Posted on 11/29/2024 11:47:39 AM PST by CFW
The growth of classical education schools is astonishing. The numbers keep rising; there is no sign that the movement is beginning to plateau. Schools open, networks are created, charters are authorized, and kids fill the seats. One would think that as more spaces are available the (supposedly) small number of parents who favor the classical way would be satisfied and demand would diminish.
How many Americans want their children to study Latin, read the Old and New Testaments, and appreciate the High Art of the Renaissance? Couldn’t be too many, say intellectuals and educators on the left. Those enlightened practitioners can’t help assuming that a classical curriculum should turn people off, given the half-century of multiculturalist criticism of Western civilization and American exceptionalism, but apparently the long campaign to kill respect for the old lineage hasn’t succeeded.
A prime example: Valor Education is a network of five schools in Texas. The first one opened in Austin in 2018, a charter school squarely in the classical mode. Two years later, school leaders saw enough local interest to open another school in Austin, then in 2022 a school in Kyle, and in 2023 schools in Leander and San Antonio. The numbers now: 4,200 enrolled in the five campuses and 5,500 on the wait-lists.
[snip]
Every shift of public school children to classical schools erodes the authority of progressive schooling. Traditionalists are still vastly outnumbered by progressives, but their popularity among a growing population of parents gives them confidence.
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
When people say there is not much Trump can do nationally in four years, just think how much harm Biden and the left has done in just the past four. Of course, that is on top of the harm they've done in the past 60 years. Much of that can start being undone with policy directives.
Just think what a difference it will make when illegal aliens suddenly start leaving school districts. Teachers will not have to spend their class time baby-sitting non-English speaking students. Plus schools will not have to deal with illegal aliens who present themselves as 14 year olds but in reality are 18 or 20.
However, the GOP party is going to have to get behind Trump. I'm not above encouraging Trump using arm-twisting in getting his plans implemented. At some point, in order to win, you have to use the same tactics of the enemy. And, when it comes to education the left is definitely the enemy.
Trump needs to maximize parents’ ability to escape leftist public indoctrination
- give parents maximum rights over school boards
- limit / eliminate federal mandates
- destroy public teacher unions
- give parents financial freedom from public school taxes
I discovered at a garage sale Will and Ariel Durant’s The Story of Civilization for practically nothing and with the dust covers still in place. My kids and grandkids now have it.
“How many Americans want their children to study Latin, read the Old and New Testaments, and appreciate the High Art of the Renaissance? Couldn’t be too many, say intellectuals and educators on the left.”
Honestly, my litmus test for a school is whether they teach Latin. Si non lingua Latina in curricula est, fugite!
I’d toss in Greek in addition to Latin.
My daughter teaches at a classical school. She is so happy there.
Some of our readings included, in Latin, Caesar’s Gallic Wars, Cicero speeches, the Aenead, Ovid and Livy.
We also read Great Expectations, Tale of Two Cities, Idylls of the King, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, Emily Dickinson poems, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and others.
Did I mention that all this was in high school?
I hated my three years of Latin in high school. But it was my second most important class as far as my career is concerned.
#1 was a semester of Personal Typing.
Liberal: “I did not like their idea of a ‘classical’ education at first. The Greeks and Romans had no relevance to today. But then I found out that the Greeks had a lot of gays in their numbers, especially in that group in their army, “The Immortals”. Also, I heard about the ferocious discipline in the Roman army, which reminds me of quite a few of my favorite sessions at Madame Marushka’s House of Pain and Submission. To top it off, they teach high art of the renaissance and I’d rather that my child learn the art of getting high in a controlled environment. That kind of sealed the deal for me and I sent him to the classical school. I hope it all works out!”
No wonder teachers unions hate school choice. That union is a vile cesspool of communists and sympathizers.
Ha ha I always said typing was my most useful class!
Along with Hebrew and Aramaic.
“I hated my three years of Latin in high school. But it was my second most important class as far as my career is concerned.
#1 was a semester of Personal Typing.”
I took typing as an elective in HS about 60 years ago (manual typewriters, of course) as a way to get into a virtually all-girl class. Mission accomplished - but on the way to accomplishing my mission, there was an unintended consequence...it turned out to be the single most-useful class I ever took. I think my manual dexterity (I started playing guitar when I was 8) gave me a head start.
“it turned out to be the single most-useful class I ever took. I think my manual dexterity (I started playing guitar when I was 8) gave me a head start.”
Same here. I took it in ‘64 as an elective. Manual typewriters. I had played piano since I was about 4, and I think it helped.
Later on, no matter what high-falutin’ courses I took in AP and College Prep program, being able to type 110 WPM got me in the door at the best companies. Once in, I could move up the ladder quickly.
I’d add that homeschooling should be treated as a right. And if parents want to combine their efforts (more than one families’ kids) it does not constitute a “school.” I read a story long ago where someone was prosecuted for opening a school (homeschooling their kids & a few neighbor’s kids) & not following gov’t regulations.
The major undermining issues of human society identified by Plato and targeted as the causal factors of misery and abject poverty were discussed by Plato in The Republic and The Republic, as described by H.D.P. Lee, (pg 16) tells of the aims of the Academy he founded in Athens in 386 B.C. and purposed to train a new type of politician, a class of ‘philosophic statesmen’ to deal with those causal factors:
Abolish families PART SIX [BOOK FIVE] Women and the family pg 212.
Deception and lies PART SIX [BOOK FIVE] Women and the family pg 214.
Women’s equality PART SIX [BOOK FIVE] Women and the family pg 209.
Have no possessions PART SIX [BOOK FIVE] Women and the family pg 221.
Slavery PART SIX [BOOK FIVE] Women and the family pg 220.
Civil strife and war PART SIX [BOOK FIVE] Women and the family pg 229.
Abortion and eugenics PART SIX [BOOK FIVE] Women and the family pg 215.
Children are State Property PART SIX [BOOK FIVE] Women and the family pg 201.
Lee pointed out it was unlikely Plato expected immediate results but who would have thought more than two thousand years later the same issues would still be the issues manipulated by politicians?
That’s quite a stretch even for modern thinkers under the influence of propaganda to believe; political power so continuous it would enable politicians to shape a world that survived powerful resets for almost two millennia and still have the same core problems that stretched back to ancient Greece?
Looking back 2,000 years I’d say Plato’s Academy was either a perfectly performed misdirection play or its intentions had been completely hijacked by that entity that comes to mind when we consider whose single focused end purpose is reportedly hell bent on subverting Gods’ creations.
Does modern America really think politicians, proven believers of the church of the here and now, based on only one precept, ’what’s in it for me?’ and having Mephistopheles as their choir director, control the reins of human development? Politicians are the reins and reins respond to whoever is holding them.
America, look again, it ain’t US.
Something is being ignored and it’s about time the danger that ignorance is denying is recognized.
When I was in grade school, they had good, wholesome lunches. Then they created the Dept of Education and the “free lunch” program. And with government money comes government strings and the quality of lunches rapidly declined.
As long as you do t tech them cursive so they can read the founding documents.
But you have to admit how handy it is when getting the gist of most "European" languages. I was fortunate having an English/French teacher who was so happy to find a kid willing to learn. Ditto on the typing, too.
Yes. Learning Latin definitely gives leg-up on language in general — English for sure.
In seminary I was engaged to a pastoral student, and helped him study Greek and Hebrew. All of that has come in handy.
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