William C. Michael

In a modern secular public school, students participate in academic activities for 4-5 hours per day, for 180 days of the year. That makes for 720-900 hours of academic activity per year. That sounds impressive until you realize that there are 8,760 hours in a year and study is our children’s primary responsibility. What are all of these children doing with the other 8,000 hours of the year? Now, when we look at Catholic society, we find something very different, right? Actually, no. Somehow, Catholic children have managed to end up doing the same thing. The Catholic schools offer the … Continue

Recently, and probably for a while into the future, you’ll notice that I’m, I’m focusing on philosophical topics. And there’s a reason for that, a couple of reasons for that. As a Lay Dominican, I’m called to preach as a Catholic, the Dominicans are the Order of Preachers. So I can talk about theology but as a layman, and especially as a classicist, I consider it part of my unique responsibility to talk about what I consider secular subjects like philosophy. I think that our society has a lot more trouble and has many more problems because of ignorance of … Continue

The study of philosophy is an ongoing discussion that has continued for thousands of years.  This discussion consists of a rise, climax and fall of human thought. The rise of philosophy began in the ancient world, and continued for thousands of years into the Christian era. The climax of philosophy occurred under the influence of St Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas in the establishment of Scholastic philosophy. The fall of philosophy began during the “Renaissance” period and has continued for over six hundred years. There are two ways to go about the study of philosophy. The simplest way … Continue

As we approach the end of another school year, I want to take a minute and testify to the effectiveness of homeschooling. My wife and I chose to homeschool after converting to Catholicism in 2006, when our first child was 6 years old. She and I both attended public schools for K-12 studies and had no experience with homeschooling. The #1 factor in our decision, which has persisted through the years, was the desire to keep our kids safe from destructive influences that ruin many children’s lives before they reach adulthood. Contrary to the attempts made to make homeschooling families … Continue

The Classical Liberal Arts Academy offers Catholic families the best Catholic homeschool religion curriculum available today. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us the proper contenxt in which children learn the Catholic religion: “Education in the faith by the parents should begin in the child’s earliest years. This already happens when family members help one another to grow in faith by the witness of a Christian life in keeping with the Gospel. Family catechesis precedes, accompanies, and enriches other forms of instruction in the faith. Parents have the mission of teaching their children to pray and to discover their … Continue

Several years ago, my family hosted a Spanish-speaking family from Mexico: a mother and her three children. The mother spoke no English, and my wife spoke no Spanish, so I had to speak with her entirely in Spanish. I had studied Spanish in school for 8 years, but it had been a long time since I practiced and I was worried I wouldn’t remember all of my grammar rules and vocabulary. When we began speaking, however, I realized that this Spanish-speaking mother never learned all of the Spanish grammar and vocabulary that I did in my classes. She was not … Continue