Don’t throw out your turkey carcass!
THANKSGIVINGDon’t throw away your turkey carcass!A Recipe from Food for Thought Food for Thought by Francis Foucachon “Here, ladies and gentlemen, is an eminently practical book. And an eminently wise book.I highly recommend his book; even if you buy it for yourself and never lend it out, if taken to heart it will be a gift to others.I recommend it because it is full of joy and gratitude. It is difficult to find a book that talks about what food is for, and what people are for, that doesn’t become either pedantic or shrill. Joy and gratitude are the solution … Continue Reading “Don’t throw out your turkey carcass!”
Q/A: Old Western Culture Credits without Reading
There was a question from a parent asked in the comment section of a YouTube video (embedded below) that I think might benefit other families that use Old Western Culture. Q: Thanks for the video! How would you recommend assigning credits if the student only watched the videos? A: That’s a great question! It opens up the somewhat complicated question of credits altogether. I will answer in two ways. First: While how this is enforced may vary by state, we would strongly affirm the fundamental rights of parents to be primary educators and decision makers for k-12 education. Often homeschoolers are held to a … Continue Reading “Q/A: Old Western Culture Credits without Reading”
Old Western Culture Walk-through: How Does the Curriculum Work?
Daniel Foucachon talks about how the curriculum works, its components, schedules, and how to apply it to various settings. All curriculum & books on sale 25 – 40% off through Aug 8th. OLD WESTERN CULTURE
Logic: A Science and Art
Logic and RhetoricLogic: A Science and Art Is logic a science or an art? Of course, a logician would answer Yes, and here is why. A science is a systematic study of some aspect of the natural world that seeks to discover laws (regularities, principles) by which God governs His creation. Whereas botany studies plants, astronomy studies the sky, and anatomy studies the body, logic studies the mind as it reasons, as it draws conclusions from other information. Logic as a science seeks to discover rules that distinguish good reasoning from poor reasoning, rules that are then simplified and systematized. These would include the rules … Continue Reading “Logic: A Science and Art”
We Need Stories
We Need Stories Old Western Culture Once upon a time there was a horse that couldn’t be tamed. He was young and strong, nervous and rangy. King Philip wanted to ride him in battle, and every man of the king’s army looked on that beautiful horse with admiration. But man after man could not tame him; with wild, frantic energy he started and bucked at every battle-hardened solder that tried to get close to him. After many men had failed they were about to declare him untamable and send him back into the wild, when the king’s young son stepped forward … Continue Reading “We Need Stories”
Why Old Western Culture has no self-graded quizzes
Several years ago we produced self-grading quizzes for a unit of Old Western Culture as a trial. They worked great, and demonstrated that students were paying attention to the material. But we decided not to publish them. Here is why. While self-grading quizzes can be very useful, especially for subjects like math and language, we wanted to emphasize the “recitation,” or Socratic dialogue use of the workbooks for Old Western Culture. Ideally, the workbooks shouldn’t be used for mere comprehension, even if they accomplish that, but as a jumping point for discussion. Grappling with the questions from the lectures and readings … Continue Reading “Why Old Western Culture has no self-graded quizzes”
Eucatastrophe
Subject | Grades 9-12+Eucatastophe Death! Ride, ride to ruin and the world’s ending! …There flowered a White Tree, and that was for Gondor.Tolkien, Return of the King “This emotional rollercoaster that Tolkien puts us on – puts Éomer on – this swinging us from one extreme of Éomer’s sense of despair and impending defeat, to the thrill of discovering that what you thought was your enemy coming to kill you was in fact your friends and allies coming to rescue you. That’s what Tolkien calls “Eucatastrophe,” and that’s how Tolkien would have us read, and to feel, and to experience, … Continue Reading “Eucatastrophe”
What Does Jesus Have to Do with STEM? – Dr. Mitch Stokes
This article originally appeared in Digressio Magazine, Vol. 4. Listen to the audio version of this article. Stephen Hawking, who recently passed away, was the most famous physicist since Albert Einstein. And rightly so: he held the same Cambridge professorship that Sir Isaac Newton held, the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics. But, unlike Newton, Hawking was an atheist. Similarly, Richard Dawkins, an emeritus fellow at Oxford and the world’s most famous biologist, is an outspoken opponent of religion. Hawking and Dawkins both say that their respective sciences show that there is no God. To many people, this seems like pretty good … Continue Reading “What Does Jesus Have to Do with STEM? – Dr. Mitch Stokes”
Advent & Christmas Traditions – Francis Foucachon
What are Traditions? Traditions give us anchors to hold onto as time passes and as the pages of the calendar turn. Traditions are constants we can look forward to. Traditions connect groups and communities. They are the instruments to transmit beliefs from one generation to another, helping to tie the past to the present. In France, the open-air Christmas market is one of these traditions that ties both old and young together, as from year-to-year, grandparents, children, and grandchildren make their annual pilgrimage to a concentration of many sellers’ booths that constitute a real little village called the marché de … Continue Reading “Advent & Christmas Traditions – Francis Foucachon”
Fight Like an Amateur: Affirmation as Cultural Warfare
G.K. Chesterton once said that the true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him. I believe that it is increasingly difficult for our culture to understand what Chesterton means. To understand why love is a more powerful motivator than hate, we must grasp that there are ultimate commitments involved in either posture: One fights out of a fundamental desire to destroy and dominate and the other fights because it is compelled by love to defend the good of the beloved. Think for a moment about all the … Continue Reading “Fight Like an Amateur: Affirmation as Cultural Warfare”