Summer is here, and that means a little more time for catching up on our reading! We already shared some of our favorites books from our Upper and Lower School summer reading lists (and we would love to hear what books you and your children are enjoying this summer).
Now we thought we would share a few blogs, articles and news that have captured our attention or sparked our imagination this summer. We asked some of our teachers and faculty to share some things that have found to be interesting reads lately. From articles on classical, Christian education, to commentary on baseball, exploring the concept of utopia to Lincoln's greatest speech, here are a few reads we thought you might enjoy as well.
Have an interesting article or blog post you'd like to share? Leave the link in the comments section below!
- Is Virtue Formation Just Works Righteousness? - Joshua Gibbs, CiRCE Institute
“A classical Christian education is primarily concerned with cultivating faith, hope, love, wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance in the student. However, “A classical Christian education is primarily concerned with the pursuit of virtue” is not simply a noble sounding creed. Virtue formation has the potential to be a highly offensive credo.”
- We Need to Imagine - Anna Ilona Mussmann, Sister, Daughter, Mother, Wife Blog
“Toddlers think that everything is fascinating. They will study yesterday’s food smears or a piece of gravel with an intensity that adults reserve for the Grand Canyon or a potentially counterfeit one-hundred-dollar bill. Kindergarteners spend hours playing “pretend.” Eight-year-olds can be electrified by a teacher’s announcement that they are going to make something out of a shoebox. This eagerness drives the young child to tackle the learning curve between spitting-up and more grown-up skills. Yet somehow as a culture we take it for granted that most human beings are transformed by middle school and, ever after, will be rather embarrassed to admit to a love of learning or too strong a sense of wonder. It isn’t cool to be too impressed or too satisfied with anything.”
- Mortal Remains - S.M. Hutchens, Touchstone
“It has been statistically noted that if a person is not secured in faith when he is young, as he ages his chances for coming to Christian belief are lower. This is natural, for people are more likely to seek and confirm themselves in causes for life at its opening stages than at more advanced age, when large beginnings become more difficult in many ways.”
- How Utopia Shaped the World - Tom Hodgkinson, BBC- Culture
“Today, though, we may know More best for his invention of a word – and for his development of an idea that would be exported around the world. This concept would shape books, philosophies and political movements as varied as Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Mahatma Gandhi’s doctrine of passive resistance and the founding of the state of Pennsylvania.
The idea, of course, was ‘utopia’.”
- Lincoln's Greatest Speech - Garry Wills, The Atlantic
“MARCH 4, 1865, the day of Lincoln’s second inauguration as President, began in a driving rain that raddled Washington’s famously muddy thoroughfares — women would wear the mud caked to their long dresses throughout the day’s ceremonies. Walt Whitman saw Lincoln’s carriage dash through the rain “on sharp trot” from the White House to the Capitol, scene of the swearing-in. He thought Lincoln might have preceded the tacky parade in order to avoid association with a muslin Temple of Liberty or a pasteboard model of the ironclad Monitor. Though Whitman was a close observer of the President, and would shadow him throughout this day, there was no way for Lincoln to recognize him in the crowd. ”
- Why are Christian Classical Education Students Stomping the Competition? - Steve Turley, The Christian Post
“Since 2002, student enrollment in classical schools has more than doubled from 17,000 nationwide to over 41,000, and all indicators suggest that the next decade will be one of significant growth. And we are already seeing the effects of this kind of education. As of 2015, classical schools had the highest SAT scores in each of the three categories of Reading, Math, and Writing among all independent, religious and public schools.”
- Baseball is our game - Walt Whitman (The Imaginative Conservative)
“I like your interest in sports ball, chiefest of all base-ball particularly: base-ball is our game: the American game: I connect it with our national character.”
- Facebook as Church - Mark Bauerlein, First Things
“Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg gave a speech in Chicago last week, laying out a new mission for the platform. I can’t find a video or transcript of it, just news stories with quotations. But those few quotations are far-reaching and revealing.”
- The road that led to 1000 stories - John Higgs, BBC Culture
“Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written in the late 14th Century, tells the story of a group of medieval pilgrims travelling from London to Canterbury. Six hundred years later, the Star Wars movies were filmed on the same thoroughfare. This road is Watling Street – and there is no road in the English-speaking world more steeped in stories.”
Other blogs and sites we enjoy... let us know what sites you find interesting and think we should check out!