A glimpse inside Hillsdale College's network of classical schools across the country.
Ian Nugent explores how to discipline students with dispassion and love while holding the line on school culture and expectations. He shares examples from his own career which he learned from, acknowledges the tendencies of students and teachers to respond emotionally, and explains how the rules and policies of a school serve as an intermediary between students and teachers.
A short guide for teachers and leaders to give a shared language for speaking about core cultural policies in our schools.
A brief reflection on the kind of education befitting an American citizen and how love is central to such an education.
A reflection on why our students wear uniforms and an argument for the goods they produce in our communities of learners.
"To spend our lives ignoring the reality of this world and the goodness that can be experienced in it (trying and full of strife as it is), would not be good, nor would it satisfy us. But to live entirely as if this world is the end and dismiss the longings of our souls for something beyond material existence will not resolve the questions in our hearts either." Read this post to explore these coexisting truths in the context of art.
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 