Lux et Veritas

Episode 6: Should Students Read Pagan Literature in School?

Lux et Veritas: A Light and Truth Podcast by the Classical School of Dallas

After a discussion at teacher training, Katie Lockett and Colin McGee ask why a Christian school reads Virgil, Homer and Rousseau, especially when Augustine called his own reading of Virgil vanity. Colin explains that Augustine’s real complaint was an education that taught style without soul. Through common grace, pagan authors can still show truth and show us what to avoid. The key is building on Scripture first and reading with a guide. They close with advice for parents on letting stories do their work instead of over-moralizing.

In this episode

• What Augustine actually objected to in Confessions
• Common grace and truth in pagan literature
• Reading for both positive and negative space
• Wisdom versus prudence
• CSD’s Bible curriculum, from Morning Assembly to the Vocatio classes
• Why you shouldn’t spell out the moral, from Aslan to Aesop

Mentioned: Augustine’s Confessions, Virgil’s Aeneid, Homer’s Odyssey, Rousseau’s The Social Contract, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aesop’s Fables, Pilgrim’s Progress

Episode 5: Classical Education Beyond Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric

Lux et Veritas: A Light and Truth Podcast by the Classical School of Dallas

Katie Lockett and Colin McGee look at the three stages most people link with classical education. Colin credits Dorothy Sayers’ The Lost Tools of Learning for reviving the Trivium and naming real truths about child development. He also argues that treating the three stages as separate silos, or as the whole definition of “classical,” sells the tradition short. He offers five fuller measures of a classical school: its aim, its content, its aesthetic, its methods and its structure.

In this episode

• What Dorothy Sayers got right, and where she falls short
• Why grammar, logic and rhetoric belong in every grade
• Joshua Gibbs on why the rhetoric stage may come later than we think
• Common shortcut definitions of “classical”
• Five ways to judge a classical school

Mentioned: Dorothy Sayers, Douglas Wilson’s Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, Joshua Gibbs, C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man

Episode 4 - How to “Teach” Virtue

Lux et Veritas: A Light and Truth Podcast by the Classical School of Dallas

Katie Lockett and Colin McGee, Director of Upper School, take on an ancient question: what is virtue, and can it be taught? Colin traces the idea from Plato’s “virtue is knowledge” to Aristotle’s split between intellectual and moral virtue. He contrasts the classical movement’s two camps: one aiming at an elite class, the other aiming at piety and love of God and neighbor. They explore John Frame’s three lenses for judging right and wrong. Then they turn to how moral virtue actually forms, through modeling, habit and stories, and why only the Holy Spirit can finish the work.

In this episode

• Plato, Aristotle and Augustine on virtue
• Intellectual virtues versus moral virtues
• Excellence or piety: two visions for classical education
• John Frame’s normative, situational and existential lenses
• Stories and the moral imagination
• Grumbling, responsibility and the long road of sanctification
• Why virtue can’t be bottled and sold

Mentioned: Plato’s Meno, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, John Frame, Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard address, Junius Johnson

Episode 3 - Affections of a Classical Home Part 3: Loving What Lasts - Practicalities of Changing and Shaping Affections

Lux et Veritas: A Light and Truth Podcast by the Classical School of Dallas

Katie Lockett and Colin McGee, Director of Upper School, close the series with a practical look at forming children’s affections at home. Drawing on Joshua Gibbs’ Love What Lasts, Colin explains why some things are worth enjoying, some are worth striving to love, and some are best avoided. He also shows that affections can be trained in children and in their parents. They finish with concrete habits for the home, grounded in prayer and God’s grace.

In this episode

• Why “morally neutral” habits still shape what we love
• The common, the uncommon and the mediocre
• How to learn to love something, from coffee to The Odyssey
• Good books before great books, and starting younger than you think
• Scripture, screens, music, reading and the art on your walls
• How parents can grow alongside their kids

Mentioned: Augustine, Joshua Gibbs’ Love What Lasts, John Senior’s list of 1,000 Good Books, The Odyssey, A Tale of Two Cities, Dante

Affections of a Classical Home Part 2: Three Legs of the Stool - Church, Home, and School

Lux et Veritas: A Light and Truth Podcast by the Classical School of Dallas

Katie Lockett and Colin McGee, Director of Upper School, continue the series by asking where the church fits among church, home and school, and why it matters. Colin explains liturgy as the rhythm of habits that shapes what we love, often more deeply than teaching alone. He makes the case for bringing children into adult worship, where they can see their parents pray, sing and kneel. When church comes first, home and school are renewed by it each week.

In this episode

• What liturgy is, and why every church has one
• How repeated habits shape our affections
• The case for bringing kids into “big church”
• Whether children’s ministries give kids enough depth
• Why church belongs at the top of the order of church, home and school
• Deciding once to be the kind of family that goes to church every Sunday

Next time: Practical ways to form your child’s affections at home and at school

Episode 1: Affections of the Classical Home Lux et Veritas: A Light and Truth Podcast by the Classical School of Dallas

Katie Lockett talks with Colin McGee, Director of Upper School, about how to make a classical Christian education last. Colin argues that the goal isn’t to raise elite leaders but to form Christians who will take up their cross and follow Christ. Much of that formation happens at home, through what a family pays attention to and learns to love. This episode opens a three-part series on how home, church, and school shape a child’s loves.

In this episode

• What education is for, through John Senior’s poem “The Other Window”
• What “affections” are and why every family has them
• Why overabundance makes apathy the temptation of our age
• The danger of leaving formation to the school or church
• How home culture decides whether students love great books or are bored by them

Works Mentioned: John Senior, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Pride and Prejudice, The Iliad

Next time: The church’s role in forming our children’s affections