Several years ago, while hunting for something to add to Dr. Bruce’s extensive Shakespeare media collection, we ran across a short documentary called “The Hobart Shakespeareans”. It’s a profile of teacher Rafe Esquith of the Los Angeles school district, and his dedication to his fifth-grade students. Besides the normal coursework required by the state for… Continue reading There are no short cuts. Really.
Category: Character formation
Why Study Greek?
I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat. — Winston Churchill (somewhat out of context). A few years ago I wrote an entry on this blog entitled “Why Study Latin?” It was a distillation of my own thoughts… Continue reading Why Study Greek?
Computer Programming as a Liberal Art
One of the college majors most widely pursued these days is computer science. This is largely because it’s generally seen as a ticket into a difficult and parsimonious job market. Specific computer skills are demonstrably marketable: one need merely review the help wanted section of almost any newspaper to see just how particular those demands… Continue reading Computer Programming as a Liberal Art
Adventures in Team Teaching
About this time last year, Dr. McMenomy approached me with an idea that was half-proposal and half-plea. The World History course for that year had both students enrolled and a textbook picked out and purchased, but did not have a teacher. As I was the other specifically-history teacher on the Scholars Online staff, Dr. McMenomy… Continue reading Adventures in Team Teaching
Freedom to fail
The previous entry on this blog was about failure not being an option — and I subscribe to that. Failure in an ultimate sense is something we should never choose for ourselves: the universe or some other person may well cause us to fail but we should not elect to fail in a final sense.… Continue reading Freedom to fail
Failure is not an option
When I taught my first class as a graduate assistant at UCLA, one of the students asked whether my Western Civilization section was a “Mickey Mouse” course. What he meant was, “Is this a course with a guaranteed A if I show up and do the minimal work assigned, or will I run the risk… Continue reading Failure is not an option
Learning and teaching…and learning
When we first started homeschooling our kids, Christe and I generally divided our tasks according to our general areas of relative expertise — she took the more scientific and mathematical subjects, while I dealt with the more humanities-oriented ones, especially those having to do with language. But it didn’t always fall out that way, and… Continue reading Learning and teaching…and learning