Rhetoric as the Essential Art of the Upper School

Posted on by Paul Drake

In the last 20 years, we have begun to recapture the glory of the classical curriculum in our renewal. Now that we have seen how valuable the arts of the trivium are, we may be ready to take the next step in our mastery and implementation of them. This workshop explains the context, meaning, and incredible practicality – both in school and in ‘real life’ of classical rhetoric. It argues that rhetoric is nothing less than the key that unlocks the power of the whole classical curriculum.

Andrew Kern

Andrew Kern is the Founder and President of CiRCE Institute. He has also helped found Providence Academy, Ambrose School, Great Ideas Academy and Regents Schools of the Carolinas. Andrew is the co-author of Classical Education: The Movement Sweeping America, The Lost Tools of Writing and The CiRCE Guide to Reading. Andrew is also a consultant and founded the CiRCE apprenticeship.

Reading “the Right Books”: C.S. Lewis on Reading Good Literature

Posted on by Paul Drake

Eustace Clarence Scrubb, says Lewis, repeatedly had not read “the right books.” So what books should Eustace have read to equip him for his adventures in Narnia? Lewis has lots to say about what books to read, how to read them, and even how to teach them and how not to teach them. This workshop will consider Lewis’s ideas on reading and teaching good literature.

Linda Dey

Linda Dey is a co-founder, administrator and teacher at The Imago School in Maynard, MA, and a past member of the board of the Society for Classical Learning.

Teaching with the Ancients

Posted on by Paul Drake

Is “Ad Fontes” the exclusive call of the humanities, or could mathematics and science classes profit by using primary sources as well? This session will consider the benefits and challenges of using primary sources in math and science classes and help sort out how to make them effective. We will explore how primary sources can augment textbooks by giving students first hand access to the technical narrative of discovery. We will also discuss replicating these great historic discoveries as lab work as well as using primary sources to consider issues in faith and science. Whether your class has never attempted to use primary sources before, or whether you’ve been reading Newton’s Principia Mathematica for years, this session will offer an accessible path for fully integrating primary source material into any of your lessons from arithmetic to electricity.

Ravi Jain

Ravi Jain graduated from Davidson College with a BA and interests in physics, ancient Greek, and international political economy. He worked at various churches, received an MA from Reformed Theological Seminary, and later earned a Graduate Certi cate in Mathematics from the University of Central Florida. He began teaching Calculus and Physics at The Geneva School in 2003, where he has developed an integrated double-period class called “The Scienti c Revolution.” In this class the students read primary sources such as Galileo and Newton in order to recapitulate the narrative of discovery while preserving the mathematical and scienti c rigor expected of a college-level treatment. During his tenure there, he co-authored The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education. He has given more than 100 talks and workshops throughout the country and overseas on topics related to education, mathematics, and science. He has two young boys, Judah and Xavier. A er the duties of the week have been discharged (by 8:53 Saturday night), the few remaining hours he enjoys spending with family, friends, and his wife, Kelley Anne, whom he met in Japan.

The Teacher’s Seminar: A School within the School

Posted on by Paul Drake

In Norms and Nobility, David Hicks suggests that a classical school must have a teacher’s seminar to drive faculty improvement and to insure proper classical pedagogy. This seminar is a scheduled weekly gathering of faculty to discuss readings, questions, tests, topics for debate, teaching methods, and more. It also serves as an excellent mentoring program, an effective platform for teacher evaluation, and a continual source of faculty development. This seminar will look at the abundant benefits of the teacher’s seminar for a classical school and how it could be implemented.

Peter VandeBrake

Peter Vande Brake attended Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI, where he was an All-American decathlete and Philosophy major. He a ended seminary at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, VA, and then did his doctoral work at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids. He taught, coached, and was Headmaster at North Hills Classical Academy from 1996–2010. He is a leadership consultant for the CiRCE Institute and the high school principal and track coach at The Potter’s House School in Grand Rapids, an urban Christ-centered school. He is married and has two daughters.

The Effectively Managed Classroom

Posted on by Paul Drake

Would you like to have fewer disciplinary problems in your class? Are you spending all your time and effort keeping your students under control? Do you find yourself completely drained at the end of each day with little energy to invest in your family? It can be different! Learn how proactive procedures, as well as biblical standards and expectations, can produce an Effectively Managed Class(room).

Shirley Emerson

Shirley Emerson is the 1st grade teacher at Calvary Classical School in Hampton, Virginia, where she also serves on the Academic Planning Committee, Special Needs Committee, and Staffing Committee. She has a bachelor's degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Old Dominion University. Mrs. Emerson recently completed a two-year term as Director of Children's Ministries at Hope Presbyterian Church in Smithfield, Virginia, where she is a member. She has been married to her husband, Dale for 11 years and they have three children ages 7, 4, and 3, who are all students at CCS.

Christian and Humanist Education – Part 1

Posted on by Paul Drake

Christian Humanism, the history and theory of, with a focus on the twentieth century. Starting with paul at Mars’ Hill through the Patristic period, Birzer will briefly discuss the meaning of the liberal arts in the formation of the Christian church – through the reformation. He will then focus on a number of (mostly) Christian thinkers key to understanding the humanities in an age of ideologies: Irving Babbitt; Paul Elmer More; Albert Jay Nock; Christopher Dawson; Romano Guardini; T.S. Eliot; Russell Kirk; and Stratford Caldecott. He will also give some time to the most damaging and influential ideologues of the past century and a half: Darwin; Marx; Spencer; Freud; and Nietzsche.

Brad Birzer

Brad Birzer is Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies and Professor of History, Hillsdale College, Michigan. Author of several books, including his most recent, American Cicero: The life of Charles Carroll, Birzer writes frequently - in a variety of publications and through a variety of different venues - on liberal education, biography, western civilization, and American culture and history. Birzer is a Senior Fellow with ISI, Chairman of the Board of Academic Advisors for The Center for the American Republic and a Fellow with the University of Louisville's McConnell Center.

Christian and Humanist Education – Part 2

Posted on by Paul Drake

Christian Humanism, the history and theory of, with a focus on the twentieth century. Starting with paul at Mars’ Hill through the Patristic period, Birzer will briefly discuss the meaning of the liberal arts in the formation of the Christian church – through the reformation. He will then focus on a number of (mostly) Christian thinkers key to understanding the humanities in an age of ideologies: Irving Babbitt; Paul Elmer More; Albert Jay Nock; Christopher Dawson; Romano Guardini; T.S. Eliot; Russell Kirk; and Stratford Caldecott. He will also give some time to the most damaging and influential ideologues of the past century and a half: Darwin; Marx; Spencer; Freud; and Nietzsche.

Brad Birzer

Brad Birzer is Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies and Professor of History, Hillsdale College, Michigan. Author of several books, including his most recent, American Cicero: The life of Charles Carroll, Birzer writes frequently - in a variety of publications and through a variety of different venues - on liberal education, biography, western civilization, and American culture and history. Birzer is a Senior Fellow with ISI, Chairman of the Board of Academic Advisors for The Center for the American Republic and a Fellow with the University of Louisville's McConnell Center.

The Classical Way to Teach Narrative Composition (Story Telling)

Posted on by Paul Drake

Writing has a soul and the classical tradition was nourished by and nourished that soul. The 20th century saw a decline in writing because it lost its classical soul. This practical workshop shows how to teach story telling classically and shows why it works so much better than the gimmick based approaches of many modern writing programs.

Andrew Kern

Andrew Kern is the Founder and President of CiRCE Institute. He has also helped found Providence Academy, Ambrose School, Great Ideas Academy and Regents Schools of the Carolinas. Andrew is the co-author of Classical Education: The Movement Sweeping America, The Lost Tools of Writing and The CiRCE Guide to Reading. Andrew is also a consultant and founded the CiRCE apprenticeship.

Poetic Liturgy

Posted on by Paul Drake

This is a practice that we have used in our schools which uses poetry to consider a subject or a moment in the church calendar. It is a meditative and contemplative event where students prepare to read the poems (chosen according to their relevance and exploration of a subject or liturgical event) and meditations on the poems. They are often accompanied by musical interludes or paintings. We have discovered that employing literature in a manner that addresses its academic elements but leads us into worship is a type of embodied learning discussed in James Smith’s book “Desiring the Kingdom.” This is appropriate for all members of the school community: parents, board members, teachers, administrators. We encourage you to come and experience this liturgy with us and transplant it to your own school this year.

Christine Perrin

Christine Perrin has taught literature and creative writing at Johns Hopkins University, Messiah College, Gordon College’s Orvieto Program, through the Pennsylvania Arts Council to students of all ages, and at the local classical school where her husband was headmaster for a decade and where her children a ended K-12. She consults with classical schools in curriculum development and faculty development in poetry. She is a two time recipient of the PA Arts Council Artists Fellowship and a Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference Fellowship. Her own work appears in various journals including The New England Review, Image, TriQuarterly, Blackbird, and Christianity and Literature, The Cresset. “The Art of Poetry” a text book for middle to high school students was published in 2009 by Classical Academic Press. She attended Johns Hopkins as an undergraduate and the University of Maryland for graduate school. She keeps a blog at: h p://blog.classicalacademicpress.com/poetry

Jesse Hake

Raised in Taiwan by missionary parents, Jesse studied history at Geneva College (Beaver Falls, PA) and the University of St Andrews (Scotland) before marrying Elizabeth and taking his rst teaching job in Washington DC. Jesse has been teaching college and high school students for over nine years, with six of them at Covenant Christian Academy, a classical Christian school in Harrisburg, PA. At Covenant, Jesse has taught literature, rhetoric, theology and history as well as facilitating faculty development and overseeing upper school culture and discipline.

Developing a Faculty Equipped to Inspire both Men and Women to Excellence

Posted on by Paul Drake

Most classical and Christian schools have mission statements involving the equipping of leaders for the cause of Christ. At the same time, most Christians acknowledge that God created women and men with critical differences. Have you considered the implications for your school? Three educators share their experience and invite you to share yours in this seminar exploring the different pressures on and aspirations for young men and women of Christ.

Leslie Moeller

Leslie Moeller is the Chairman of the Board of the Society for Classical Learning and has served on the SCL Board for 12 of the last 14 years. She currently consults with Classical, Christian schools across the nation in the areas of leadership, administrative function, and governance. She is a member of the Board of New Covenant Schools in Lynchburg, Virginia, and the Board of Academic Advisors for the Classic Learning Test. Most recently, she helped lead a three year restructuring of the Upper School at the Covenant School in Charlottesville, Virginia. Prior to her family’s move to Virginia in 2015, she spent 13 years at Geneva School of Boerne where she served in multiple roles including Chairman of the Board, Head of School, Capital Campaign Co-Chairman, founder and coach of Geneva’s nationally-ranked debate program and Senior Thesis instructor. She received her Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School and her Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature and Economics from the University of Virginia. Leslie and her husband, Eric, have three children.

Rob Shelton

Rob Shelton is the Headmaster of Logic and Rhetoric at Geneva School of Boerne, and has been in his current position for four years. Before coming to Geneva, he served as a youth pastor for 22 years, 19 of which were in the same church; during which time he also taught as an adjunct in rhetoric at UT San Antonio. Rob has a BA and an MA in English from the University of Texas at San Antonio and an M.Div. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Though he works in Boerne, Rob and his wife Kathleen, and their twin daughters resides in San Antonio. Rob sees his current role as a combination of all his experience that allows him to prepare the next generation of Christian leaders through the unique conduit of classical Christian education.

Aaron Southwick

Aaron Southwick is a graduate of Liberty University, and teaches Rhetoric School humanities at Geneva School of Boerne. By reading and studying the classics, Aaron seeks to instill in his students a love for language - the medium through which God's truth, goodness and beauty are revealed in literature.