OrdinaryTime
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Posts posted by OrdinaryTime
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You say, "Descartes essentially began a new method of philosophy that uses doubt to find a point where there is no longer room for doubt.."
Based on what you know about Descartes and his work, would you agree with the following assessment of his stated intentions in the work and the debate surrounding his text?
Renee Descartes said "I think, therefore I am." He resolved to begin with doubt rather than with faith, and instead of confessing, he invented modern philosophy. He concluded by beginning with doubt that I as an individual and only I as an individual can determine certainty and precision and truth, and that if something is not precise and certain, then it's not really knowable. He exalted himself to a point where he as an individual was the authority over his own thinking. He withdrew himself from human community and exalted himself above it. It was a thought experiment for him; the trouble is that the Western World bought into it and made it their model to a large extent. This is the beginning of the self-delusion that characterizes Western Civilization from that point forward.
This anecdote supports this conclusion: The analytical mind has brought great shame on itself by making itself ultimate.
(I do not believe that Kern's lecture ever mentions anything about Descartes's goal: to prove the existence of God. There is no discussion about the notion that Descartes used doubt to arrive as an irrefutable first principle.)
Would you agree or disagree with Kern's assessment of the work of Descartes and the role that it plays in history and philosophy?
I am not a philosopher, and it's been over ten years since I've read any Descartes (and I was by no means an expert then!) so take my opinions with a very large grain of salt.:tongue_smilie:
I would both agree and disagree with this brief assessment. I would not impute Descartes' intentions the way Mr. Kern seems to do, that he sought to exalt man over God, or the individual over community, or the pure rationality over every other mode of knowing. Having read no biographical work on Descartes, I take him at his word that he was seeking a new proof for the existence of God. However, do I think his new system of methodological doubt that ended in placing an individual's mind as the basis for any discussion of certainty result in some of the effects that Mr. Kern describes (at least as I understand him)? Yes, I do. Descartes method of skepticism, and his underlying assumptions, were a radical depature from the previous course of Western philosophy. It is man - his rational capacity alone - that provides the foundation of certainty now. I think the placing of "analytical mind" as the sole path to truth, leaving no room for discovering reality in sense experience, is a mistaken premise and does lead to an imbalance in one's approach to philosophy. So I agree with Mr. Kern there.
I've had some epic toddler meltdowns while writing this so I hope it makes some kind of sense!
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I'm not sure that saying that Descartes begins with doubt does miss the point. Yes, he is looking for a rock-solid first principle, but he is doing it in an entirely different way than earlier philosophers did, and that is very significant. To doubt everything until he finds something impossible to doubt is a very different process than to believe so that one may understand. It isn't an accident that he feels the need to start from that position, so different from the medieval or even Renaissance approach.
:iagree: Without having listened to the lecture yet, I don't see a problem with saying Descartes begins with doubt. Descartes essentially began a new method of philosophy that uses doubt to find a point where there is no longer room for doubt, a philosophical technique aptly called Cartesian doubt. I don't know the context of Mr. Kern's discussion of Descartes, but to say he starts with doubt seems fairly accurate.
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This brings me to another application I want to offer you. How do you ensure that your students are engaged, that your curriculum is integrated, and that you are all actually learning and not just having either fun or misery?
There's a natural course a child goes through to learn something (and for adults too). It applies to every lesson that is oriented to knowing a truth, from the simplest to the most complex. And it begins with you preparing them to receive it.
A lesson will natural walk through five stages on the way to the truth. Those stages have been described by Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and even early proto-progressives like Herbert Spencer. If you teach successfully you will have gone through these stages, whether you knew it or not.
Stage 1: Preparation of the student's mind. During this stage you raise to your child's mind as much as you judge beneficial of what they already know about the truth to be learned. For example, if you are about to teach them how to add two digit numbers together, let them enjoy how much they already know about one digit numbers, + signs, = signs, etc.
If you are about to read a fable (Grasshopper and ants, say) ask them what they know about grasshoppers, ants, fiddles, etc. and ask them if they've ever had to work hard or if they've ever wanted to listen to music while they worked, etc.
Stage 2: Present types (illustrations, examples, analogies, etc.) of the truth. These are specific embodiments of a truth to be learned. In math, you would present a few two column addition problems to them and work through them while they watch, gradually handing them over to the students.
In the fable, you would read the story (which is a type of a truth).
Stage 3: Compare types.
In math, you'd ask your children: what did I do this time and this time and this time? What did I do differently this time compared to this time. etc.
In a fable, you'd compare the grasshopper to the ants (how are they alike, how different? what did the g do? what did the ants do? what did each get? who would have been happier/wiser/etc. at the end?). Then you can compare stories. For example, you could compare this fable with one you've already read, or you could ask, does this remind you of any other stories or events from anything you've ever read or experienced?
Stage 4: Student expresses the truth in her own words
In math, ask: when I make you do 1000 of these tonight, how will you do it?
In a fable ask: what is the point of this story? (I never tell students the moral).
Stage 5: Student embodies the lesson learned in an artifact or action
In math, give them 1000 problems to practice the lesson learned
In the fable, tell them to apply the moral somehow in their own actions. Note: Do not ask them to write a fable after this lesson for the simple reason that you did not just teach them how to write a fable. That would be a good lesson, but it isn't the one I just described.
This applies across the curriculum and is surprisingly easy to do once you get the hang of it. The benefits are endless, not least that you'll see how things fit together across subjects and kids love that. Plus you remember more because you are constantly reviewing everything you've ever taught.
(Disclaimer: Catholic content)
I thank you for this lovely breakdown of designing a lesson for a child. I've been thinking about it the last few days, while I was simultaneously preparing a talk on prayer that I had to give at my parish. I was speaking about lectio divinia in my talk, an extremely ancient method of meditative prayer, and realized how well it fit into this teaching method of seeking, grasping, and then integrating truth. In lectio divinia, one begins by reading, then meditating, praying, and finally contemplating. You can compare this to the act of eating. First, you take a bite: read a bit of Scripture, or in the case of schooling, read the story or introduce the mathmatical problem/concept. Next, you chew on this bite. You meditate on the passage, using your intellect, as well as your imagination and emotions, to view the material from every possible angle. I think this is where the idea of poetic knowledge is vital. When meditating or "chewing" on something, mere intellectual work is not enough, though important. You need poetic knowledge of the subject at hand to really "get around" the subject, encompassing the whole of its reality. After chewing, or meditating, on the passage or problem, then one "savours" the bite, or prays with it. This is letting it dwell in you for a time, letting your mind and heart sit with the ideas. I find re-reading over a span of time so helpful in this step. Or in math, when one has chewed on a concept, a student can really savour doing several problems and enjoying success in the act of solving. Finally, one digests the bite, integrating into one's being. This is the contemplation stage. This is when the student makes the material his own. It becomes part of his own thinking and understanding, and he can articulate it to others.
I enjoyed this connection and because I'm familiar with lectio divinia in my own development, I feel like I can re-create that process for my children in many ways. Also, given the long, successful tradition of this type of process in helping millions reach truths about the Ultimate Reality, it builds my confidence in journeying down this path.
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I voted other. My husband has a J.D.
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I wanted to post this in case any of these ideas might help someone else.
In my un-quiet thoughts, I have tried to pick up multiple books to read, absorb, ponder. I haven't been able to concentrate on any of them, and thus, I keep picking up a different one to see if it will quiet my thoughts. Unfortunately, not one of the ones I had in front of me managed to turn from print to penetrating words. So, I went and picked back up a book I had already been reading by an author that never fails to ground me while simultaneously growing my understanding (Kreeft) and I started back at the beginning. I needed "repeat" information instead of something new. I am so glad that I did b/c my take-away from the words are quieting my thoughts b/c they are helping clarifying my "whats."
Kreeft spends many pages discussing metaphysics and the connection between Platonism and Symbolism. Then he turns to Lewis and quotes, "All visible things exist just in so far as they succeed in imitating the Forms……[A Platonic myth] reminds you of something you can't quite place. I think the something is 'the whole quality of life as we actually experience it.'"
Kreeft then continues, "The most striking example of this Platonic symbolism in Lewis's own writings, I think, comes at the end of the Last Battle, when the whole world of Narnia dies and is swallowed up into its Heavenly Platonic archetype:
"Listen, Peter. When Aslan said you could never go back to Narnia, he meant the Narnia you were thinking of. But that was not the real Narnia. That had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia which has always been here and always will be here: just as our world, England and all, is only a shadow or copy of something in Aslan's real world. …. And of course it is different; as different as a real thing is from a shadow or as waking life is from a dream." His voice stirred everyone like a trumpet as he spoke these words: but when he added under his breath "It's all in Plato, all in Plato: bless me, what do they teach them at these schools!" the older ones laughed. It was so exactly like the sort of thing they had heard him say long ago in that other world where his beard was grey instead of golden. …It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling…."I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this."Notice how the Platonic Ideas in Lewis's concrete literary example moved you more than my abstract philosophical explanations of Plato's Ideas. This is the strategy of the storyteller: to creep past the "watchful dragons" that guard the conscious reason that excludes these things as unbelievable; to open that back door of the heart when the front door of the mind is locked; to appeal to the wiser, deeper, unconscious mind…..A great mythmaker awakens the longing for the Platonic archetypes, which are buried deep in the human knowledge, through using a magic language: the language of myth. (from The Philosopy of Tolkien, pgs. 48-49)
The highlighted portion really spoke to me; it clarified what is calling me toward this path.
Hope Kreeft helps someone. (he almost always helps me. ;) )
Me! Peter Kreeft has helped me understand almost everything better. I also heartily second your recommendation to go back to authors/works that resonated with you in the past while wading through this hurricane of a thread. I think many of the ideas we are discussing here are old ideas for most of us, ideas we began to forget in our fear and anxiety. Re-encountering these ideas in the place we first fell in love with them is the best way to find peace in our minds and hearts.
I must say, that the passage you quoted from The Last Battle is my favorite from the whole series. That whole chapter really. And literature truly works the way Tolkien describes. My father read the Chronicles of Narnia aloud to me when I was seven, having the kind of discussions with me as we read together that we are discussing in this thread. I grew to love the books and re-read them again and again over the years until the truths found in their "mythology" were deeply integrated into my mind and my heart. When I sat in my first philosophy class in high school, Plato was like an old friend. I had already had this conversation in another time and place.
This happened again and again in my life. The good literature my parents introduced to me, the discussions we had around the dinner table, the example they set in truly striving to lead an integrated life where they sought the truth and lived it.... it worked. My parents opened my eyes and heart to the truth through their example and the books and people (saints, authors, characters) they introduced to me. They made mistakes, of course, but the core I needed to start growing into the person I was created to be was given to me. I feel deeply blessed with my education and feel they prepared to tackle the most frightening, exciting task I've ever face - giving the same to my children.
I'm rambling a bit, but I wanted to share from the perspective of someone who recieved the kind of education and formation being described in this thread. It is possible, and it is worth all the blood, sweat, and tears that I know my parents put into it.
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:lol: I kept complaining to DH about how there was nobody I could talk to about some of this stuff. Then I just accepted it. And poof, this thread came up. Funny how that happens.
And speaking of coincidence, I just came on here to share the following beautiful post. It speaks of the relationship between student and teacher... and also about the isolation we feel at times.
'A School for the Lord's Service': St. Benedict's Rule and Classical Education
I really enjoyed the blog link! Thanks for sharing.
Fabulous thread, everyone. I feel like I'm back in college where we stayed up late at all-night diners wrangling about how one truly defines beauty or if one discovers truth best through reason or experience. Love it!
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I usually focus on mastering the initial blend first. However, if my child is struggling, I sometimes have them focus on the vowel ending they are familiar with to help build up some speed.
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Trina is one of my heroines.
Here, check out my illustration pintrest board.
Love Trina, too. Thanks for sharing your board. Beautiful.
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I like this. Measuring and estimating are something else the article mentioned that I'm doing more of.
Yes, I am completely behind his recommendations on estimation! Sadly, I am horrific at estimating, an altogether too-obvious sign of what was lacking from my own mathematical education. Thankfully, my husband excels at it so I've out-sourced it to him while I work on improving my own powers of estimation. :)
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I read the Benezet article in January. After closely watching and reflecting on my son's math study, I decided to drastically reduce formal math lessons. The time we do spend on math, we focus on Miquon. I have my husband committed to working on bringing out oppotunities for mathematical thinking in daily life since he naturally does this very well. I am focusing on the "reading and reciting" portion of Benezet mantra. I dramatically increased the amount of reading and level of reading we are doing. I also focused in on the level of discussion we were having during our school time and throughout the day to build those reasoning and communication abilities.
Our math time has improved immensely because of these changes. My child, who is naturally inclined to math and who loved it during our Miquon-only kindergarten year, went from being bored and glazed over to truly engaging again with math.
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Thank you for sharing this. It's a lovely thought. :)
Have you read Hugh Kenner's Paradox in Chesterton? If not, it would be worth seeking out. The author relates this use of the analogical or poetic mode to the thinking of St. Thomas Aquinas. As a bonus, the introduction was written by the media theorist Marshall McLuhan, who was not yet famous. One bit is almost a nutshell version of his incredibly dense PhD thesis on the trivium as a structure that underlies Western intellectual history.
(McLuhan's work on media and the senses is in some ways an even bigger influence on my homeschooling than John Senior et al. But his theories raise many difficult questions, and provide just about nothing in the way of practical advice. I can't recommend going down that road unless your curiosity is much stronger than your desire for intellectual calm. ;))
Thank you for the rec. I have not read Kenner's book, but that seems right up my alley.
I remember you mentioning McLuhan's work on the trivium in another thread and was intrigued enough to read the reviews. :tongue_smilie: I'm hoping to read some of him at some point, but am not quite sure where I'm going to get the time!
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Simka, Dr. James Taylor, the head of Angelicum, and who is also a part of Circe, has a great interview up I think might help you, based on his book.
Poetic Knowledge: The Recovery of Education.
I'm currently reading Dr. Taylor's Poetic Knowledge and thoroughly enjoying it. It reminds me of what I love so deeply about G.K. Chesterton's writing; he integrates poetic knowledge, often even starts with it, in his work. The suprise at the sun rising each day or the wonder at the beauty of green grass (and that it is green everyday!) are all the essential starting points of his arguments. To have poetic knowledge deeply integrated into an argument, along with the other modes, brings such a fresh exuberance and a real gut-level truth to a work. If anyone wants to see the kind of thinking and writing that comes out of a mind steeped in poetic knowledge, read some Chesterton.
Actually, it's always been my slightly sub-concious goal of my homeschooling endeavor to have my children someday pick up Orthodoxy by Chesterton, read it, and think, "Wow, this is exactly how I've always thought about things, but never quite knew it!" It's nice to finally have a term to describe that illusive quality I wanted to instill in my children so badly.
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Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson tales
Little House series
Charlotte's Web
Chronicles of Narnia
Treasure Island
Lots of poetry: Stevenson, Frost, AAMilne, Barker
...and lots and lots quality picture books.
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I.ve focused mainly in building sewing skills. I start with the lacing cards. Then around age 3, they get their first needle to string popcorn for the Christmas tree. It's a very big deal in our house! My dd5 just started her first felt doll today and enjoyed it tremendously. We'll keep working on mastering various hand-stitches for a few years. Maybe start cross-stitching around 8 or 9. Also, we'll begin crocheting around then as well.
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I've been out-if-sync since October: exhausted, full of anxiety, very impatient, mental fogginess. I posted about adrenal fatigue here about a month ago and made some big changes. (I think you even posted some supplements on the thread -thank you!] I'm feeling so much better in such a brief period of time!!
1. I cut out gluten, caffeine, and sugar from my diet. Today I cheated and had a piece of banana bread. Yikes! I immediately turned into a stressed out, wild woman.
2. I started taking a good multi-vitamin and vitamin D supplement.
3. I started taking 5-HTP. I started at 100 mgs, but cut it down to 50 mgs. The larger dose made me nauseous. The smaller dose helps me sleep better at night while waking me up during the day.
4. I focus on staying hydrated.
5. I am working on letting go of perfectionism.
6. I take a few hours off -away from everyone- every week.
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The Brooks Brothers are great.
My husband prefers Joseph A. Banks travelers line. They come out of the dryer very crisp and hold up very well. They are pricey, but Joseph A. Banks has very regular sales and has outlets.
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Apple
Cherry
Pumpkin
Sugar Cream
ETA: Though it is really more about the crust than the filling for me!
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Mandarin Orange Chicken!!!
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Totally impressive.
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Synergy
Drill down
Actualize
Granular
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Looks fabulous!
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Friedrich Hayek, who is part of the Austrian school of thought, though a different branch than Mises, won the Nobel Prize in Economics. I think a dismissal of Austrian economics out of hand is a little over the top.
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I got a big kick out of this video about Hayeck vs. Keynes.
Handwriting (long)
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted · Edited by OrdinaryTime
One possible reason most manuscript programs have traditionally called for top-down technique is because when manuscript was developed, one used ink quills. You can't get the ink to follow with a bottom-top stroke. The tools of writing really dictated the method. Interesting factoid I picked up in a calligraphy class.
Personally, I have two lefties that struggle with handwriting. They ALWAYS want to start from the bottom, even with circular strokes. I've tried to find something they are comfortable with that will translate easily into cursive/linked writing. Then I stick with that method for each letter with them. At least there is a method to our maddness.