We belong to a very small subset of the population. We live on one income, we have more than two children (in fact, at last count, there were five), we homeschool, and two of our children have disabilities. Those last two facts are the ones about which I receive...
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The Classical Conversations’ Challenge programs introduce students to many valuable subjects as they practice the skills of learning. These subjects include some that are undisputedly regarded as significant today, such as algebra, while others have fallen out of favor in academic circles, such as Latin, poetry, philosophy, and formal...
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The memory should be specially taxed in youth, since it is then that it is strongest and most tenacious. But in choosing the things that should be committed to memory the utmost care and forethought must be exercised; as lessons well learnt in youth are never forgotten. Arthur Schopenhauer...
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Is logic really relevant in today’s culture? All men are equal. You have heard it touted by advocates on all flanks. In our Challenge B class, we have recently looked at current cultural issues that commonly use that argument: All men are equal and so should have equal rights....
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So you have a child in Challenge class and you aren’t sure exactly what’s going on there. You know they are reading a lot of books, studying Latin, and learning math, science, and history. You wonder, though, “What exactly are they doing during class?” Perhaps you don’t have a child in...
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Imagine this scenario: As we travel across West Virginia, three boys are loudly singing “Take Me Home Country Roads” by John Denver (at the top of their lungs), the rain is pelting our windshield so hard that it sounds like a helicopter is about to take off right there...
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The Peacemaker Monthly Part One – Glorify God Falling Off the Rock by Cara McLauchlan “…if you believe that God is sovereign and good, you will be able to trust him and obey him, even in the midst of difficult circumstances.” – The Peacemaker, page 70 Recently, my son and...
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Sometimes God likes to hit us over the head with a two-by-four. Not literally, in my case. However, for the last six months, God has been teaching me about His grace. First, a friend recommended a little devotional book about the prodigal son. Then, another friend recommended a book...
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Fear is the constant companion of parents, is it not? When our children are sick or sickly, or have disorders, disabilities, and diagnoses that are known by an alphabet soup of acronyms, fear mounts quickly. I have faced my share of fear. Our daughter was known to have some...
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The word classical or classic brings to mind a range of images. Some might think of classical music, classical literature, or a bald, bearded philosopher in a flowing robe. Classical education can be summarized simply as a set of skills (the Trivium) and a core content of knowledge. A...
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When you set out to learn something new, it can be encouraging to realize that it is akin to something you have already mastered. There is something comforting about, say, beginning a new, complex recipe for éclair cake with chocolate ganache and finding at its core the same old...
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“…when I became a man, I put away childish things” (1 Corinthians 13:11, KJV). For decades, American culture has been pushing the threshold between childhood and adulthood further and further from birth. This is being done in the name of science, which supposedly is just analyzing the data and then...
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