Dominion Family

“As Christian home educators this shouldn’t be hard for us. We have as our base faith, hope and love. There is so much there that I think I will begin with that tomorrow”

Continuing where I left off yesterday, I was pondering these things all night. One other recurring theme of the retreat was the fact that these things are achieved through a linguistic education. This has always been where I have connected with classical education and also why I am a bit more comfortable with the term Liberal Arts.

In our society at this time education has one function. The function of education is purely monetary. I have said on this blog that I think that we have done a better job of preparing our boys for marriage rather than to get jobs. All of those thoughts converge on the point that a linguistic education prepares them for LIFE. This doesn’texclude their ability to get a job. On the other hand a modern utilitarian education does not prepare one for life, marriage or even old age.

Recently I have been reading books that include chapters dealing with elderly people in nursing homes. It occurred to me that when my older boys were little I frequently said that we were memorizing things in case they were ever in prison and the rats were eating their toes. Now it has come to me with even more force that I am preparing my children not only for marriage and jobs and perhaps prison but I am also preparing them for their elderly years when much of the slough of their life will be gone. I believe much of what we have done in our Morning Times will remain.

I am giving them the poetic knowledge that will be with them until they face eternity. I am not the Holy Spirit. I must prepare my children for a life well-lived and trust God to prepare their hearts for eternity.

When I am setting my priorities this has to come into play. So that in our home we will be heavy on the linguistics subjects and weak in the sciences. I don’t believe this will hinder the children from learning the sciences in college and I don’t believe it will hinder them in selecting careers. While there is serious social pressure on our young people to quantify their existence, at the same time they are judged by their articulateness and broadness of thought.

If classical education uses memorization in the early years in a utilitarian fashion, I think it misses the boat. That is preparing the child for more education rather than gifting them with a lifelong love of poetic knowledge.

That is why I still continue to believe that homeschooling is the best option. Classical schools by the nature of the beast are forced into utilitarian modes. Homeschoolers have much more liberality to pursue the liberal arts.

But it isn’t easy for us either. We are all victims of our culture. We are always being pulled away from the true, the good and the beautiful towards the utilitarian. After all we all want our children to provide for their families. It takes courage to trust that the slow path through the dark woods leads to the fruitful plain, but not only to the fruitful plain but beyond, beyond Parnassus even, to the city of God.

  Leave a Comment »

If you have looked at the schedule of workshops on the CiRCE page you will see how tough it was to decide which sessions to attend. It ended up helping that Michael Eatmon was not able to attend because his wife was having surgery. He was one of the speakers the ClassEd girls were most excited about. Maybe next year.

In the first time slot I chose Dr Bryan Smith’s Reading Homer in Byzantium: The Nuts and Bolts of Classical Instruction in the Byzantine Schools.

After lunch I had to decide between Andrew Kern’s That Hideous Strength: Modern Management Theory and the Unavoidable Corruption of Christian Classical Education, which is a subject I have thought about frequently, Dr Bryan Smith’s A Few Things Well: Simplifying and Limiting the Curriculum, which is something I think is imperative or Ken Myers’ Communications Technologies as Engines of Restlessness. The engines of restlessness won and the phrase has also wound its way into my psyche and vocabulary. It was the standout session of the conference for me.

The session I attended failed to get recorded but Ken kindly redid the session later for recording. I highly recommend that you buy this session because I am going to have a hard time conveying the depth of it.

Ken Myers is the founder and head of Mars Hill Audio, a wonderful audio journal.

Right out of the starting gate Ken recommended 4 books.

Todd Gitlin, Media Unlimited

Thomas De Zengotita, Mediated

Quentin Schultze, Habits of a High-Tech Heart

Richard Winter, Still Bored in a Culture of Entertainment

One of the themes of Ken’s talk was that our pursuit of control steals our contentment, restlessness the opposite of rest, is tied to control. This is something I connected with because I personally believe much damage is done in the world and in families because we move out of our spheres of sovereignty. Even as mothers we try to control our children too much, not respecting that they are made in the image of God and we are not the Holy Spirit. This is why I am somewhat negative about certain homeschooling groups or movements. I am not impressed to see 25 year old young men living at home and submitting to their fathers in meekness. That is not to say that a 25 yo young man should never live at home rather he should have a strong drive for his own sphere and that should not be a threat to us.

From the idea of control Ken made the connection that we have too many choices. This is where the lecture hit its stride and I fear my own ability to communicate. Ken said that more choices are worse for people; it becomes a paradox of choice. To illustrate he used the example of his buying a camera last year. He studied web articles and researched for months in anticipation of buying his camera. Since buying his camera he has been plagued by the idea that another camera might be better. He has spent more time researching than actually using his new camera or learning how to use it better by studying the manual.

We are paralyzed by choices. He quoted from one of the books mentioned above where the writer said that when he was growing up you just got married and had children. You didn’t have to worry about whether it was the right thing to do. Now young people delay and delay marriage and children while they try to figure out what is best. We use the word stagnation where past generations used the word permanence. Keeping our options open is NOT the road to happiness.

Mass media creates a new way to experience emotion.

We are assaulted by a wild procession of fragments.

Immediate practicality is the enemy of wisdom.

At the end of the session Mr Myers took questions. I asked him how he reconciled all that he had just said with his life’s work. I didn’t actually ask him this because of his life’s work which I greatly admire but rather because of my own anguished feelings towards blogging. He immediately got a tortured look on his face and I definitely understood that look. He went on to tell how he fights the cultural trends in a few key ways. He continues to keep his interviews long. He fights the trend towards sound bites. He has not pursued advertising in a way that would bring him more success.

While he was speaking about his efforts I couldn’t help but think of Rick’s work at Cumberland Books. Rick has chosen to lower his prices. This has been an amazing act of practicing what he preaches.

Finally, I wonder what you think especially in terms of the blog world. Are blogs engines of restlessness in your life or wonderful ways of connecting with others? This is not a question I already know the answer to; it is just a question for discussion.

  Leave a Comment »

MORNING TIME PLANS
August 200

Artist:

Da Vinci

Composer:
Downloaded from Eclassical
Rimsky-Korsakov

The above is the exact file I downloaded. I plan to just have it playing every morning for a while, offer some introductory information and that is all for now. Later I will try to come back and discuss the selections more fully with the children.

Folk Song:
Go Get an Ax
Star of the County Down

Shakespeare:
King Henry VIII

If you are paying attention you may notice that this was our play from last term. For the sake of honesty let me now admit with 2 weddings and a husband working out of town and a few more things besides, there never really was a last term. It happens. All the more reason to make hay while the sun shines. Which reminds me, it is going to be in the 100’s all this week. I am so thankful for air conditioning. If you walk outside your breath gets sucked away.

Plutarch:
Demetrius

Ambleside Online is my source for the above selections.

Prayer Request:

Bible:

The Book of Life
Continue from where we last left off. I just read a page or two a day.

Bitesized Theology Great for discussion.

I am adding back in the reading of one Proverb daily since I am not satisfied that my younger children have absorbed as many Proverbs as my older children.

Review M-F:

II Timothy 2:5

Psalm 139

Hebrews 11:1-6

Psalm 4:4-8

Psalm150

Hymn Singing

Note: As the year goes along I am going to switch gears on our hymn singing to incorporate our church bulletin. You know you are going to a good church when you put the bulletin in a binder every week.

New Song to Learn:
Tender Mercies

Songs to review: M-F

A Mighty Fortress

Alas and Did my Saviour Bleed

All Creatures of our God and King

All Glory Laud and Honor

All Hail the Power

Poetry:
The Second Coming Yeats

Review M-F:
Nobility

Solitude

Friends, Romans, Countrymen..

Awaken

The Fools Prayer

Misc. Memory

To re-learn:
The Nicene Creed

Review M-F:
Planets

Give me Liberty

President’s Bee

President’s Bee

Planets

Reading Aloud:

English Lit for Boys and Girls

Gombrich’s A Little History of the World

Fiction:

The Rose of Paradise Howard Pyle This might possibly be the rarest book I own and it come highly recommended by the Bluedorns.

Ambleside Time:

Slow and steady wins the race. Yes, these are the same books we were reading last year.

*Viking Tales
*Poetry
*My Book House
*Little Pilgrim’s Progress

I know I have many new readers and I always get lots of questions whenever I post one of these. I don’t mind at all answering questions but there is already a vast amount of info in my archives about this subject. Much of this list will stay the same through the whole term but the review work changes each week.

  Leave a Comment »

I have been making up for lost time in my homeschool planning. I have also found that school planning is a great time to add books to LibraryThing. I have almost reached 3000 books.

This year our school will consist of:

Nathaniel 12th grade

Christopher 10th grade

Benjamin 8th grade

Emily 7th grade

Andrew 4th grade

<

Alex 1st grade.

The last one. The little boy with the loose teeth sitting on the couch reading. The little boy beside himself that his Rod and Staff math has arrived. I miss all those other little guys and now there is only this one last 1st grader.
Alex: the reminder that I must stay faithful.

I still highly recommend Homeschool Tracker. You can even sign up for Yahoo Groups with lesson plans ready to download to Tracker Plus. I have downloaded several math and science lesson plans and also Rosetta Stone Spanish. That way you can just add the assignments to the days as needed. I am going to only plan a week in advance this year for the most part. That means I will be busy on Sunday evenings but I think it will be more productive for the children.

I didn’t need too much this year besides my never ending quest for books.

But I did buy:

Gileskirk Christendom. The Gileskirk year I have been waiting for! It will be a great match for the Ambleside year 7 that Benjamin and Emily will be doing. I think we will all listen to the CDs this year. I don’t want to miss them!!

Latin for Children from Beth’s Bookshop. I used the online free resource Latin for Beginners last year and I liked it but it was slow going. Beth is one of those moms who actually learned Latin and even took classes from Dale Grote in person. I just do what she tells me. Beth told me that this program really is misnamed. It is perfectly appropriate for older children. I was hooked in by the author’s fake British accent on the sample video. I am a sucker for an accent. I really am.

I was happy enough with Teaching Textbooks Algebra I that I bought the Geometry from The Timberdoodle. Christopher seemed to thrive in math last year with little input from me. I am just not sure how he will test.

Besides hanging out at Library Thing and Homeschool Tracker, I have also been hanging out with our church bulletin trying to get our hymn selections for the year.

So far I have chosen:

The Basin and the Towel by Michael Card
Arise, My Soul, Arise music by Kevin Twit
I Love The Lord, Psalm 116 since that is our Psalm for the month at church.
Adam, Our Father and Our Head
Tender Mercy by Paige Overton Pitts
In Christ Alone

I really love that we sing melodious music at our church. I say that because Presbyterians have a way of singing wonderful, wordy hymns with absolutely no tune. We aren’t really the frozen chosen we just sing like it. It has been years since I enjoyed singing in church as much as I do now.

So there you have it. I did play tennis one day but it was HOT. We are still in the triple digits.

And what do we think about the hullabaloo in baseball? It is that of which we do not speak.

  Leave a Comment »

Alex is on pg 25 of his 1st grade math. He does page after page. It is so cute.

I am such a dufflepud. I planned our whole first week of school forgetting that I was taking James to college next week. Long Story.

Our temperatures will be in the 100’s for the next week without any clouds or rain at all. I am afraid we are going to shrivel up and blow away. Lest you think this makes me less enthusiastic about Alabama, you are wrong. We have air conditioning.

I am working on the post about highschool. It is going to take a while so it will probably be up later today.

Right now I have to run to the DOMV with my 17yos and his Jeep Cherokee that his brother GAVE him. He drove home from MD yesterday in the Jeep. He arrived home at 4:30 am. I am a happy, thankful mama.

Hyper-Calvinism: The only way to raise boys.

  Leave a Comment »

Ok, now for something completely different.

I am dreading this post somewhat. I can wax eloquent on what I like to think I do in the upper grades or I can tell you what I plan to do or I can tell you what actually occurs. I am absolutely bound and determined to remain honest on this blog but it is painful and even embarrassing. I tend to be rebellious. I do not like to make concessions to the ’system’ or the transcript. Perhaps there is a bit of the dreaded hubris in that and it would be better if I didn’t infect others but here it is.

My 7th and 8th graders continue to stay in MT for the entire thing. This year I will have an 8th grader and a 7th grader doing HEO year 7, my all-time favorite Ambleside year. This year is going to be a challenge for these 2 particular students. They don’t seem nearly as ready for it as their past 3 siblings who completed that year. It usually takes us more time to complete this year and also a Gileskirk year. I don’t like to leave things out so I err on the side of taking a long time but completing the year. Usual both things take a year and a quarter. We are finishing last year’s study of Modernity at the end of August or early September.

After 7th grade I move them into HEO year 8 but I do that year in a looser fashion than year 7. Usually because I only have 3/4 of a year left to complete it before high school begins.

I assign Apologia General Science in 7th grade and we work at a 2 year pace so that the student is ready for Apologia Physical Science in 9th grade. To attend Alabama state schools and JUCOs you have to have 4 years of science on the high school transcript. This is a problem for us so I slow science way down. Frankly our science program is horrible. So far because of my own personal priorities I have not had the money to correct this problem by enrolling the children in outside sources either online or in co-ops. I am not likely to use a co-op in the near future because of the mileage and gas it would put on our vehicles. Yes, our priority on our vehicles is to drive an hour to church not to co-op. Our usual science routine looks like:

Physical Science
Biology (sometimes we have taken 2 years on this.)
Chemistry ( Nathaniel isn’t doing Chemistry because I want him to have a slower pace this year. More on that later.)
Astronomy ( using resources around the house.)

It is not that I don’t think the sciences are important. It is just in this age of longterm schooling I believe it is ok to start the formal sciences in college if necessary. My job is to make sure the kids don’t hate science by the time they get to college. It is my firm, and perhaps misplaced belief, in this age of science and technology, that the liberal arts prepare the student for the sciences but not visa versa. If I am going to err, and I am, I have chosen my hill.

This post is much longer and still running so I decided to stop it here and continue it in separate posts. I am trying to mix in philosophy with practicality and that takes time.

I would really like to dialog with y’all on this. I certainly don’t feel I have arrived. As we get deeper into this subject we will talk more about that.

(The bottom of my screen is flashing 102 degrees. Time for a little something.)

  Leave a Comment »

Likewise, we are on a slow pace in math. My 8th grader will be in Saxon Algebra 1/2. I think we are fine with that, it leaves 9th grade for beginning Algebra I. Basically in high school we hit Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, and Advanced Math.

My philosophy concerning math is different than science in that I want to give my children a strong base in math, not a wide base but a strong one.

Until this year, for the last 5 years I have owned 2 years of Gileskirk. I rotated those years but did American history using HEO and the Clarence Carson books. This year, Nathaniel is doing Christendom with us but because he needs an American History credit he will be reading Paul Johnson’s A History of the American People, plus he is finishing up Modern Times.

The American history credit has a long history in our family. Timothy graduated from high school with 4 history credits but no American History credit. The Navy educational officer called me about this. They were going to make him join in a lower class because he was missing this credit. We, of course, were not going to join at all if they didn’t accept his transcript. I explained to the officer that Timothy knew so much American history that we went on to other things in high school. I had tried to make the transcript reflect what he had actually done in 9-12 grades. On the other hand I said I was confident that Timothy knew more American history than most students and that he had read widely. The officer suggested that I redo the transcript marking American history as complete. He wanted to see the mark in the box. He couldn’t have cared less what Timothy had done or learned in high school. That has continued to be our experience with transcripts even to this recent episode with James attending South Georgia College, which I will discuss later.

The point of the transcript is to answer a fool according to his folly. I believe we should be strictly honest on the transcript but I also believe we must understand the language of the people reading the transcript. We are in Rome speaking their language on the transcript. We must be savvy about that. The transcript is not about education it is about communication. Solid test scores give credence to the transcript.

Recently we made the decision that James would take the GED. We had pretty much decided before that that would NEVER happen but he has a scholarship to play baseball and that was the glitch. We like the coach who is a Christian and the school is near his paternal grandmother. While signing up to take the GED James met a man who had graduated from homeschool years ago. This man had graduated from community college and gone on to get a degree from Auburn. He had been out of school several years and decided to become a police officer (something even lawyers were doing in Nicholas’s academy class.) The police academy would not accept this young man unless he had a bona fide high school diploma. The man had a college degree!!! This is just an example of the mindset we are dealing with in our society. Each family has to make the decision either to play the game or not. I hate the game. I think the whole system should come tumbling down but this year I am playing.

Part 1

  Leave a Comment »

My main goal for high school is that the boys read certain books. We never get through all of the reading lists but we try. So far all of my 5 older students have been strong readers and thinkers. I will work on assembling some sort of reading list to share with y’all, books that I like to see read in high school apart from the Gileskirk lists. The list is fluid based on the student. I want to add here that we read more good books than great books. As a matter of fact, as I write what we actually do I realize what we do is more towards a classical education than an actual classical education. Right now the stack of books at my computer waiting to be scheduled run the gamut from Sam Storms One Thing to The Aeneid, from Eugene Peterson’s Run With the Horses to Caroline Dale Snedecker’s Theras and His Town, from Clyde Bulla’s The Ring and the Fire to Fagles Iliad.

I also like to make sure they are writing something everyday. Even though I have failed to teach formal writing in any cohesive way the boys do write daily in their reading journals. We also run through Format Writing, especially before they run off to college. They also complete the Gileskirk writing assignments. I like them to read The Elements of Style at least twice along with Style, and I am adding in On Writing Well. They also read a Rulebook for Arguments which deals with rhetoric.

I like to make sure the boys get through the GI Williamson’s Shorter Catechism books and a short Bible study from Christian Liberty Press about Calvinism. We are 5-pointers. We do not train the boys to be argumentative about this as it is almost always unproductive but we do like them to be able to give an answer for their beliefs and to plant seeds. I have been quite happy about this aspect of their education. They know what they believe and they know how not to be obnoxious.

The older boys work on daily assignment lists from Homeschool Tracker.

The glitches for our family comes from two sources.

First, baseball takes up an incredible amount of time from February through June for the older boys. Baseball is a priority for us for several reasons but the 1st reason is that it helps the boys see themselves in reference to other people. It gets them out of an imaginary world and into some reality. Baseball is the sport of failure. No one bats a thousand. No matter how fast you are you sometimes get picked off. Baseball is an antidote to hubris. I don’t mean for this to sound like a justification because I truly believe that baseball is important for our boys. It rounds out the curriculum.

Second, the boys need to get jobs and work. For years that took the form of working in our lawn business. This is a reality for our boys. They pay their own car insurance and their own cell phone bills. They pay for gas to and from baseball. They pay for baseball!! This year Nathaniel, a senior, will be working 6-11 daily on a landscape crew for a golf course. He will start school every day after lunch. This is important to our family. Pay attention to the next sentence because it is important! I always try to make 9th and 10 grade extremely rigorous because sometimes 11th and most certainly 12th grade are harder to control.
That is a universal fact in our family. I know plenty of families who are arranged differently but not ours. It is important for the boys to work. You may also be thinking, as I have often, that if they were IN school they would not be able to work and therefore they could have more time for formal learning. Yes, but they would also lose some balance. They might forget where money comes. They would be tempted to take their education lightly.

Part 1
Part 2

  Leave a Comment »

I thought I would give a sample from the older boys’ daily schedule. Yesterday was our first day and I we did accomplish everything but I feel the children are overworked. The problem is that they need to have some days where they overwork to make up for the days that get lost. I am still mulling over our day and hope to set things up a bit looser next week….I just don’t know how. We haven’t even started Latin yet.

And may I say that I am totally freaked out that it is supposed to reach 106 degrees tomorrow. I will be headed to Savannah tomorrow with AC and Audio Books on! My poor zinnias are not going to make it.

Benjamin Grade 8
HEO year 7:

Pre MT: 7:30-8:30
Saxon Algebra 1/2 lesson 1
Math drills on computer
Spelling drills on computer

8:30-10:30
MT:
Attend Morning Time
Work on Nature Notebook during MT

Before Lunch: 10:30-11:30
Rod & Staff 6th grade grammar Lesson 1 (I am ambivalent about grade levels.)/ Alternating days with Latin for Children.

General Science pages 1-3 11:30-12:00

After lunch & Tennis Ball:
Reading:
John chapter 1
Ivanhoe chapter 1
Grace Unknown chapter 1
The Brendan Voyage chapter 1
Free Reading
Written narration on Ivanhoe

(We did have a discussion on Grace Unknown about 5:00pm. My husband is working evenings.)

Christopher Grade 10:

Come to Morning Time for Prayer, Bible, Singing & Henry VIII or Plutarch

Shorter Catechism lesson 1 part 1 read the chapter
Winston Churchill’s Age of Reason chapter 1
Working on finishing up Modernity tapes: 1 tape a day. We will begin Christendom in September.
Read The Iliad chapter 1 this week.
Read through any Stirling Bridge Newsletters that you missed this week.
Rod and Staff Grammar Preparing for Usefulness lesson 1 with written answers
Reading Journal
Free Reading
Format Writing: Read Introduction
Physical Science: Lesson 12 Read pages 289-293
Rosetta Stone Spanish
Tennis Ball
(Job at Chick Fil A)

His math is still in the mail and also we aren’t starting Latin until next week.

Daily Schedule Ideas

6:00: Awake, clean rooms, make beds, devotions
6:30 Eat Breakfast
7:00 Chores (What’s for Supper?)
7:30-8:30 Math (Phonics with Alex)
8:30-10:30- Morning Time (Plenty of discussion)
10:30-11:00 Latin
11:00-12:00 Grammar and Narration
11:30-12:00 Science
12:00-1:00 Lunch and Clean-up
1:00-1:30 Tennis Ball
1:30-2:30 Reading, Ambleside Time
2:30-4:00 Reading, Discussion Time
4:00 Begin Cooking Dinner
5:00-6:00 Eat and Clean-up

Discussion groups:

Nathaniel & Christopher
Benjamin & Emily

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

  Leave a Comment »

Posted at the Semicolon Saturday Review of Books.

I know that when I like something I tend to use hyperbole and that is what I am going to do today. Perhaps my favorite CiRCE speaker is Vigen Guroian. Last year I talked to my friend and now mother-in-law of my son and she read several of Vigen’s books. She loved them, so this year I bought 2 of his books. This week I am reading Tending the Heart of Virtue. If you have liked what I have said about moral philosophy and poetic knowledge but you are intimidated by the highfalutin’ sound of it all then you MUST buy Vigen’s book. This is an easy but profound read. Vigen is charming, warm, and deadly with words.

In this book he takes 10 children’s books or stories and illustrates their use in building virtue. This word virtue is key. We are not talking here about character development. For many years now I have openly opposed any sort of character curriculum. I have watched families reject fiction in order to build “character” in their children and I have seen the negative effects of that plan firsthand. Vigen covers all of this in the first chapter Awakening the Moral Imagination. I didn’t get to hear Dr Grant’s sermon last Sunday but the children said he also touched on this by saying that the Bible isn’t always about “us” it is about God and it is wrong to turn it into morality tales. Vigen makes the point that values are not virtues.

First Vigen relates a story by Martin Buber, the Jewish philosopher:

“I try to explain to my pupils that envy is despicable, and at once I feel the secret resistance of those who are poorer than their comrades. I try to explain that it is wicked to bully the weak, and at once I see a suppressed smile on the lips of the strong. I try to explain that lying destroys life, and something frightful happens: the worst habitual liar of the class produces a brilliant essay on the destructive power of lying.”

Vigen then goes on to expound this example:

“Buber’s frank discussion of the mistakes he made when he first taught ethics helps us to see how difficult awakening and nurturing the moral imagination is. Buber’s mistakes are not uncommon. They are often committed today, especially when the role of reason in human conduct is overestimated and the roles of the will and the imagination, are underestimated. This hazard is increased by a utilitarian and instrumentalists ethos that has seeped to the tap roots of our culture. Despite the overwhelming evidence that we are failing to transmit morality effectively to our children, we persist in teaching ethics as if it comes from a “how to ” manual for successful living. Moral educators routinely introduce moral principles and even the virtues themselves to students as if they are practical instruments for achieving success. When we tell our children that standards of social utility and material success are the measurement of the value of moral principles and virtues, then it is not likely that our pedagogy is going to transform the minds or convert the hearts of young people.”

This sounds like an indictment of public schools but it is also an indictment against anyone who tries to teach morality as a subject to be memorized. It is the special flaw of the homeschool mom. We have placed so much emphasis on the cognitive that we have forgotten the intuitive. You could say we have lost the power.

Vigen goes on to discuss the loss of metaphor:

“One measure of the impoverishment of the moral imagination in the rising generations is their inability to recognize, make or use metaphors.”

This is enough information for a whole school year.

“We are living in a culture in which metaphor is discarded for these so-called facts……Meanwhile, the imagination is neglected and is left unguarded and untrained.”

Do you see that an untrained imagination is unguarded? This is why so many parents scratch their heads when they pound their children full of morality and their children end up unregenerate. An untrained imagination will be left without the intuition, the making of connections, that help a child make right decisions and see beyond his own lusts.

“Values certainly are not the answer to moral relativism. Quite the contrary, values talk is entirely amenable to moral relativism.”

After this first chapter Vigen goes on to explore the stories. He does it in such a compelling way that I am planning to reread each of these stories with the children over the next couple of years.

At the CiRCE Conference Vigen did a session on The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. I almost didn’t go to the session because I HATE that book. I always felt somewhat guilty that I should like the book but I didn’t. I decided to go to the session for the sole reason that I loved listening to the speaker. I was not disappointed. While he never actually told us his opinion about the story I did come away feeling that it was ok that I didn’t like it; it was a story without redemption. We want to read stories with redemption to our children We want our children to know that if there is a story there must be a storyteller (Chesterton).

The soundtrack of this post

  Leave a Comment »