In more and more Classical Conversations communities, sixth graders start their final year in Foundations already knowing a lot of the memory work. Many of these students began Foundations sitting on mom’s lap and soaking up the timeline cards as early as age three. How do we keep them...
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As you may know, Classical Conversations began when I was in high school. I was a student in the original Challenge I, II, and III programs with about eleven other students. It was just shortly before that time when my mom heard about classical education, so I missed the...
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Every summer I read Dorothy Sayers’ mystery Gaudy Night. I look forward to it as I looked forward to swimming, lightning bugs, thunderstorms, and watermelon as a young girl growing up in central Ohio. The book is filled with complex characters and intricate plots, literary quotes and allusions, and foreign...
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Before plays had acts and novels had chapters, people still had to figure out the form of the things they read. In the ancient world, writers seem to have treated the structure of their writing as a game. They used it to hide meanings and to give the reader...
Read the Full ArticleAs the sun scorched our arms another day, we bounced over dusty, rut-filled roads that brought to mind the terms “outback” and “off road” in a whole new bone jarring reality. This is Haiti. What would you think about Classical Conversations putting together a national mission trip? Let us...
Read the Full ArticleThe written word can be a magic carpet that takes us to another world, another time. The landscape is often strange and unfamiliar, and may be fictional or allegorical. When we read the best writers, the journey gives us a glimpse into the minds of the world’s greatest thinkers...
Read the Full ArticleLast week, I had the pleasure of doing a conversational Latin camp online. While studying for the camp, I found out so much that I had forgotten or did not know about conversational Latin. Conversational Latin is different from the Latin we study in academic situations: it is the...
Read the Full ArticleSona Si Latine Loqueris! We are living in the midst of a modern day renaissance of the Latin language. There is a Latin-learning bandwagon, and if it wasn’t started by classical education, it was certainly popularized by it. Yet, there are holdouts to learning Latin even from within the...
Read the Full ArticleGreat book for all teachers and principals, new and experienced! The Core by Leigh Bortins will help you reach the educational goals for your students that we all desire. This easy-to-understand guide breaks down the time-tested methods of a quality education into clear goals and lessons that are easy to implement....
Read the Full ArticleThe popular science press may be on the cutting edge for bringing us the latest and greatest news from laboratories around the world, but when it comes to integrating historical and philosophical ideas into our modern conversations, it is woefully shallow. Of particular note is the venom afforded to...
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Not only will Essentials get a beautiful new guide and two new Trivium Tables for this fall, classes will also go Family Style. As the Essentials programs grew, and communities had more students than they could fit in one room, we began dividing the classes by age. Why? Well, we...
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The answer is not just that it looks good on a college application. Although that is a benefit, the principal reasons are much more important. I have heard people expressing nervousness concerning upper levels of Challenge and Latin. I love all facets of Latin, but reading authentic Latin literature written...
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