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This transcript was generated by https://otter.ai Today is Saturday, June 19. And I’m receiving more and more requests for these walk talk topics, with questions being sent in every day. And there are a lot of really good topics and questions, and I’m going to try to spend some more time producing some more videos so I can address them. Because like I said, there are some really great questions, great topics. And topics lead to new topics, and that that snowball is starting to roll now. And that’s what I was hoping that these talks will do. And I’m going … Continue

The Socratic Method is spoken of today in a thousands different contexts.  Some speak about the “Socratic Method” as a way of teaching classes in schools.  Others speak of the “Socratic Method” as a way of solving problems.  What should concern us is that most of the people who are talking about the Socratic Method offer no evidence that they’ve every studied the teaching of Socrates or any true “method” that might be named after him.  As a classicist, I’d like to answer the question, “What is the Socratic method?” The Fake Socratic Method The primary source of the fake … Continue

Dear friends, One problem I speak of frequently is the tendency for Catholic homeschool families to drift away from challenging classical studies and allow the homeschool to degenerate into modern grade level studies.  I have to resist this in the Academy because it is not our mission. I see many students in the Academy who rarely work on courses other than modern, grade level courses like Elementary Grammar and Modern Arithmetic.  We get support requests throughout the week for help with these courses and I am not interested in giving more attention to them. If parents are interested in receiving … Continue

CLAA mothers often ask me how to lay out a family schedule that includes all the different ages of the children.  I am going to share with you a sample of how I have scheduled our homeschool days using Google docs.  If you would like to make a copy of the doc in your own Google Drive and make changes to fit your own family’s schedule, you can view the Schedule document or click on the image below.  

Recently, I’ve been working to really nail down the key principles for my daily life.  So this is a work in progress, but I want to share with other mothers.   (They will be updated and added to over time.)  Have a good marriage. A woman was created by God to be her husband’s helper.  Avoid “mommy culture”.  I’m raising my children to be future husbands and wives, and they all will leave home one day. Keep the Precepts of the Church. Don’t be a hypocrite.  Don’t hold my children to things that I myself don’t practice. Live a balanced life. … Continue

  Christian people tend to think that they are pretty smart and that they seek the truth.  Yet, when we look at Christian education, the evidence suggests otherwise. Since around 1995, the “classical education” movement has lied to Christians, making up their own history of education, and using this fictional story to sell millions of dollars of homeschool products, and start schools–even colleges! The lack of confidence in modern Christians, owed to their neglect of Christian studies, leaves them afraid to ask questions or seek proof for things asserted by homeschool publishers and conference speakers.  Christians are like the people … Continue

Aristotle (384-322 BC) If we only read Moses, David, Solomon and Plato, we would have an education that rivaled history’s greatest scholars. However, the efficiency of instruction desired to make as many wise students as possible is not to be found among the early masters. Moses left us the Law. David left us the Psalms. Solomon left us the Proverbs. Plato added his dialogues. Unfathomable wisdom is to be enjoyed in them all, but very few would possess the time and leisure to swallow and digest their teachings in a manner that led to a well-ordered mind. To meet the … Continue