A glimpse inside Hillsdale College's network of classical schools across the country.
At the start of each school year, I pose the question to my students: why do we study history? Each year their answers become more thoughtful and nuanced. They begin with the standard “so we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past” and different variations of “because it is interesting and good” to know history… Continue reading History and Humility
There is one thing, though, which never fails to bring real consolation to me in moments of stress, doubt, or wondering “what is it all for?” The obvious answer, for many teachers, is, of course, their students and the relationships they build with them over the years. This is true of myself as well, but recently my thoughts have dwelt on the everyday interactions, the words my students say, the things they notice, and the things they speak surreptitiously to each other in the back of class when they think, foolishly, that I cannot hear them.
Petrarch, the fourteenth century Italian monk, sometimes referred to as the “father of humanism”, famously wrote a series of letters to classical writers such as Cicero, Seneca, Homer, and Socrates. These writers having been dead for more than a thousand years at the time, Petrarch didn't expect a response. But he wrote nevertheless because he… Continue reading Why Our Students Write in their Books
The Classical Classroom 