Living in the Constellation of the Canon

Posted on by Society for Classical Learning

For my doctoral work, I took a journey into the lived experience of African American students reading Great Books. In this workshop I invite others to experience the journey. The research question that guided my study was “What are the lived experiences of African American students reading Great Books literature?” especially when including African American thinkers like Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Marva Collins, Anna Julia Cooper, Gloria Ladson-Billings, James Baldwin, and others. Years ago, I taught a Great Books literature class for six years at a small Classical Christian School school in Southern Maryland. Twenty-two African American students came through, and five of those students were able to participate in this study where we all met around a table, just as we did years ago for the Great Books class. These former students and I went away for a weekend retreat to engage in conversation about their lived experience. The students had started out struggling with embracing and internalizing the books, but progressed to transformative insights—the experience of reading the literature deeply affected their lives as adults. 

As a culminating event, the participants created and performed a play, entitled “The Table,” which provided a visual representation of their lived experiences reading Great Books literature. The play was performed at St. John’s College during President’s Day weekend and Frederick Douglass’ birthday. This experience has been a guiding light for me as I move forward as an educator of primarily African American students in the school I help lead.

ANika Prather

Dr. Anika Prather has earned her B.A. from Howard University in elementary education and graduate degrees in education from New York University and Howard University. She has a Masters in liberal arts from St. John’s College and in 2017 completed her PhD in curriculum and instruction from the University of Maryland, College Park with a focus on literacy education. She has served as a teacher, director of education and the Head of School for public and Christian schools. Currently she is the founder of The Living Water School (www.thelwschool.org). The inspiration for starting this school comes from her three creative and curious kids. Anika lives in Maryland with her husband Damon (an engineer and business manager for the school), 2 sons (Dillon-10/Destin-9), 1 daughter (Day-6) and way too many pets. Anika also enjoys urban farming and raises angora rabbits and spins yarn from their wool for her hobby of crocheting and knitting and a few herbs and veggies. Her inspirations in life are her grandmother (who taught her to crochet and garden), her mom (who led her to faith in Jesus Christ and introduced her to classical education), and Marva Collins and Anna Julia Cooper (whose lives and work serve as North Stars for her work in education).

Patio Q&A with Angel Adams Parham and Anika Prather

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Anika Prather

Dr. Anika Prather has earned her B.A. from Howard University in elementary education and graduate degrees in education from New York University and Howard University. She has a Masters in liberal arts from St. John’s College and in 2017 completed her PhD in curriculum and instruction from the University of Maryland, College Park with a focus on literacy education. She has served as a teacher, director of education and the Head of School for public and Christian schools. Currently she is the founder of The Living Water School (www.thelwschool.org). The inspiration for starting this school comes from her three creative and curious kids. Anika lives in Maryland with her husband Damon (an engineer and business manager for the school), 2 sons (Dillon-10/Destin-9), 1 daughter (Day-6) and way too many pets. Anika also enjoys urban farming and raises angora rabbits and spins yarn from their wool for her hobby of crocheting and knitting and a few herbs and veggies. Her inspirations in life are her grandmother (who taught her to crochet and garden), her mom (who led her to faith in Jesus Christ and introduced her to classical education), and Marva Collins and Anna Julia Cooper (whose lives and work serve as North Stars for her work in education).

Angel Parham

Dr. Angel Adams Parham is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Nyansa Classical Community. Nyansa provides after-school programming and curricula designed to connect with and draw students of color into the beauty of classical literature and the great conversation. She is also Associate Professor of Sociology at Loyola University-New Orleans. Dr. Parham's sociological training provides an in-depth understanding of the social and economic challenges facing many low-income communities of color, while her Christian faith emphasizes the importance of combining this sociological knowledge with a commitment to students’ spiritual formation and the cultivation of their moral imagination. She is also a wife and mother of two beautiful girls who are homeschooled according to classical Christian principles and pedagogies.

Cultivating a Culture of Affirmation in the Classical Classroom

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Teachers often view their role in the classroom as one of instruction, correction and encouragement. But this perspective overlooks a key element of any successful classroom culture: affirmation. How can teachers correct and affirm students without buying into the worldly philosophy of promoting self-esteem? By promoting God-esteem. This workshop explores practical ways to promote God-esteem in the classical classroom.

Martha Reed

Martha Reed has a master’s degree in education and began her teaching career in a classical start-up school in Florida in 1995. Her teaching experience covers a variety of age levels, from Kindergarten to college freshmen, and she has several years of administrative experience in Christian schools. For the last eight years, she has taught 6th Grade — her favorite — at Veritas School in Richmond, Virginia. When she’s not teaching, she enjoys reading, garden club and sipping Earl Grey tea. She regularly contributes to the FOCUS on Christian Education blog and frequently speaks at Christian education conferences.

Keeping It All Together All Day

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Lynn Gilpin

Lynn Gilpin is the Lower School Principal at Veritas Christian Academy in Fletcher, North Carolina. She was a Founding Board Member for 10 years. Mrs. Gilpin also served as the Lower School Dean of Faculty for 12 years and has traveled the U.S. training teachers in the classical methodology. She has been presenting at the SCL Conferences for the past 13 years. Mrs. Gilpin is also certi ed in Orton- Gillingham, and regularly tutors students in OG in addition to her duties as principal. She has also done training in Linda-Mood Bell and holds a degree in Special Education. She has 3 wonderful boys who all a ended Veritas and appreciate their classical and Christian education. She lives in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina with her husband and one son.

Cultivating Aural Hygiene: The Challenge of Attentive Listening in a Noisy World

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In recent years, a lot of attention has been given to the ways in which communications technologies have nurtured a spirit of distraction that affects reading and reasoning habits. Ken Myers will examine how technologies similarly disable our ability to listen well, and how we can fight back, individually and corporately.

Ken Myers

Ken Myers is the host and producer of the MARS HILL AUDIO Journal, a bimonthly audio magazine that examines issues in contemporary culture from a framework shaped by Christian conviction. He was formerly the editor of This World: A Journal of Religion and Public Life, a quarterly journal whose editor-in-chief was Richard John Neuhaus. Prior to his tenure at This World, he was executive editor of Eternity magazine. For eight years, he was a producer and editor for National Public Radio, working for much of that time as arts and humanities editor for the two news programs, Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Mr. Myers serves as an advisory editor for Christianity Today, and his published writings include All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Christians and Popular Culture (Crossway Books: 1989), and (as editor) Aspiring to Freedom: Commentaries on John Paul II’s Encyclical “The Social Concerns of the Church” (William B. Eerdmans: 1988). He has also wri en for numerous periodicals. He has served on the Arts on Radio and Television Panel for the National Endowment for the Arts, and he lectures frequently at colleges, universities, and churches around the country. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland, where he studied lm theory and criticism, and of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He and his wife Kate have a large garden, a cat, a dog, two children, and they live in the country, north of Charlottesville, Virginia.

The Scaramental Classroom: Creating Assignments that Invite the Holy Spirit

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The integration of faith into the learning enviornment requires a delicate balance between guidance and permission to wrestle with core issues, including faith and doubt. Young people need leadernship but they also need the freedom to be vunlerable and honest as they explore. This seminar will address practical ways to facilitate trust between teachers and students so that students can wrestle appropriately with their questions without being required to arrive at a set of predetermined answers. It is an enviornment characterized by trust, it is possible to create assignments that prompt spiritual growth without demanding it or dictating its shape. These practices are intended to invite (and not command) the Holy Spirit to be present transforming the classroom into a truly sacramental space.

Annie Bullock

Annie Bullock lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and three children. She is a humanities instructor at Regents School of Austin, where she teaches Apologetics and Literature classes. She holds a Master’s in Theological Studies and PhD in Religion, both from Emory University.

A Lesson in Grammar School Literature: Aristotle and Charlotte’s Web

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Using Aristotle’s thoughts on friendship and E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web as an example, we will experience an actual lesson in which the great classical thinkers and Biblical principles can be taught at the grammar level and applied to children’s literature. We will further discuss exploring ideas of teaching grammar students to think about literature, and apply it to other disciplines of thought, concluding with the importance of teaching students to find God’s story within the story.

Mary Clifford

Mary Clifford has taught in the Grammar School at the Geneva School of Boerne for seven years and has over fifteen years of teaching experience in various fields, including writing curriculum for an Art History program in the public schools. She was a recipient of Geneva’s Paideia award for outstanding teacher of the year in 2011-12. She has two sons, one of whom graduated from Geneva this year. A native Californian, she and her husband are avid paddle boarders.

Teaching as Formation: The Embodied Shape of Apprenticeship

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A classical Christian education is both “holistic” and “formative.” It not only provides information for hungry intellects; it should also shape the habits, loves, and longing of students to become people who desire God and his kingdom. This plenary session will explore the implications of this for pedagogy, considering some concrete examples of how a Christian worldview is “carried” in Christian practices. We will see how the spiritual disciplines are historic pedagogies. And we will also consider what practices can sustain and nourish teachers for this task.

James Smith

Jamie K.A. Smith, is professor of philosophy at Calvin College where he also teaches in the department of Congregational and Ministry Studies and serves as a research fellow of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. Jamie is an award-winning author whose books include Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?; Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation; Letters to a Young Calvinist, and most recently, Teaching and Christian Practices: Reshaping Faith and Learning (co-edited with David Smith). His writing has also appeared in magazines such as the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Christian Century, First Things, and Books & Culture. He and his wife, Deanna, have 4 children and are committed urban dwellers who make their home in the East Hills neighborhood of Grand Rapids, MI. Website: www.jameskasmith.com

Poetic Knowledge: Horse Sense in Our Classrooms

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How do we prevent our students from simply learning facts about our subjects? Looking
for ways to cultivate “poetic knowledge” is crucial in helping our students come to fuller understanding and appreciation of a topic. Application will be appropriate for all grade levels.

Robyn Burlew

Robyn Burlew serves as Academic Dean at Covenant Christian Academy in Harrisburg, PA, where she previously taught upper school math and science. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Houghton College and a master’s degree in Integrated Curriculum and Instruction from Covenant College. Robyn enjoys gardening, hiking and spending time with her three grown daughters.

Incorporating Liturgies in the Classrooms

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We all love the subjects we teach, but what ultimately calls us into the classroom each morning is the hope that we are changing lives and impacting eternal souls. Though we don’t often write “soul impact” time into our lesson plans, we know that cultivating affections
(what a person loves and wants) can transform an informative lesson into a soul-shaping experience. But how do we reach our students’ affections in our daily lessons? The answer lies in academic liturgies that mold the imagination: environments, routines, and habitual ways of treating others that are the norm in our classrooms. These often invisible practices are the soil from which our students’ loves grow. Can intentional liturgies, such as daily confession of sin or reading Tolkien by candlelight, really inspire our students to be kinder or love Christ more? In this seminar, we will discuss specific ways of revamping our academic practices and our own perspectives to better cultivate the affections of our students.

Jenny Rallens

A er homeschooling through highschool, Jenny Rallens earned her B.A. in 2008 from New St. Andrews College and then joined The Ambrose School faculty in Boise, Idaho to teach, direct nine (mostly Shakespeare) plays, and develop a pedagogy based on four pillars: incarnational student-teacher relationships, story, socratic discussion, and liturgy. In addition to teaching, Jenny is currently working on her master’s degree at Oxford in Literature and Arts, particularly investigating the roles literature, liturgy and material culture play in forming a community’s theological imagination.