A Generous Curriculum
In The Liberal Arts Tradition, Clark and Jain suggest that early education should be founded upon music and gymnastic, in accordance with the education described by Plato and others who followed him....
View ArticleSeven Liberal Arts
After discussing piety, gymnastic, and music, Clark and Jain finally get to the topic of the liberal arts. They acknowledge what anyone wanting to discuss classical education or the The Liberal Arts...
View ArticleLiberal Art #1—Grammar
I can hardly begin talking about grammar without being reminded of the epiphany I had long ago, from Quintilian, of all people. I was reading an English translation, of course, but he would have been...
View ArticleLiberal Art #2—Dialectic
I really like what Clark and Jain have to say about dialectic in The Liberal Arts Tradition. I really hope you’ll read this book for yourself and read it all. Dialectic encompasses the formalities of...
View ArticleLiberal Art #3—Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the final art of the trivium—the intersection of three roads to excellence in language. In The Liberal Arts Tradition, Clark and Jain treat us to a brief historical view of rhetoric with...
View ArticleLiberal Art #4—Arithmetic
When Clark and Jain get to the quadrivium in The Liberal Arts Tradition, they make a case for the manner in which the mathematical arts of the quadrivium shape the heart and soul of man just as the...
View ArticleLiberal Art #5—Geometry
Next up in the discussion is Geometry. I think this art should feel more comfortable than some others because it shows up on almost every one’s high school transcript. We all did geometry, right?...
View ArticleParents are persons, too
I have written about this before—that parents are persons—but my current reading in Home Education recently underscored how strongly Charlotte Mason felt about this. Not only do parents have the...
View ArticleLiberal Art #6—Astronomy
In The Liberal Arts Tradition, Clark and Jain tell us that The liberal art of astronomy has exerted a profound influence throughout the entire world. I think we can all agree on that! I really like...
View ArticleLiberal Art #7—Music
Music is a liberal art far more powerful and mysterious than most would guess. In The Liberal Arts Tradition, Clark and Jain hasten to let us know that music is not all about singing and instruments....
View ArticleCaution: Kindergarten and the liberal arts
Last week, I wrote a bit about Charlotte Mason’s views of Froebelian kindergarten, and the warnings she brought to bear on that method/system of education. While I wanted to make the point that I did...
View ArticleSeven liberal arts, One long tradition
So, I’ve spent a few weeks looking at all the liberal arts separately, but I can’t move on in the discussion without saying a few words about their integrated nature. I’m reminded again (not by The...
View ArticleDo you want to know the truth?
The authors of The Liberal Arts Tradition have expressed their broad interpretation of classical education with the acronym PGMAPT (pronounced pee-gee-mapped). It stands for Piety, Gymnastic, Music,...
View ArticleNatural Philosophy—ask why, not just how!
I’m not sure you all are as interested in philosophy as I am but I thought I might devote a post each to the three types of philosophy discussed in The Liberal Arts Tradition. Just as a reminder, they...
View ArticleMoral Philosophy—what do you see in the mirror?
In The Liberal Arts Tradition, authors Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain begin the discussion of moral philosophy—the knowledge of man—with a quote from C.S. Lewis’s Abolition of Man. It really helps to anchor...
View ArticleDivine Philosophy—questions are as important as answers.
The final—and also the highest—type of philosophy discussed in The Liberal Arts Tradition is divine philosophy. “Divine philosophy” would be easy to confound with theology, or the special revelation...
View ArticleTheology—elevating education.
The final letter in that long acronym is “T” for theology. (Just as a reminder, PGMAPT stands for piety, gymnastic, music, arts, philosophy, theology.) This is the culmination of the vision that The...
View ArticlePaideia in the principles
In the final chapter of The Liberal Arts Tradition, Clark and Jain spend some time examining the calling and culture of schools. I suspect most of my readers are homeschoolers, not schoolteachers, so...
View ArticleHoping to join or start a Charlotte Mason community?
A new school year is beginning, and lots of new families have taken up Charlotte Mason’s methods for their families. Maybe you are new, and maybe you’re a veteran with two, or five, or fifteen years of...
View ArticleA Few More Considerations (repost)
This post originally appeared on the Charlotte Mason Institute blog, in response to a lengthy critique of Consider This. As it is no longer available there, but the critique itself can be read...
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