symposia on vampire studies featuring scholars from across the United States. His published works on Dracula can be found in IndieJudge Magazine, the Fantastika Journal, Vamped.org, and at thevampirehistorian.com.
Melissa Smith-Lauro is a corporate writer and content strategist who taught literature & composition at the university level for eight years. She’s the indefatigable mother of four sons who play baseball and attend in-person classes at the Flint Academy in Arlington, TX, and online classes with Miss Esther’s Integrated Homeschool Curriculum through the Classical Learning Resource Center. For fun, she works with local creatives to produce collaborative, beautiful, story-driven multimedia children’s content. Melissa is a proponent of Charlotte Mason principles, classical education content, and Montessori education methods. She is a gentle parenting enthusiast and an advocate for ADHD and autism awareness, accommodation, and inclusion in classical schools.
Show Notes
Trae and Adrienne invited Dax and Melissa to discuss the two most famous monsters in gothic fiction literature, Frankenstein and Dracula. The big ideas in these classics help us wrestle with what it means to be a human being through exploring the rich stories of these two monsters. What is a monster, and why should we read these books? Should students in classical schools read them? Join us as we explore these two famous monsters and their authors.
Be sure to check out The Vampire Historian podcast with Dax Stokes too!
Movies Mentioned
Books mentioned
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Credits:
Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel
Logo Art: Anastasiya CF
Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic
Special Music: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 561; Public Domain classics sourced from the: https://archive.org/.
© 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved
About Our Guest
Ferdi McDermott studied Languages at Edinburgh University before a decade in Catholic publishing in London. In 2002 he founded Chavagnes International College, an international Catholic school for boys (www.chavagnes.org). He now combines leadership of the school with a lectureship in English literature at the Vendée Catholic university, ICES (www.ices.fr). He is pursuing a doctorate in Education through the University of Buckingham.
Notes
In this episode, Adrienne and Trae join Headmaster Ferdi Mcdermott on a journey through the French countryside and into the historic site of a Roman villa turned thirteenth-century monastery, turned junior seminary now operating as a Catholic boarding school for boys that offers a classical Christian education for students from all over the world. To support this good work, please visit their website here.
Some topics and ideas in this episode include:
Resources and Books & Mentioned In This Episode
Ferdi’s Favorite Quote (Corrected):
“To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”
- St. John Henry Newman
Don’t miss Mr. McDermott singing a hymn in honor of St. John Henry Newman at the end!
Please Support us on Patreon.
_________________________________________________________
Credits:
Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel
Logo Art: Anastasiya CF
Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic
© 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved
About our Guest:
Dr. Matthew Post Assistant Professor of Humanities and Associate Director, Saint Ambrose Center for Catholic Liberal Education and Culture at the University of Dallas. He has spent his career teaching the Great Books of the Western tradition, having worked in Canada, Japan and Slovakia in addition to the U.S. In the Slovak Republic, he had the privilege to build a Great Books program at a school whose mission was to renew classical education after decades of communist rule had obscured the country’s history and traditions. His research explores how best to understand and promote virtue, service and leadership through education. His academic interests include the ancient Greeks, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, the Enlightenment, the American Founding and German Idealism.
Show Notes
The art of teaching encompasses freedom which allows for students to rest in a state of wonder. If we allow students to enjoy the ideas that they are learning, it captures the essence of teaching with beauty as the center of the lesson. Beauty is not just about a master teacher conducting a symphony, but about all the teachers and the spirit of the school working in community because beauty has form and unity.
As Dr. Post unpacks the transcendentals (truth, goodness, and beauty). He explains that If a soul is disordered, the “good” helps to reorder the soul in order to know beauty. Dr. Post also explores where order comes from. The activity of making sense of an idea leads us to commune with or engage with truths that are unchanging. He builds upon these ideas and how they operate through good teaching.
The episode closes discussing the importance of the poetic Homer texts, and how they point us towards what true forgiveness looks like.
Some topics in this episode include:
Books & Resources In This Episode
The Ethics of Beauty by Timothy Patitsas
The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer
Platonic Texts:
Favorite Quote & A book that is neglected:
Quote: "I have kissed the hands that slew my children" - Homer
A neglected work that is worth looking at: The Captives (a play about slavery) by a Roman comedian, Plautus
Please Support us on Patreon
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Credits:
Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel
Logo Art: Anastasiya CF
Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic
© 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved
About Our Guest
Daniel Olushola is the founder and former headmaster of Reformation Wall School. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from Covenant University and was trained in Business Management and Entrepreneurship by African Management Initiate (AMI), Kenya, and Global Business Foundation, Nigeria.
Daniel Olushola is reforming education in Nigeria. What started as a small gathering in a two-bedroom apartment has grown into a thriving classical Christian school in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria.
In our interview, we observed that Daniel constantly uses one phrase throughout our conversation: "I'm still learning." We are delighted that Daniel and his staff have taken on the task of learning and bringing classical education to their part of the world. We hope you are encouraged by hearing the story of Reformation Wall School. Please visit the school's website here if you want to see more and support this good work.
Some topics and ideas in this episode include:
Resources Mentioned In This Episode
If you want to support the work at Reformation Wall School, please consider sponsoring a student. Read more about how to become a sponsor here.
If you would like to discuss sending books, supplies, or other means of support, please contact Reformation Wall School through their website here.
Credits:
Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel
Logo Art: Anastasiya CF
Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic
© 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved
About our Guest:
Dr. Angel Parham is Associate Professor of Sociology and senior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. Her area is historical sociology, where she engages in research and writing that examine the past in order to better understand how to live well in the present and envision wisely for the future. Her research and teaching are inspired by classical philosophies of living and learning that emphasize the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty. She shares this love of history and of classical learning through Nyansa Classical Community, an educational non-profit focused on K-12 students which provides lower and upper school curricula in the humanities to schools and homeschools. Parham is the author The Black Intellectual Tradition: Reading Freedom in Classical Literature, published with Classical Academic Press (2022). She is also the President of the Board of Academic Advisors for the Classic Learning Test (CLT) which takes an approach to academic testing that seeks to reconnect knowledge and virtue. Parham completed her B.A. in sociology at Yale University and her M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
If you would like to volunteer or write for Nyansa Classical Community, email Angel. [email protected] or visit Nyansa Classical Community here.
Show Notes
Dr. Paham discusses her Christian outreach through Nyansa Classical Community (a non-profit Classical after-school program). Nyansa works alongside schools to help them give beautiful classical texts in public schools for the children who stay for after-school care. We also dive into the debate between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois in the eduation of African-Americans. We also discuss "What is a liberal arts eduation and why does it matter?" The origins of "liberal" means that it is freeing and to truly flourish.
Some topics in this episode include:
Books In This Episode
The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Omeros by Derek Walcott
Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington
Musicans in the Black Tradition
Joseph Bologne
Opera Créole
Book she wishes she had read earlier
The Republic by Plato
Please Support us on Patreon
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Credits:
Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel
Logo Art: Anastasiya CF
Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic
© 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved
About our Guest:
Dr. Richard Ferrier was born April 18th 1948, Berkeley California, married wife Kathyrn 1972, 8 children, 9 grandchildren. He is currently a faculty member with Thomas Aquinas College (1978-present).
His most recent book is
The Declaration of America,
Our Principles in Thought and Action, published by St. Augustine's Press.
Show Notes
Dr. Ferrier is a true sage in classical education and his wisdom shines in this discussion. Hearing from his heart as a dad and grandparent was an absolute blessing. This interview was an absolute delight. We jumped from beautiful topic to beautiful topic. Dr. Ferrier and Trae shared several personal stories and especially discuss the upbringing of boys during several various points in this episode. The bullet point summary, as well as the book list, provides a good snap shot of the depth and breadth of this conversation. He wisely said "We live in a world of riches, why should we waste our minds?"
Some topics in this episode include:
Books & Resources In This Episode
Mother Goose
Dr. Seuss (The Cat in the Hat)
Ogden Nash
The Declaration of Independence
The Constitution of the United States
Edward Lear's Book of Nonsense
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
Homer's Illiad and Odyssey
Lincolns' Speeches and Euclid's Elements
"John Brown's Body" by Stephen Vincent Benét
"By the Waters if Babylon" by Stephen Vincent Benét
"The Devil and Daniel Webster" by Stephen Vincent Benét
"The Destruction of Sennacherib" by Lord Byron
The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
I Saw Three Ships by Elizabeth Goudge
Landmark Books
Tolkien Trilogy
Faust
Pensées by Blaise Pascal
Dostoevsky
"Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse
"The Glass Bead Game" by Hermann Hesse
"Beneath the Wheel" by Hermann Hesse
Calvin Coolidge's Speech on The Declaration of Independence: Lecture by Dr. Ferrier
Movies
Gettysburg
John Adams
Ken Burn's Civil War series
Casablanca
Favorite Quote
Virgil when he is looking at the destruction of his home. "sunt lacrimae rerum"--- Tears for things
Please Support us on Patreon
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Credits:
Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel
Logo Art: Anastasiya CF
Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic
© 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved
About our Guest: Steve Mittwede, PhD, EdS
Dr. Mittwede is privileged to be a teacher of Earth Science at Randolph School in Huntsville (Rocket City!), Alabama, after having taught at two great classical schools in Texas for the past seven years. Heartily committed to lifelong learning, his most recent degree was an EdS in Educational Leadership from Columbia International University (CIU), following degrees in geology from The College of William and Mary (BS) and the University of South Carolina (MS and PhD), the last two while concurrently working as a full-time mineral resources geologist for the South Carolina Geological Survey. During that time in South Carolina, he married Dana, and they were blessed with four sons in close succession – all now grown, married, and raising their own broods (13 grandchildren and counting!). Steve also has an MA in intercultural studies from CIU and an MTh in theology from Union School of Theology/University of South Wales (UK). With his family, Steve lived for 23 years in Ankara, Turkey where he worked as an educator, academic researcher, consulting geologist, and scientific/technical editor. His main research “squeeze” over the last few years has been the great Peripatetic, Theophrastus, a paragon of scholarly virtues that are especially applicable in science education.
Show Notes
Adrienne interviews master teacher, Dr. Steve Mittwede on the art of teaching science. As an expert in the classroom, Steve brings practical ideas for teachers to consider for good, truth-driven instruction. He discusses in detail how to help students use good language (grammar mode of the trivium) to help them in habits of attending and defining their observations. We also discuss the truth pursuits around the unity of knowledge and how important this is to the foundation of integerated instruction. If truth is a foundation to classical education, then integrating all the "subjects" together ought to matter! His Three Realms of Knowing is a construct he developed about 20 years ago showing students that everything fits together.
Some topics in this episode include:
Books & Resources In This Episode
Aristotle's Metaphysics
"Learning Scholarly Virtues from Theaphrastus" by Dr. Mittwede, published by SCL
Opus Majus by Roger Bacon
Poems for Science class
Hymn before Sun-rise, in the Vale of Chamouni By Samuel Taylor Coleridge
I Am Like a Slip of Comet by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Quotes that Dr. Mittwede uses in his science classes
"Truth, like gold, is not be obtained by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold."- Leo Tolstoy
"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."- Jack London
Please Support us on Patreon
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Credits:
Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel
Logo Art: Anastasiya CF
Music: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic
© 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved
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