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I strive to create enrichment experiences that stretch the mind while nurturing the heart by blending the proven strengths of the classical trivium with the warm elegance of Waldorf education.
I look forward to sharing the adventure of learning with you someday soon.
The Head of School says that the school is simply ahead of the curve in meeting student’s new research and reading habits.
Are those habits serving the students well? Is learning simply about collecting information efficiently? Matt Mullenweg, founding developer of WordPress (Yeah Matt!), finds that he reads more with a digital reader than he did with print books. Read his views and those of other media luminaries here.
I, as you may have guessed, side with those who believe that the long focus, the peaceful contemplation, that the reading of a real book allows can lead to deeper thinking.
I think of reading as having a long conversation with a mind from another time and place, and probably a much higher IQ level, than mine. If I hurry through this conversation with a TV on in the background (links, tools, maybe even ads around digital content) what are the chances I’ll get all I could out of the exchange?
Actually, for me, the reading is only the first step. I think the digital life-style, with it’s self-created quick-cut editing, is the real issue because of its focus on quantity and speed. Time to reflect, to sift, store, and record your understanding of what you’ve read and it’s implications for your life are where the real work of learning takes place.
If anything, we probably read too much of the wrong stuff these days… scarfing down intellectual potato chips, while the nutritious foods and the slow chewing and digestion they require remain untouched and undone.
With all the media we consume these days, it seems to me that we need to ask ourselves one question before taking on any reading:
Is there a good chance that I will change the way I work and live from what I learn here?
If the chances are slim, put down the media and walk outside. If you’re looking at media, ancient or au courant, that stands a good chance of refining or elevating your personal philosophy or understanding of yourself or others in a way that will lead you to make different choices and take different actions tomorrow, read on!
In my search for a meaningful path toward my own education, I’ve found the following thinkers and ideas useful. I started with Jefferson and Franklin, men I admired. I then looked to their favorite authors and educational methods. From there, my latticework continues to expand.
Benjamin Franklin
Autobiography of one of America’s greatest autodidacts. Full of fascinating perspectives and practices as well as great stories.
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Peter Carr of 19 August 1785 in which he lays out a plan of study for his nephew.
Eric Hoffer
One of America’s most important thinkers and the author of The True Believer-lived for years as a Depression Era migratory worker. Self-taught, his appetite for knowledge-history, science, mankind-formed the basis of his insight to human nature. Working and Thinking on the Waterfront is a rare glimpse into not only Hoffer’s personal life but his thought process while postulating his great future works.
Giambattista Vico
Autobiography
Interesting, useful ideas from an often overooked 18th-century autodidact from Naples who attempted to create a science of history, complete with the ability to predict what’s coming.
On the Study Methods of Our Times
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-Reliance of course, but also his essay History, which serves as the foundation for my approach to the subject.
In Brain Rules, Dr. John Medina, a molecular biologist, shares his lifelong interest in how the brain sciences might influence the way we teach our children and the way we work.
Rudolf Steiner
Steiner’s focus on the whole person, not just mind, but body and soul too inspires me to offer a richer, gentler form of teaching.
Jean Piaget/Kegan
Piaget’s stages of human development interestingly expanded and explained by a psychologist.
Warren Buffet
Latticework reveals the thinking that has led Warren Bufftet and his partner Charlie Munger to make such excellent financial decisions.
Neil Postman
Building a Bridge to the 18th Century by Neil Postman argues that the best thinking of Western Civilization was done in the 18th C. and that we’ve been riding their coattails ever since. If we want to find a workable path forward as a society, we need to return to the educational practices and the high quality of thinking of those amazing years.
Frederich Nietzsche
In the essay, On The Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life, Nietzsche clarifies the possible affects (positive and negative) of history on humans who live in the here and now.
The Trivium
The essential book on learning the trivium: grammar, logic and rhetoric.
Thomas Aquinas/A.G. Setillanges, O.P.
An practical, inspiring look at applying Scholastic methods to our own intellectual lives.
1. I focus on facilitation of self-learning, not didactic lecturing. I don’t know it all, I have epistemological humility, so I focus on fanning the flames of your curiosity while adding the fuel of new skills and fascinating material that extends and supplements what you already know.
You have a complex lattice work of experiences and ideas to build upon and navigate
2. I believe useful education builds a strongly connected lattice work or web within our minds. Our life-long task is to expand and strengthen our webs of knowledge.
3. My mission is to nurture your native brilliance, period. You have what you need; reaching higher is a matter of intentional practice.
4. No prerequisites beyond your committed curiosity. We start where you are and move as quickly as you can with grace and ease (plus a little work).
5. My goal is to develop your inner-autodidact (self-motivated learner), not make you into a scholar.
6. No canned content mechanically run through. Structures, road-maps, thoughtful preparation, yes. But every session is tailored to what’s next for you, right now.
7. As we move through material, I keep in mind the basics that most of us missed in school; the Trivium – the classical approach to education based on:
Grammar
Logic
Rhetoric
We don’t drill heavily on these (unless you want to!) but instead we look for natural opportunities to fill gaps in understanding as we progress through more immediately relevant material. For instance, we usually start a word list as we read and simply note the part of speech along with the definition. This often leads into deeper discussions and understandings of grammar. We may also spend extra time looking at the construction (grammar) of challenging sentences or at the structure of an thought process (logic) or document (rhetoric).
8. I focus on the interplay between:
Memory and
Giambattista Vico's book The Scienza Nuova summarized in a drawing (graphical loci) which gives our mind an easy way to recall all the main points of this complex 400 page book.
Imagination
Of course, learning requires that we remember things.
Our recall depends upon how firmly and complexly we’ve linked a new idea to the vast latticework of knowledge we already have in our minds. What if we consciously pursued an expanded and reinforced (added knowledge, connections, and recall) latticework for ourselves? Where might that take us personally? Professionally?
Imagination lets us freely travel the backroads of our latticework.
For efficiency, our minds travel the same old routes again and again. While this habit is efficient, it is often not very effective especially as our challenges evolve. I am reminded of Einstein’s definition of insanity -doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
If we want different results for ourselves, our children, our businesses, we need to stop thinking the same old ways; we need to consciously pursue an expanded latticework of knowledge that we can consciously use to imaginatively travel new paths to new thoughts, fresh decisions, and evolutionary actions.
9. Absolutely no judgement. Our focus is on learning now, not what did or did not happen in the past. Onward!
“Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music – the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people.” – Henry Miller
How did a printer’s apprentice educate himself to become a successful business and political leader, author, scientist, and diplomat?
What can we learn from this avowed autodidact about our own life’s work?
The content:
We will read selections from Franklin’s Autobiography and Poor Richard’s Almanac that help us to understand how to emulate his love of life and learning.
