This is a guest post by Patrick Long, the Deputy Headmaster at Chavagnes International College, a member of the Australian Classical Education Society (ACES), and a student in Kepler’s Teacher Certification Program. A few years ago, I found myself more frequently saying that ‘there has to be a better way’. Recent polls and surveys suggest I was not alone, and the sentiment is shared by many today: 44% of US K-12 Teachers feel burned …
Blog Posts
A Guest Post by Mike Wilhelm, Ph.D. Dr. Wilhelm is the senior chaplain at Cal Farley’s: a worldwide leader in the field of residential childcare for boys and girls, providing services at no cost to families. Mike is the director of the Iona Project and an alumnus of Faulkner University’s Great Books Honors College. I had a young friend some years ago. I’ll call her Ellie. Ellie came to our residential childcare community …
Not long ago, I read Babe: The Gallant Pig to my children as part of our ongoing building of a family canon of literature. I remember when the movie adaption came out (I won’t tell how old I was to avoid self-incrimination) and recalled that I had not been impressed at that time. However, in following our standard practice, the movie viewing was proffered following the completion of the reading of the book. …
I just finished my first year of teaching at the college level. I spent the first three quarters of the year teaching an introductory humanities course at Southeastern University, and I spent the final quarter of the year teaching an MA class in apologetics at Houston Baptist University entitled “Ancient Philosophy and Culture.” To say that this experience has been eye-opening would be an understatement. I recently told one of my former professors that I …
Alexander Pushkin wrote a fairy tale called “The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish”, which is based on an older telling by the Brothers Grimm. In this story, a poor fisherman manages to catch a miraculous golden fish, which promises a wish to the fisherman in exchange for his freedom. The fisherman is too surprised and taken aback to take advantage of this offer and instead frees the fish. When he returns home he …
World mythologies and regional folktales have always served as source material for modern fantasy, with some (like Greek or Celtic myths) having well-established influence and others (like African or Asian tales) enjoying their first widespread audience in recent years. Young adult novels have their fair share of fantasies based on the old stories, and also their fair share of both successful and failed retellings. In the last year or two, young adult readers have been …