An American Classical Pedagogy (Introductory Session) Jonathan Gregg
Session for First Time Attendees While many of the primary drivers of classical pedagogy – the Socratic method, the liberal arts, etc.- trace their roots to more ancient sources, the principles of the American founding – liberty, federalism, equality, etc. – provide an equally compelling ground from which to derive the principles of high-quality teaching. That is, while we may not want to copy-paste the exact educational methods from early American schools, we should feel compelled to teach in light of the ethos of the founding fathers, inheriting, preserving, and passing down the spirit with which our country was born. This session promises to articulate a set of American classical pedagogical principles and then provide teachers practical guidance for how those principles might be enacted in K-12 classrooms across all subjects and grade levels.
With Right Reason & Moral Imagination: Teaching American History Andrew Zwerneman
History is a liberal discipline within the humanities. Proper to its distinctive scope, history cultivates knowledge of the past and practical wisdom concerning our responsibilities in the present, enables a society to exist across generations, and fosters sympathies that bind a citizenry, even one as diverse as America’s. This workshop explores effective ways to teach American history toward all three objectives unique to history as a field of humane studies.
Evoking Wonder in Scholars in Online Academies Tammy Morrow
Those of us who are involved in classical liberal arts education are convinced that this education is essential for sustaining a healthy democratic society. This conviction leads us to consider how we can offer a classical liberal arts education to children who live in remote or rural areas of our nation, where brick and mortar classical schools are unavailable to them. More and more, we are seeing this question answered through online classical schools. The concept of online schools, which often utilize asynchronous education, can create tension with certain aspects of the classical tradition. In this workshop, we will consider how we can evoke and nurture a sense of wonder in our online scholars. We will consider how our online scholars can join into conversation with each other and with the Western Tradition.
Teach Like a Champion Workshop Doug Lemov, Robert Pondiscio
Doug Lemov and Robert Pondiscio will lead a workshop addressing the best techniques for whole class reading of (ideally, great) books.
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Classical Riffs: Conversing Classically with Jazz Music Junius Johnson
The three main aspects of music are melody, harmony, and rhythm. By the combination and development of each of these, music does its work of shaping the hearts and souls of its listeners. Jazz, a quintessentially American form of music stretches and even transgresses each of these, and in doing so reveals deeper and richer understandings of each. And yet even in transgressing, jazz is deeply grounded in tradition. In this session, we will examine how jazz does its work of transgression while remaining in firm conversation with tradition. This will then be offered as a metaphor for the creative appropriation of the classical tradition that is the task of our contemporary society as we look to the past for inspiration and resources. Additionally, we will explore ways to bring jazz music into the classical classroom.
Winslow Homer, Heroic Vision, and Classical Practice in the Art Classroom
This workshop will explore the work of one of America’s greatest artists, Winslow Homer. We will consider why his art matters for both the classical and American tradition, then spend most of our time in a hands-on exercise on value and composition. Along the way, we will touch on ideas for differentiation across grade levels and reflect on how art and the study of heroic figures can shape our students.
Shaping America’s Civic Imagination with Mark Twain Bernard Dobski
As one of America’s greatest authors, Mark Twain is known for being many things: a humorist, a social satirist, a teller-of-tall-tales-for-naughty-boys, a metaphysical pessimist, and America’s conscience on race, imperialism, and Gilded Age capitalism, to name just a few. But what all-too-often goes unappreciated about this giant of American literature is the extent to which he intended his fiction to shape our moral and civic imaginations. This was as true when he first burst onto the national scene with “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” as it was with his last complete novel on Joan of Arc, Personal Recollections. It’s also true across his genres. Whether Twain was writing travelogues, medieval romances, political diatribes, or “morality tales” for young men, whether he employed the short story, long essay, or novel, he was always cultivating an imagination that would prepare his audience to adopt the virtues that the American republic required for its defense, virtues which also form the basis of genuine human flourishing. Twain was able to do this because he was himself shaped by an encounter with the great poet-philosophers of Western civilization, especially Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Cervantes. Our workshop will thus look at some of the ways Mark Twain’s outwardly outrageous, patently playful, and sometimes silly fiction performs the serious labor of shaping the imaginations of a citizenry called to preserve ordered liberty under the law. And we will explore ways that Twain can be incorporated into a curriculum whose ultimate goal is to imbue its students with a love of the true, the good, and the beautiful.
The Black Intellectual Tradition in Classical Education Eric Ashley Hairston
From Phillis Wheatley to W.E.B. DuBois to Toni Morrison and beyond, African American literature and intellectual history have been deeply influenced by the classics. This remarkable relationship directly resulted from both intentional and providential formal and informal education in the classics. Additionally, no study of African American intellectual history is complete without attention to the deep relationship between classical education and African American churches and clergy. From minds introduced to the classics at youth to those exposed to church Sabbath Schools and debating societies to those attending famous African American colleges and universities with deeply classical curricula, generations of African Americans gained part of their cultural crafting and sense of humanity from a classical world far removed from the limitations of antebellum and segregated America. We will explore this tradition and consider what it means to the multiple disciplines it touches.
Revealing the American Soul to American Students: A Workshop on Teaching the Works and Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville to High School Students Joseph Wysocki
This talk will help high school teachers to help their students access the wisdom of Alexis de Tocqueville. Dr. Wysocki will argue that understanding Tocqueville is crucial for students’ quests for self-knowledge and a great benefit to their future happiness.
A Study of Edmund Burke’s Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies Vigen Guroian
Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies
On March 22, 1775, Edmund Burke, the great British statesman and political philosopher delivered his speech on Conciliation with the Colonies in Parliament. At root the Colonies’ historical grievances were over taxation, with regard to means or fairness and even whether the British Parliament possessed a right to tax the colonies. Thus, the slogan “No taxation without representation.” While Burke’s speech came too late–just a month before the Battle of Lexington and Concord–to prevent the outbreak of war, it has been viewed since that time as a speech of immense political wisdom in which Burke profoundly demonstrates the importance of two fundamental virtues of politics: prudence and magnanimity. Through the nineteenth century and early decades of the last century, Burke’s speech was routinely taught in American schools. We will look at Conciliation with the Colonies as a lesson in politics and history, but also as a lesson in Burkes’ rhetoric which makes it one of the most eloquent speeches of British Parliamentary history. I hope we can have a good conversation.
Conciliation with the Colonies
What Makes a Good Teacher? Virtue and the Art of Teaching Christopher Perrin, Carrie Eben
Most of us have had at least one good teacher. If we have, we can still remember that teacher, and almost always because that teacher could teach very well and was simply a good and admirable person. In this seminar, we will explore the two ways that good teachers become good: 1) they are models of virtue that inspire students to imitate them, and 2) they are good at the art of teaching or pedagogy. In this seminar, Perrin and Eben will discuss the importance of modeling virtues like zeal for learning, intellectual curiosity, wonder, and humility and how to grow in these virtues; they will also note the key principles of pedagogy contained in their co-authored book, The Good Teacher: Ten Key Pedagogical Principles That Will Transform Your Teaching. And since good teaching has existed throughout history and place, this seminar will note some of the great American teachers from its founding to the present day.
The Trivium: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric Across Grades and Disciplines Jerilyn Olson, Tammy Morrow
Classical Education should always give due honor to the Trivium, yet its application in modern K–12 schools can vary widely. Is the Trivium best understood as a framework for language instruction alone? Should we, following Dorothy Sayers, see it primarily as a model of child developmental stages? Can we view each academic discipline as having its own grammar, logic, and rhetoric? This session will explore these questions and consider practical ways to integrate the Trivium across subjects and grade levels.