Habits of Mind and Singapore Math

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Whether you are implementing Singapore Math or are simply looking to improve the math culture in your school, this session is for you. Changing the way math is taught requires more than just a change of textbooks. A successful transition requires the development of habits of mind in our teachers and students. This session will include how we became a model school with Math’s No Problem by developing instruction that promotes metacognition, exible thinking, and striving for accuracy. Come learn from our five-year journey of professional development, parent education, and student achievement.

Mo Gaffney

Mo Gaffney has served as Head of Lower School at The Covenant School in Charlo esville, VA, for the past six years. Before coming to The Covenant School, Mo taught primary grades in both public and private schools. She earned a BA in Early Childhood Education, an MEd in Elementary Education, and a doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction, all from the University of Virginia. While there., she taught writing and beginning teaching courses as well as conducted extensive research in elementary classrooms. She has led professional development workshops and has presented at national conferences on teacher evaluations, reading and writing connections, leisure in schools, and Singapore Math. This past fall The Covenant School hosted a successful Singapore Math conference, featuring Dr. Yeap Ban Har and Maths No Problem, winner of Publication of the Year in the United Kingdom. Mo and her husband, Je , have four young adult children.

Susy Willetts

Susy Willetts Society for Classical Learning • Summer Conference 2017 Susy Willetts serves as the Pre-K-6 Math Coordinator at The Covenant School in Charlottesville, VA. Before coming to The Covenant School, Susy has extensive experience teaching in independent specialty schools for gifted and intellectually advanced students, public schools, where she served struggling learners and Christian schools as a classroom teacher and administrator. She earned a BA in History from James Madison University with a concentration in secondary education and an MAT from Mary Baldwin University. This past fall she and Dr. Gaffney hosted a Singapore Math Conference at the The Covenant School featuring Dr. Yeap Ban Har and Math’s No Problem, winner of Publication of the Year, in the United Kingdom. Susy and her husband are raising their three teenage sons, three chickens and three dogs. Extensive research in elementary classrooms. She has led professional development workshops and has presented at national conferences on teacher evaluations, reading and writing connections, leisure in schools, and Singapore Math. This past fall The Covenant School hosted a successful Singapore Math conference, featuring Dr. Yeap Ban Har and Maths No Problem, winner of Publication of the Year in the United Kingdom. Mo and her husband, Jerry, have four young adult children.

Cicero on The Good Life and His Influence on the Modern World

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The first entrance requirement to Harvard College in 1642 was to be “able to read Tully or such like classical Latin Author ex tempore.” Tully is Cicero. Why did Harvard and other Colonial colleges want students to read Cicero’s writings before admission? I believe the decisive factor was Cicero’s character as found in his writings. He was an influential politician, a canny defense attorney, and the author of dialogues of philosophy, rhetoric, and politics. Cicero’s range of accomplishments inspired the ideal of the Renaissance Man, the man for all seasons, who balanced a thoughtful ethical life with participation in politics. We shall explore both Cicero’s views of the Good Life, beata vita, and his influence on major figures of the 16th and 18th centuries: Thomas More, Martin Luther, David Hume, Edmund Burke, and John Adams.

Christian Kopff

E. Christian Kopff was educated at St. Paul’s School (Garden City NY), Haverford College and UNC, Chapel Hill (Ph. D., Classics). He has taught at the University of Colorado, Boulder, since 1973, and most currently as Associate Director of the Honors Program. He has edited a critical edition of the Greek text of Euripides’ Bacchae (Teubner, 1982) and published over 100 articles and reviews on scholarly, pedagogical and popular topics. A Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, he has received research grants from the NEH and CU’s Committee on Research. The Devil Knows Latin: Why America Needs the Classical Tradition (ISIBooks, 1999) is widely cited by Classical Christian educators. He translated Josef Pieper, Tradition: Concept and Claim (ISIBooks, 2008; St. Augustine’s, 2010) and contributed the Introduction to Herbert Jordan’s translation of Homer’s Iliad (Oklahoma UP, 2008).

A Theology of Knitting? Bonaventure, the Common Arts, and the Human Good

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One of the most remarkable features of contemporary culture is that many of the “common” (mechanical) arts of tangible making that were once understood to be practical, now seem useless. The practitioners of almost any common art today, whether blacksmithing or bread baking, now find that they can no longer earn a living through these arts because they cannot compete with the economies of scale that industrial production makes possible. Nowhere is this more apparent than the art of knitting: why spend hours knitting a pair of socks when you can buy several pairs for a few dollars? Nevertheless, people do still knit, even if not for obvious economic advantage. What are the human benefits that come only through the practice of such common arts? Do the common arts contribute to the human good? If they do, what does the loss of these arts imply for post-industrial life and education? This workshop considers such questions by drawing on the account of the common arts offered by the 13th- century Franciscan theologian, St. Bonaventure, in his text “Retracing the Arts to Theology” (De reductione artium ad theologiam).

Phillip Donnelly

PHILLIP Donne y Phillip J. Donnelly, PhD, serves as Director of the Great Texts Program in the Honors College at Baylor University. His research focuses on the historical intersections between philosophy, theology, and imaginative literature, with particular a ention to Renaissance literature and the reception of classical educational traditions. He is currently nishing a book on the verbal arts and Christian faith.

Whence Rhetoric for The Good Life?

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Most, if not all, classical educators acknowledge the importance of rhetoric in the curriculum of the liberal arts. Many also recognize that the skills of rhetoric are not limited to one or two classes taken on the subject of persuasive writing or public speaking, but are inculcated throughout the education of a child; from getting Jack or Jill up in front of folks to recite Scripture or play the role of Achilles, to their using the tools of language through progymnasmata exercises, to their imitating great writers and speakers of the past and present. Yet when it comes to thinking about formal instruction in rhetoric for one, two, or maybe three years at the end of a child’s “high school” education; what ought the rhetoric curriculum offer? By consulting the educational philosophies for rhetorical training among the Greeks, Romans, and Early Christians, modern classical educators can sharpen our conceptions of what a program of rhetorical training can and ought to be. More specifically, I argue that since the practice of rhetoric is inseparable from questions of Truth, Justice, and “the Good” in the polis, any educational program of rhetoric in which these matters aren’t pervasive throughout undermines the classical foundations of the art.

Joshua Butcher

Born and raised in rural north-central Florida, Mr. Butcher made pilgrimages through the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Republic of Texas on his way back to Florida’s City of Five Flags, a place where his overactive imagination never imagined settling. Currently he teaches at Trinitas Christian School and spends much of his time raising four young lads and a li le lady with his wife, Hannah, whose own pilgrimages as an Air Force kid far outstrip his own.

How a Catechism Can Transform Your Classroom/The Good Life in Confessional: Nominalism vs. Wonder

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Aside from secularism, nominalism is the villain most commonly blamed by Christians for all that is wrong with the world. What is nominalism? The lukewarm Christian is nominal. The mediocre Christian is nominal. The nominal Christian is the Christian who doesn’t really get it. The Christian who is in it only for show. But how we do we determine who the nominal Christian is? Have we used a definition of nominalism that is overly convenient? The spiritual boredom and malaise resulting from blaming everyone but yourself for the problems with the Church can be combatted with the sublime joy of others, especially the joy of little children. How can we open ourselves up to this joy? In this lecture, Joshua Gibbs looks at St. Anselm’s dictum that God is “whatever it is better to be than not to be” and discusses ways in which teachers can become divine.

What if you did not have to require students to memorize anything? What if you did not have to test students on memorized material? What if your students memorized massive amounts of information anyway, and they memorized it in such a way that they retained it for life? Step 1: The high school teacher (hard science or soft science, makes no difference) writes a catechism that encapsulates the most important names, dates, definitions, theories, passages, and lists that are covered over the course of the school year. Step 2: The class recites the catechism at the start of every class meeting. Result: The class begins in an orderly, ceremonial fashion every day. The students accidentally learn a massive amount of information. The teacher is freed up to ask more contemplative questions on exams. This practice has revolutionized my classroom. Come hear how a simple, yet thoroughly classical practice can help your students retain a memory of what they study and help you begin class every day in a contemplative fashion.

Joshua Gibbs

Joshua Gibbs is the editor of FilmFisher, a frequent contributor at the CiRCE Institute, and a teacher of great books at Veritas School in Richmond, VA. He has been labeled “insane” by two Pulitzer Prize– winning poets and once abandoned a moving vehicle for fear of his life. He married a girl he fell in love with in high school and has two daughters, both of whom have seven names.

The Art of Debate: Developing Students Who Cling to Truth

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The Word of God is clear that Christians are to hold ethics in a place of upmost importance. The purpose of debate is to show students that they are called to think eternally, following an avenue that impacts the way they live in 21st-century America. Therefore, the focus is to build the students’ Biblical worldview, through expanding a student’s ability to soundly argue on all grounds. A student who holds the ability to argue on the grounds of any subject is a student who is capable of having sound theological doctrine in his or her own life. So, yes the student will be arguing ethical standpoints all across the board, but they will learn under the pretense of what is really Truth. The student will reach maximum learning capacity when they understand how to argue their opposition, by being their opposition.

Tim Goodwin

Tim Goodwin is an educator at The Geneva School of Manha an, where he teaches third grade and is Director of Speech and Debate. Tim graduated from Dallas Baptist University with a BS in History and Christian Ministry, where he served as president of Pi Alpha Theta (History Honors Society). A er graduation, Tim began his career teaching seventh grade Texas history at San Antonio Christian School. There, Tim coached both middle school and varsity soccer. In December 2014, Tim married his wonderful wife, Sydney, a musical theatre actress. Sydney’s profession prompted their move to New York City in July 2015. Tim is currently enrolled in Southeastern Theological Seminary, where he will earn his Masters of Divinity in May 2018.

Everyday Themes in Literature: Using Narrative to Develop the Whole Person

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Quality literature opens the door for discovery and discussion into developing the whole person. As grammar and logic teachers, we often design novel studies to fulfill curricular goals; this workshop will guide participants to think about designing novel studies that incorporate a holistic, everyday view of persons. Using The Hobbit and To Kill a Mockingbird as anchor texts, participants will examine how themes of hospitality, ritual, work, and play ll the pages of these novels, creating opportunity for growth and reflection in our students as well as in our own lives. In addition, participants will receive practical tools and teaching strategies for their own novel studies.

Alicia Brummeier

Alicia is passionate about middle-school students and teaching them to become be er readers and writers. In addition to teaching, Alicia coaches cross-country and serves as a dorm mom at The Stony Brook School. She was the 2016 recipient of the D. Bruce Lockerbie Faculty Award for Excellence. Prior to coming to Stony Brook, she taught literature and composition for ve years in the grammar school at Live Oak Classical School in Waco. Her rst book, Everywhere God: Exploring the Ordinary Places, was recently published by Kalos Press. She and her husband, Brad, have two young-adult children.

Students are People Too

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Assuming students are lazy, disinterested, and rebellious are among the easiest assumptions teachers can make. Where we would excuse our own behavior because of a lack of sleep, food, or other comforts, we do not for our students. If the Good Life is to live up to our fullest human potential, how much of that is found in our honoring the Imago Dei in others, in our students? What does it mean to treat students as humans, and don’t we just automatically do that already? In many cases, no. The way we educate can be seen through six dimensions: environment, community, governance, pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment. Each of these are dimensions in which, seen rightly, can help teachers, administrators, and schools honor the humanity of their leaders, their teachers, their faculty, and, most importantly, their students.

Matt Bianco

Ma Bianco is the Director of The Lost Tools of Writing for the CiRCE Institute, where he also serves as a mentor in the CiRCE apprenticeship program. A homeschooling father of three, he graduated his oldest two sons, the eldest of which is a ending St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD. His second child is a ending Belmont Abbey College in Charlo e, NC, and his youngest (and only daughter) is a high school junior. He is married to his altogether lovely, high school sweetheart, Patty. He is the author of Letters to My Sons: A Humane Vision for Human Relationships.

Recovering the Humanity of Rhetoric

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Rhetoric is more than just winning arguments or persuading opponents. It is the act of bringing two minds into harmony; it is the act of harmonizing a community. Rhetoric and its canons, Invention, Arrangement, Elocution, Memory, and Delivery, are themselves designed to harmonize. They are, moreover, designed to honor the humanity of our audience, our community, our conversation partner. Recovering the humanity of rhetoric means seeing and teaching the canons in such a way as to promote the humanity of the other. These tools, already designed to honor the humanity of the other, get abused when rhetoric is reduced to winning an argument or mere persuasion. Let us recover the humanity of rhetoric; let us teach our students to honor those who disagree with them.

Matt Bianco

Ma Bianco is the Director of The Lost Tools of Writing for the CiRCE Institute, where he also serves as a mentor in the CiRCE apprenticeship program. A homeschooling father of three, he graduated his oldest two sons, the eldest of which is a ending St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD. His second child is a ending Belmont Abbey College in Charlo e, NC, and his youngest (and only daughter) is a high school junior. He is married to his altogether lovely, high school sweetheart, Patty. He is the author of Letters to My Sons: A Humane Vision for Human Relationships.

Cross-Curricular Integration in the Lower School Latin Classroom

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This workshop will present specific strategies on integrating Latin into every core content area of a Lower-School classical Christian curriculum. Demonstrating for students the relevance of Latin instruction on History, Science, Math, Literature, ELA, Bible, Art, Music, P.E., etc., will help strengthen not only students’ mastery of Latin, but also their performance across the curricular spectrum. The workshop will address designing a cross-curricular Latin program, creating interdisciplinary unit plans, and collaborating with classroom teachers to maximize the impact on students’ performance. The last part of the workshop will be an open discussion of attendees’ ideas and concerns about how to create and implement such a program at their schools.

Shannon Walker

I have been teaching Latin to students in the elementary grades for 12 years. I am a tireless advocate for the classical Christian model of education. I am also extremely passionate about Latin education in the elementary grades. I know that peer-reviewed research demonstrates the cross-curricular benefits that younger students receive from the study of Latin. I believe that the study of Latin is relevant to every area of a student’s education. I have seen firsthand the bene ts that my students have received. It has been such a pleasure to watch these students as they mature into high school and college—and to see that their study of Latin is still benefiting them.