“When men cease to aspire to the ideal, the good, to self-restraint — whether in their arts or their lives — they do not just stand still, but actually turn the other way, finding self-fulfillment in self-indulgence, and in an obsession with those three ultimate expressions of the totally self-centred life: sex, violence and insanity” …
Embodied Education
“But one of the glories of education is the opportunity to hear the truth come out of a human being with blood in the veins and air in the lungs, and not just off a printed page” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. 198).
Needed: More Wodehousian Treatments of Local Arts Groups
“In a media-driven culture in which status is granted according to progressive tastes, many otherwise conservative folks are only too eager to participate in local arts groups as a hedge against being called philistines. Some take a real interest in art, even apart from the social aspects, such as the wine and Brie parties at …
Ford and Chevy
“We tend to bond to all the wrong things. Picture a four-lane highway, two lanes headed to heaven and two lanes to hell. Alongside one another, a Ford and a Chevy are driving to heaven, and on the other side of the road a Ford and a Chevy are heading the other way. If the …
Let Him That Thinks He Stands Take Heed Lest He Paint
“For many artists, ‘it became an acknowledged pastime to ‘shock the burghers’ out of their complacency and to leave them bewildered and bemused’ . . . While this stance may seem heroic, it also contains the seeds of arrogance that helped bring art to its knees—disdain for any other viewer of the art, including patrons …
Classrooms Are Normal
“I want to defend the Christian classroom as a normal and appropriate way to teach children, one that has been used for millennia by covenant parents and that should not be rejected for modern ideological reasons. Covenant schools were common before the time of Christ. The classroom can (and often should) be rejected for practical …
Which Is Like Calling Grape Kool Aid A Fine Merlot
“. . . crudity is equated with sophistication, just as pornography made for immature minds is labeled ‘adult’ material” (Robert Knight, The Age of Consent, p. 91.).
Taught or Entertained?
“This means work on the part of the pupil. The entertainment model goes in the opposite direction. When the student is entertained rather than taught, he is in an oxymoronic way being aroused to passivity. Good teaching awakens in the student a desire to learn” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. 193).
Not to Mention the Coyote’s Explosives
“Many studies are flawed because they make little distinction between Elmer Fudd getting bopped on the head with a carrot and the Terminator graphically blowing away human beings” (Robert Knight, The Age of Consent, p. 82.).
Eschew Prolixity
“The teacher must stoop in order to teach. She has to step into the language known by the students in order to expand the power and extent of that language . . . Nothing is accomplished if big words whistle over the children’s heads” (The Case for Classical and Christian Education, p. 192).