A True Good Beautiful Life
Come discover Charlotte Mason's philosophy of education using the Classical ideas of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Join us for weekly conversations and highlights with homeschooling parents, teachers, artists, entrepreneurs, and dreamers as we seek out and cultivate the True, Good, and Beautiful in our lives at home and in the classroom. You can find us at www.atruegoodbeautifullife.com
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A Jane Austen Book Chat
01/10/2025
A Jane Austen Book Chat
Happy New Year to you all! Welcome to "A True Good Beautiful Life" podcast where we talk about life-long flourishing through the lens of Charlotte Mason and Classical educational philosophies. Perhaps my favorite thing to talk about is Literature and History and today I hope you will be as excited as I am about our topic of discussion. When I thought about doing an episode on Jane Austen, I was both giddy and terrified. There is so much that could be said, from her biography to her novels, from the Regency era to her juvenilia. And so I decided to take my favorite of her novels, which probably includes most everyone else's in the world, Pride and Prejudice, and use it as guide to travel through Jane Austen’s world and help us readers understand a little deeper what is going on in her novels in general and what is passing through the minds of her characters. For as any good reader of literature should do, we ought to approach a book with open arms to see and understand what the author is trying to tell us and enter their world wearing their shoes. C. S. Lewis reminded us in his book An Experiment in Criticism, that - “in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.” Jane wrote, as many authors do, with the assumption that her readers understood her world and did not need significant descriptions and annotations regarding the social culture surrounding the plotline. But for us modern readers, much of what we read about in her Regency English world (and even in her language) is foreign to us and can leave us wondering what is going on. So thank goodness there are folks out there who have written and podcasted about Regency England so that we can obtain a better understanding of the world and society that permeates Austen’s novels. Today I have with me a dear old college friend who shares an affinity of all things Austen and Literature in general, fellow George Mason graduate, Heather Usher. Favorite Resources: The Annotated Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen annotated and edited by David M. Shapard Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin Jane Austen's Country Life by Deirdre Le Faye Miniatures and Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen by Peter J. Leithart BBC's 1995 mini series "Pride and Prejudice" Joe Wright's 2005 movie "Pride and Prejudice" Ellie Dashwood's YouTube Channel on Classic Literature and History Tea with Jane Austen by Kim Wilson Tea with Jane Austen by Pen Volger Cooking with Jane Austen & Friends by Laura Boyle Jane Austen's Talbe: Recipes Inspired by the Works of Jane Austen by Robert Tuesley Anderson Praying with Jane: 31 Days Through the Prayers of Jane Austen by Rachel Dodge A Jane Austen Christmas: Regency Christmas Traditions by Maria Grace The Jane Austen Handbook: Proper Life Skills from Regency England by Margaret C. Sullivan A Jane Austen Devotional by Steffany Woolsey An Assembly Such as This: A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman by Pamela Aidan (fiction) Duty and Desire: A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman by Pamela Aidan (fiction) These Three Remain: A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman by Pamela Aidan (fiction) The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen by Syrie James (fiction) So Jane: Crafts and Recipes for an Austen-Inspired Life by Hollie Keith The Making of Pride and Prejudice by Sue Birtwistle and Susie Conklin 101 Things You Didn't Know About Jane Austen: The Truth About the World's Most Intriguing Literary Heroine by Patrice Hannon What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-the Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England By Daniel Pool All Roads Lead To Austen by Amy Elizabeth Smith COMMONPLACE QUOTES “The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.” -Alan Bennett ". . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . ." - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Spend the month of January reading The Annotated Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and annotated and edited by David M. Shapard. Not only will you enjoy one the world's most beloved and famous novels, you will also learn about Regency England. If you really want to delve into her novels, start a Book Club with a few friends and spend 2 months reading each of her books and Zoom together after each book to discuss. At this rate, you will finish all 6 of her major novels in one year. Engage in one of the handicrafts young accomplished ladies would learn during the Regency Era: embroidery, sewing, watercolor, pastels, etc. Today, even boys can learn and benefit from these crafts. Even though it is winter, carve out some time to "take a turn" outside and enjoy the crisp fresh winter air. Learn how to identify your local birds by setting out birdfeeders and distinguish the different types of evergreens outside.
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Human Flourishing: The Goal of Education
12/06/2024
Human Flourishing: The Goal of Education
Merry Christmas! Hello and welcome to A True Good Beautiful Life. I am your host, Jennifer Milligan and this podcast explores the ideas and practices of a Charlotte Mason and Classical Education. Today I am treated to a fascinating conversation with the Dean of , Dr. Brian Williams. We will discuss the telos or purpose of education and how to incorporate seven different areas of formation in the lives of our students (as well as ourselves) to promote long-term human flourishing. The areas of formation include the Intellectual, Moral, Aesthetic, Spiritual, Physical, Practical, and Social. Dr. Williams takes each one and discusses what question they each ask, the end goal for each one, the means or virtue to acquire to accomplish the end goal, the vices to overcome for each area, and finally the danger that arises if one pursues this area of formation exclusively. The Seven Areas of Formation (and some suggested readings): Intellectual (the Bible, Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy, Calvin's Institutes, Kevin Clark & Ravi Jain's The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education, Josef Pieper's An Anthology, Devin O'Donnell's The Age of Martha: A Call to Contemplative Learning in a Frenzied Culture, Nathaniel Bluedorn's The Fallacy Detective: Thirty-eight Lessons on How to Recognize Bad Reasoning, John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education, Derrick Jensen's Walking on Water, C. S. Lewis' Abolition of Man + Mere Christianity, Tolkien's Leaf by Niggle, Trenton Lee Stewart's The Mysterious Benedict Society series, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre) Moral (the Bible, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, The Rule of St. Benedict, Vigen Guroian's Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination, Dante's Divine Comedy, Homer's The Odyssey, E. Nesbit's The Best of Shakespeare: Retellings of 10 Classic Plays, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Christina Rossetti's Time Flys: A Reading Diary) Aesthetic (Artistotle's Poetics, Josef Pieper's Only the Lover Sings, Plato's Republic, Book X, Steve Turley's Beauty Matters: Creating a High Aesthetic in School Culture, Jacobson, Silverstein and Winslow's Patterns of Home, Roger Scruton's Beauty, Alain de Botton's The Architecture of Happiness, John Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architecture, Emily Lex Studio's watercolor workbooks, Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, poetry from Christina Rossetti, William Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Robert Frost, etc., art books featuring Vermeer, Monet, Degas, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, DaVinci, Michelangelo, Constable, Gainsborough, Turner, Wyeth, etc., musical pieces from classic and contemporary composers) Spiritual (the Bible, Augustine's Confessions + The City of God, R. C. Sproul's Defending Your Faith, Nancy Guthrie's Blessed, Jen Wilkin's Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds + her various Bible studies, Helen Talyor's Little Pilgrim's Progress, John Milton's Paradise Lost, C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series) Physical (books that teach exercise, stretching, strength-training, games, sports) Practical (John Holt's How Children Learn, Charlotte Mason's Vol. 6: A Philosophy of Education, Sarah Mackenzie's Teaching From Rest, Chris Hall's Common Arts Education, Rory Groves's Durable Trades, cookbooks (like Gooseberry Patch volumes, DIY Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen), DIY manuals (like Reader's Digest's New Fix-It Yourself Manual, Back to Basics: How to Learn and Enjoy Traditional Skills, and John Vivian's Manual of Practical Homesteading), Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook, Jennifer Berry's Organize Now!, Floret's Cut Flower Garden, Christie Purifoy's Garden Maker and other gardening books, The Passionate Penny Pincher's menu plans and yearly planner, Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie series) Social (Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together, Margaret Peterson's Keeping House, Sally & Sarah Clarkson's The Life-Giving Home, Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson's Peter and the Starcatchers series, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice + the rest of her novels) COMMONPLACE QUOTES . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Sit down for an hour or two (maybe enjoy coffee and donuts with your collegues or other homeschooling moms and dads) and think about each of the seven areas of formation and how your school or homeschool is doing well with them and how you can improve in cultivating the means to strive for the goals of the True, the Good, the Beautiful, the Holy, the Healthy, the Beneficial, and the Neighborly. Learn about Artistotle's Intellectual Virtues. They include Artistry or craftsmanship, Prudence or practical wisdom, Intuition or understanding, Scientific Knowledge, and Philosophic Wisdom. After you have read a piece of literature for the pure enjoyment of it, consider back to how, if at all, it showed the means and benefits of seeking and aquiring virtues and the dangers and tragedies of falling into vice. How do those characters, in turn, relate to you?
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Spotting Dyslexia
11/01/2024
Spotting Dyslexia
Welcome! On last month’s episode, I had the honor of talking with of Templeton Honors College and Eastern University on her book, . She shared about the "why" of education and the "how" of implementing telic attention and a doxological classroom for everyone. So if you missed that one, please go back and check it out after you listen to this as you will certainly benefit from it. And so to piggyback on her talk, on today’s episode, I will be continuing our discussion on disabilities and learning differences, by taking a dive into one particular learning issue - Dyslexia, with Barton Reading and Spelling Dyslexia Coach, of . You will hear the TRUTH about Dyslexia and some GOOD ways to care about and help students struggling with this learning difference. In the final and short segment on BEAUTY, I will share with you a new favorite by that you’ll want to pick up for yourself and your kids. So please stick around, grab a cup of tea, and let’s enter this conversation together! Favorite Resources: with dyslexia coach Jolene Christian Summary Sheet by Sally Shaywitz (Institute for Excellence in Writing) - Dyslexia Reading and Writing Assistant - an AI writing partner - reading, writing, studying, test-taking tools Audio Books Microsoft OneNote COMMONPLACE QUOTES "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." - unknown ". . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . ." - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Prepare yourself a cup of tea or coffee and sit down and contemplate for each of your children or students and see if there is anything there to be concerned about. Then treat yourself to a piece of cake! You deserve it! Organize a parent or teacher meeting to go over these warning signs so others can be informed as well. They might want cake too! :) Check out Emily Lex Studios and try out one of her watercolor workbooks or use your own paper and paints and dabble with the medium. Just get comfortable using it and seeing how it works. The more you play the less intimidating it will seem. If you don't get stressed about it, chances are you children won't either...or at least not as much.
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Disability & Classical Education
10/04/2024
Disability & Classical Education
Welcome to A True Good Beautiful Life podcast! Today my guest and I will take some of you down an unknown path of life, for others maybe an all too worn path, and perchance even for others one that some have ventured a little ways in but yet do not know their way through or what is beyond the bend. We are going to talk about disabilities and how understanding disabilities is essential to human flourishing, Classical Education, and Charlotte Mason’s First Principle - “children are born persons.” In the past, I briefly described what Charlotte Mason meant when she said that “children are born persons” –that they are a wonder of wonders; born ready to learn; that children are not blank slates, but that they are full persons with intellectual power, moral sense, and spiritual perception (Parents and Children, Chapter 24). Children are in fact image-bearers of our Creator God, thus deserving dignity, respect, and love. This concept of loving children and students is at the heart of understanding how to live with and teach students with various kinds of disabilities. My special guest today is , Affiliate Professor and Chair of Philosophy at and Faculty Fellow of the . That is where I first met Amy. She teaches a course entitled “Difference and Human Dignity in the Great Tradition” and her newly published book, called , and online lecture course through Classical U is our topic of discussion. Conversation Topics: the telos of education strange vocations telic attention doxological classrooms the Anthropology Audit Favorite Resources: book by Dr. Amy Richards published by Classical Academic Press online class by Dr. Amy Richards via Classical U by Sara Hendren by Victoria Sweets COMMONPLACE QUOTES "The disabled person, with all the limitations and suffering that scar him or her, forces us to question ourselves, with respect and wisdom, on the mystery of man. In fact, the more we move about in the dark and unknown areas of human reality, the better we understand that it is in the more difficult and disturbing situations that the dignity and grandeur of the human being emerges." - St. John Paul II ( ) ". . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . ." - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION What do you think the telos of education ought to be? Write out your mission statement for teaching. Consider what kind of attention your educational institution practices themselves and cultivates in their students -- instrumental or telic? How can you cultivate telic attention in your classroom? To truly be a welcoming doxological classroom, we need to see everyone as a gift. How can you anticipate difference in your classroom and incorporate universal design?
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The Knowledge of God: How to Study the Bible & Ancient Art
09/06/2024
The Knowledge of God: How to Study the Bible & Ancient Art
Welcome back to a new episode! The new school year has begun and I am sure you are filled with wonderful dreams and maybe a few nervous jitters! Fall is a wonderful time to begin educational endeavors fresh with new books, supplies, friends, and lesson plans. And while reading one’s Bible tends to always start in January, in our first segments on the TRUE and the GOOD, I am going to propose to you something a little more in depth that can be started anytime, including right now as autumn’s leaves start to color and fall. It’s a step-by-step Bible Study plan that you can use at home, in your Bible class at school, and even in your Sunday School class. And I am going to highlight this simple but vital process with one of our Women’s Bible Study Leaders at , in Elverson, PA, Kelly Fenton, while using famous author and speaker, Jen Wilkin’s super practical book, . Delving into a deep understanding of God is one of the types of knowledge that Classical Education and Charlotte Mason include in their class studies. These pedagogies promote the ideas of forming humanity, virtue, and character and helping our students conform to the cosmos, to the ultimate True, Good, and Beautiful being, that being Jesus Christ. In this discussion about the knowledge of God, we are going to focus on building Biblical Literacy in your own hearts and minds so you can also help your students and children to do the same. Jen Wilkin's 5 P's: Purpose Perspective Patience Process Prayer For the final segment of the show, the BEAUTIFUL, I share with you some ideas of how you can teach your class about the art of the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Favorite Resources: by Rose Publishing website - YouTube video - YouTube video - YouTube video - YouTube video - YouTube video - YouTube video by Jen Wilkin by Jen Wilkin by Jen Wilkin website by R. C. Sproul by James Montgomery Boice by John Calvin by R. C. Sproul article by Marianne Saccardi by Simply Charlotte Mason by Simply Charlotte Mason by Simply Charlotte Mason Egyptian Art: Art in Detail by Susie Hodge by Carol Strickland by Henry Sayre , Philadelphia, PA , Philadelphia, PA , Lancaster, PA Washington, DC , Petersburg, KY , Willimastown, KY Murfreesboro, TN website COMMONPLACE QUOTES “to make a study of our God: what he loves, what he hates, how he speaks and acts. We cannot imitate a God whose features and habits we have never learned. We must make a study of him if we want to become like him. We must seek his face.” - Jen Wilkin, Women of the Word, p. 150 "But living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things: to love things, that is to say, in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, or have a greater love for what should be loved less, or an equal love for things that should be loved less or more, or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved equally. - St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, I.27-28 Regarding young children -- "they should get a considerable knowledge of the Bible text. By nine they should have read the simple (and suitable) narrative portions of the Old Testament, and say, two of the gospels. The Old Testament, for various reasons, should be read to children. The gospel stories, they might read for themselves as soon as they can read them beautifully. It is a mistake to use paraphrases of the text….But let the imaginations of children be stored with the pictures, their minds nourished upon the words, of the gradually unfolding story of the scriptures, and they will come to look out upon a wide horizon within which persons and events take share in their due place and in due proportion. By degrees, they will see that the world is a stage whereon the goodness of God is continually striving with the willfulness of man; that some heroic men take sides with God; and that others, foolish and headstrong, oppose themselves to Him.” - Charlotte Mason, Vol. 1: Home Education, p. 248 “the Bible is not a single book; but a classic literature of wonderful beauty and interest; that apart from its divine sanctions and religious teaching, from all that we understand by ‘Revelation,’ the Bible, as a mere instrument of education, is, at the very least, as valuable as the classics of Greece or Rome.” - Charlotte Mason, Vol. 2: Parents and Children, p. 104 “Biblical literacy stitches patchwork knowledge into a seamless garment of understanding.” - Jen WIlkin, Women of the Word, p. 37 "devotional reading is for the sake of asking what the text is saying to me, while studying the Bible as a text is to look at the Bible as literature in order to understand what it is saying, how it is saying it, and then why is it saying it the way that it is." - Dr. Fred Putnam . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Begin memorizing/understanding basic Bible basics, like the list of the Books of the Bible, the 7 Days of Creation, the 10 Commandments, the 12 Tribes of Israel, Psalm 1, 23, and 100, the Armour of God in Ephesisans 6:14-17, the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, the Apostles' Creed, the list of the 12 disciples, the sacraments of the Lord Supper and Baptism, some of the attributes of God, and the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13. Begin learning basic theology by using a catechsim like the Westminster Shorter Catechism or the New City Catechism. Learn some classic hymns like "Amazing Grace," "To God be the Glory," "Great is Thy Faithfulness," and "Be Thou My Vision." Don't forget to learn where things are (like the Table of Nations, 12 Tribes of Israel, the migration of Abraham, the route of the Exodus, Jesus's travels, and Paul's missionary journeys) by practicing cartography in the European, Asian and African continents. Pick a short book of the Bible, like the book of James, and go through each chapter practicing the "5 P's" as in Jen Wilkin's "Digging into Bible Study" YouTube videos posted above. Include an Art History class/or Picture Study if you don't have much time and take different Ancient cultures mentioned in the Bible and explore their different types of art throughout the year. Try recreating one famous artifact from each one for an Art Show at the end of the year.
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Tolkien & Fantasy
08/02/2024
Tolkien & Fantasy
New this week is a conversation about J. R. R. Tolkien and the genre of Fantasy literature. I have back with me special guest Dr. Fred Putnam, recently retired professor from and Eastern University in eastern Pennsylvania. We provide a brief biography of this famous writer and teacher, share some fun ideas on how to teach Tolkien in your classes, explain the benefits of reading Fantasy literature, and discuss the wonderful program offered to high school students in . There are a few little spoilers so if you haven't read the Lord of the Rings or watched the movies, beware! Maybe take this opportunity to enter Middle-earth this summer. Favorite Resources: , by Vigen Guroian , by J. R. R. Tolkien , by J. R. R. Tolkien , , , by J. R. R. Tolkien , by J. R. R. Tolkien by J. R. R. Tolkien by Peter Kreeft , by Tom Shippey , by Tom Shippey by Humphrey Carpenter by J. R. R. Tolkien, Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien , by Tom Simon , by C. S. Lewis , and by George MacDonald , by C. S. Lewis , by C. S. Lewis COMMONPLACE QUOTES Regarding faerie, it is a “perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold.” - J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories,” The Tolkien Reader, p. 33 “The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangemeness tie the tongue of a traveller who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should be shut and the keys be lost.” - J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories,” The Tolkien Reader, p. 33 “Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity.” - J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-stories, The Tolkien Reader, p. 74-75 Regarding the Eucatastrophe - the sudden joyous “turn,” “sudden and miraculous grace” - J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-stories," The Tolkien Reader, p. 86 "The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity’. The child enjoys his cold meat (otherwise dull to him) by pretending it is buffalo, just killed with his own bow and arrow. And the child is wise. The real meat comes back to him more savoury for having been dipped in a story; you might say that only then is it the real meat. . . . we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it. As long as the story lingers in our mind, the real things are more themselves. . . . By dipping them in myth we see them more clearly. . .[regarding the book], we know at once that it has done things to us. We are not quite the same men.” - C. S. Lewis, "Tolkien's Lord of the Rings," On Stories, p. 138-139 . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Either as a family or personally, read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings this year. Also try some of his other short stories, like Farmer Giles of Ham and Leaf by Niggle. Do something creative: craft a scene of one of Tolkien's books - diorama, painting, Legos, clay; memorize one of his poems; recreate one of Tolkien's maps or design your own using similar style and drawings; study heraldry and design your own shield or coat of arms. Celebrate Hobbit Day September 22, 2024, in honor of Bilbo's and Frodo's birthdays. Be sure to include all the meals. This Day is a great compliation of all our major holidays -- include feasting, gifts, picnics, costumes, and fireworks.
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Common Arts Education with Chris Hall
07/05/2024
Common Arts Education with Chris Hall
Are you familiar with the Common Arts? Could you describe them if someone asked you the difference between the Liberal Arts, the Fine Arts, and the Common Arts? This month's podcast is going to delve into the definition of the Common Arts and practical activities you can incorporate into your schools and homes that nurture these vital arts. Today’s episode is going to be a little different. For the first time in this podcast, I am going to share with you a lecture I recorded this past month during one of Templeton’s special evening lectures that was open to students, faculty, and the community. Our guest speaker was one of our special teachers in my Pedagogy 2 class, which was led by Dr. Brian Williams, Dean of the here. Chris Hall is the founder of , and practitioner, teacher, and author on the Common Arts. You may recall from last year my interview with fellow classmate, Rose Tomassi, who shared with us about how she incorporated the Common Arts in her school here, l in Orland, PA. In it we highlighted Chris Hall and his book and this summer I was treated to a couple days of insight from this wise and talented teacher and homesteader. Favorite Resources: by Chris Hall by Chris Hall and Ravi Scott Jain via Internet Archive poem by Walt Witman via Poets.org by Jane Yolen , , books by Michael Crawford by Chris Lubkemann by Josie Warshaw by Kristin Muller by Caroline Ross COMMONPLACE QUOTES "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down frm the Father of Lights," says James in the first chapter of his epistle. These words of Sacred Scripture not only indicate the source of all illumination but they likewise point out the generous flow of the manifold rays which issue from that Fount of light. Notwithstanding the fact that every ilumination of knowledge is within, still we can with reason distinguish what we may call the external light, or the light of mechanical art; the lower light, or the light of sense perception; the inner light, or the light of philosophical kowledge; and the higher light, or the light of grace and of Sacred Scripture. The first light illumines in regard to structure of artifacts; the second, in regard to natural forms; the thrid, in regard to intellectual truth; the fourth and last, in regard to saving truth." - St. Bonaventure, "Retracing the Arts to Theology" . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Get a copy of The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor and read "Book Two" about the Liberal and Mechanical Arts; and Chris Hall's book Common Arts Teaching and pick one or two to try for yourself. If you are skilled already in a Common Art (cooking, stars, whittling, auto mechanics, sewing, crocheting, foraging, hunting, raising chickens, fishing, dancing, etc.), think about who you can apprentice: your kids or grandkids? Your soccer team or History class? Your neighborhood or church? There are people out there who are craving to know what you know! (even if they don't know they want to know it yet!) As an educator in the classroom or home, think about how you can include a Common Art in your lesson plans: putting together a Medieval Feast for History Class, sewing on patches or baking cookies for a soccer fundraiser, knitting baby beanies on a loom during Read Aloud, observing animal tracks on your nature hikes and making casts with a ziplock bag, water, and plaster of paris, hanging a bird feeder outside your kitchen window with a field guide and binoculars on the windowsill, canning raspberry jam over the summer with the neighbors, raising zinnias and selling by the side of the road along with homemade lemonade, etc.
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Reading C. S. Lewis
06/07/2024
Reading C. S. Lewis
Welcome to A TRUE GOOD BEAUTIFUL LIFE podcast! Here we discuss all things Charlotte Mason in light of the ideas of the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL! I am your host, Jennifer Milligan, and throughout this series I share with you how to find and cultivate various elements of TRUTH, GOODNESS and BEAUTY in our homes and classrooms through conversations with homeschooling parents and classroom teachers; interviews with experts, entrepreneurs, and artists; discussions regarding the great books, great minds, and great resources; fun travel and field trip summaries; and practices and creative experiences that embody the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL life. Over 100 years ago, British educator, Charlotte Mason, declared that, "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life," and so today, I hope you will join me on this adventure in education. This new season will be a little different in that I am moving from two episodes a month to one a month. I hope this gives you even more time to get out and enjoy being with your people while also getting some encouragement and helpful ideas you can implement in your teaching and home life. ON THIS EPISODE I am treated to an insightful conversation this episode with C. S. Lewis scholar Dr. Steven Boyer. He guides us on a dive into the life of Lewis and a fascinating element in his Chronicles of Narnia that you may have never even considered! Dr. Steven Boyer has served for 26 years as Professor of Theology at , where he also teaches in the He holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Boston University, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation on one aspect of Lewis’s thought. He is also co-author of an award-winning book called The Mystery of God: Theology for Knowing the Unknowable, and he has published articles on Christian theology and on the work of Lewis in a variety of academic and popular journals, including a piece in called “Narnia Invaded: How the New Films Subvert Lewis’s Hierarchical World.” Steve and his wife, Heidi, have four children, and they live in Honey Brook, PA. Our Favorite Resources: The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis (perferably in Lewis's original order, which has The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as the first story in the series: this order allows the reader to be gradually introduced to the awesome figure of Aslan in just the way Lewis himself intended) "On Three Ways of Writing for Children" essay by C. S. Lewis, by Devin Brown by George Sayer by Alister McGrath by David Downing by Dr. Steven Boyer and Dr. Christopher Hall by Dr. Steven Boyer, Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity, November/December, 2010 film, starring Joss Ackland (this is a BBC production which is far closer to the actual story of Lewis's late-in-life marriage to Joy Davidman than is the Hollywood version that stars Anthony Hopkins) - audio dramas (note that these are audio dramatizations, not just "audiobooks," by Focus on the Family's "Radio Theatre" series -- much more faithful to Lewis's original stories than the Hollywood films) COMMONPLACE QUOTES “myth[s] get under our skin” and “hit us at a level deeper than our thoughts.” - C S. Lewis, "Introduction," An Anthology of George MacDonald A 12th Century writer called John of Salisbury declared that it was a knight's duty "to protect the Church, to fight against treachery, to reverence the priesthood, to fend off injustice from the poor, to make peace in your own province, to shed blood for your brethren, and if needs must, to lay down your life.”( https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sll/disciplines/english/lion/chivalry.shtml ) "one of its chief functions is to re-enchant a disenchanted world." - Devin Brown, "Introduction," Inside Narnia: A Guide to Exploring The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, p. 16 Regarding fantasy/fairytale-type stories: children do "not despise real woods because [they] have read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted" - C. S. Lewis, "On Three Ways of Writing for Children," On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe this summer -- to yourself, to your kids, to your campers, to your students. Enjoy it for its adventure and its battle between Good and Evil. Start a Book Club and read one Chronicles of Narnia book a month and have students bring in a drawing of their favorite scene in that month's book. At the end, have a Narnian Tea Party with Turkish Delight and other tasty goodies. Discuss what Truth, Goodness, and Beauty were discovered within the pages. Get your students/children to write up a script of one of Lewis's stories and put together a play, including set and costume design.
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Citizenship with AHG & Valley Forge NP
05/17/2024
Citizenship with AHG & Valley Forge NP
Welcome to A TRUE GOOD BEAUTIFUL LIFE podcast! A few episodes ago I introduced us to the topic of citizenship, something Charlotte Mason was very keen on instilling in her students. I highlighted one of the avenues of teaching this subject to students with Rachel Lebowitz of which is the study of Plutarch's Lives, an ancient piece of writing highlighting lives of the Greeks and Romans. Today, I will continue that topic by focusing on a modern way of learning about citizenship and cultivating the wonderful virtues that this subject inspires. I will be digging into a fantastic girls troop organization called with a friend of mine, Danielle MacGuire, who has been involved in it for a couple of years now. She and I have some experience with it because our daughters have been or are still involved and I can’t wait to tell you about it. At the end of the show I will also highlight a special field trip to , in Pennsylvania, a perfect example of loving and serving one’s country and countrymen. So please join us! Favorite Resources: by J. H. Mellis Smith, "The Parents Review," 1920, pp. 446-461; transcribed by Charlotte Mason Poetry Tenderheart & Explorer Handbook by American Heritage Girls by American Heritage Girls by Thomas B. Allen COMMONPLACE QUOTES “So, in unlikely ways, and from unlikely sources, do children gather that little code of principles which shall guide their lives.” - Charlotte Mason, Vol. 6: A Philosophy of Education, p. 189 "Another choice is an instance of Miss Mason’s understanding of the out-of-school needs of boys and girls. In 1905 a small military handbook came to her notice. It was called ‘Aids to Scouting’ and had been written by Robert Baden-Powell to provide training exercises in character and initiative for soldiers. Miss Mason saw that the practical work in observation and deduction set out in this book would delight boys and girls, so she gave it a place on the P.U.S. programmes. The following year a H.O.E. student, governess to Lord Allenby’s small boy, tried out with him some scouting exercises. The story of how Lord Allenby was successfully ambushed by his son and how he told Baden-Powell of it in conversation a week later is now part of the history of the Boy Scout movement. But before this movement took shape the P.U.S. boys and girls had become busy with their own scouting." - Essex Cholmondeley, The Story of Charlotte Mason, p. 86 "The educational possibilities of Scouting were first recognised by Miss Mason, founder of the celebrated Ambleside Training College. Her practical adaptation of my training of Soldier Scouts for inculcating observation and deduction in the education of her future teachers, gave me the first suggestion and hope that a further adaptation might make it of value to young people." - General Sir R. Baden-Powell, “History of the Boy Scouts. How the Movement Began,” in The Parents’ Review, vol. 32, p. 686 “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” - Thomas Paine, "The American Crisis" “I am now convinced, beyond a doubt, that unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place . . . this Army must inevitably be reduced to one or other of these three things. Starve, dissolve, or disperse. . .” - George Washington, December 23, 1777 “We had engaged in the defense of our injured country and were willing, nay, we were determined to persevere.” - Private Joseph Plumb Martin, journal entry (Valley Forge NP pamphlet) “It was indeed a forge, where suffering and discipline hammered a band of brave men, turning them into an army with a new spirit and resolve. Without the victory over hardship, without the new army that marched out of winter and into spring at Valley Forge, the Revolution almost certainly would have been lost.” - Thomas Allen, Remember Valley Forge: Patriots, Tories, and Readcoats Tell Their Stories, p. 55) "This city is what it is because our citizens are what they are." - Plato . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Consider participating in your local AHG or Trail Life Troops or start one of your own if there aren't any local to you. Include heroic tales, fairy tales, biographies, stories, and poetry in your students' and children's readings that demonstrate noble ideas and love of God, country, neighbor, and family. Visit a local historic site and learn its significance in the tapestry of life.
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Books, Chess & Legos, Oh My!
05/03/2024
Books, Chess & Legos, Oh My!
Charlotte Mason’s motto is “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.” In today’s podcast, for our TRUTH and GOODNESS segments, we are going to focus in on the “life” part by talking about what Miss Mason claimed in her 8th Principle: “In saying that ‘education is a life,’ the need of intellectual and moral as well as of physical sustenance is implied. The mind feeds on ideas.” And we will do this by talking to Elementary and Middle School teacher at Brittany Mountz. We discuss take-aways from Tony Reinke’s book, Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books, as he explains the challenges readers face but also offers many benefits of reading literature. We also touch on C. S. Lewis's book, An Experiment in Criticism, in which he proclaimed that it is for joy that a person reads a book, and that books and stories should be judged by the kind of reading they invite. Lewis urges that it is better to first “receive” the book than to immediately look for how we can “use” it for ourselves. He has a lot to say about how to be a good reader. For the last segment of the show -- the BEAUTIFUL, I get to talk with Brittany's other half, her husband, Peter Mountz, who is the Headmaster of Aleithia Learning Community and has advice on how to include Chess and Lego Clubs in your homeschool and classrooms. Favorite Resources: by C. S. Lewis by Tony Reinke Newsletter by Brittany Mountz and App Podcast Podcast - YouTube by Think Fun COMMONPLACE QUOTES “In saying that ‘education is a life,’ the need of intellectual and moral as well as of physical sustenance is implied. The mind feeds on ideas and therefore children should have a generous curriculum.” - Charlotte Mason, Vol. 1: Home Education, p. XII “The only vital method of education appears to be that children should read worthy books, many worthy books.’- Charlotte Mason, Vol. 6: A Philosophy of Education, p. 12 “Bald, didactic statements such as ‘Honesty is the best policy’ will not touch the heart and mind of a child in the same way as a story in which honesty –or dishonesty – is present in the form of a hero who acts out the little drama that illustrates the law at hand, provided the book does not fall to moralizing for the child. Miss Mason urged us to let each child draw the moral for himself. True education requires the work of the individual, and it is only the ideas that a person perceives and accepts for himself that have an effect on his character. No one can eat and digest food for someone else. This is what she means when she says there is no education but self-education.” - Karen Glass, In Vital Harmony, p. 99 “We sit down before the picture in order to have something done to us, not that we may do things with it. The first demand any work of any art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. [sounds quite similar to Charlotte Mason’s charge to teachers] (There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.)” - C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism, p. 19 “Reading for pleasure does not mean we cannot be educated at the same time. Robert Frost once said that a good poem begins by delighting the reader and ends by bringing wisdom and clarity to the reader’s life.” – The Robert Frost Reader: Poetry and Prose, ed. Edward Connerty Lathem, in Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books, p. 103 ”Literature helps to humanize us. It expands our range of experiences. It fosters awareness of ourselves and the world. It enlarges our compassion for people. It awakens our imaginations. It expresses our feelings and insights about God, nature, and life. It enlivens our sense of beauty. And it is a constructive form of entertainment…. Literature does not always lead us to the City of God. But it makes our sojourn on earth much more a thing of beauty and joy and insight and humanity.” - Tony Reinke, Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books, p. 128 "Whatever is foreseen in joy Must be lived out from day to day. Vision held open in the dark By our ten thousand days of work. Harvest will fill the barn; for that The hand must ache, the face must sweat. And yet no leaf or grain is filled By work of ours; the field is tilled And left to grace. That we may reap, Great work is done while we're asleep. When we work well, a Sabbath mood Rests on our day, and finds it good." - Wendell Berry, A TImbered Choir "For the most splendid line [of a poem] becomes fully splendid only by means of all the lines that come after it; if you went back to it you would find it less splendid than you thought." - C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet ". . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . ." - Charlotte Mason, Vol. 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Start a Book Club with your friends and family. Meet once a month and discuss over coffee, or a charcutterie board, or fresh baked cookies. Think of 3 different books that you can read through simultaneously, depending on your environment and mood. Invest in a chess board and some real Legos and spend time as a family or class matching wits or exploring some creativity with different building challenges.
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Teaching Citizenship with Plutarch & Service
04/19/2024
Teaching Citizenship with Plutarch & Service
If you were asked to name a famous Roman leader, you might jump in and call out Julius Caesar or Ceasar Agustus. If you were asked to name a famous Egyptian leader, you might pause for a moment and then recall King Tutankhamun, Cleopatra, Queen Nerfertiti, or maybe even Rameses II. If you were asked to name a famous Greek leader, you might draw a blank. Greek leader, you say? Do philosophers count? I can do some of those! But if you haven’t studied Ancient History or watched movies set in the Classical Age, you may hear crickets chirping in the room. But what if I said, “Alexander the Great?” Ahhh, yes, that name sounds familiar. What about Leonidas? Oh, wasn’t he in the movie, “The 300?” Yes. How about Pericles? (chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp) No? Nothing ringing a bell? Well, you’re not alone. I for one had no idea who he was until I prepared for this episode on Plutarch and his collection of Greek and Roman biographies, technically known as the Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans, or known more famously as Plutarch’s Lives. You may not have even heard of the name Plutarch, which I would claim the same up until a few years ago when I began learning about British educator Charlotte Mason, who made the study of Plutarch’s Lives an indispensable subject in her schools’ curriculums. Today, I am excited to have back on the show Rachel Lebowitz of a . One of her passions is teaching Plutarch and so in the first part of the hour we are going to discuss who this Greek historian and philosopher was and why his name should be familiar to us today as it was centuries ago. For the second half of the hour, I have Curt and Carol Hoke, a lovely couple who will inform us on ways in which we can take some of the goals of Citizenship, like cultivating character and serving one another, and apply them to our lives today. Favorite Resources: by Rachel Lebowitz of A Charlotte Mason Plenary by Charlotte Mason and Rachel Lebowitz by Charlotte Mason and Rachel Lebowitz by Charlotte Mason by Emily Beesly by Simply Charlotte Mason by Simply Charlotte Mason ministry Queen for a Day hosted by COMMONPLACE QUOTES "The object of children’s literary studies is not to give them precise information as to who wrote what in the reign of whom? - but to give them a sense of the spaciousness of the days, not only of great Elizabeth, but of all those times of which poets, historians and the makers of tales, have left us living pictures. In such ways the children secure, not the sort of information which is of little cultural value, but wide spaces wherein imagination may take those holiday excursions deprived of which life is dreary; judgment, too, will turn over these folios of the mind and arrive at fairly just decisions about a given strike, the questions of Poland, Undian Unrest. Every man is called upon to be a statesman seeing that every man and woman, too, has a share in the government of the country; but statesmanship requires imaginative conceptions, formed upon pretty wide reading and some familiarity with historical precedents.” - Charlotte Mason, Vol. 6: A Philosophy of Education, p. 184-185 “Plutarch shows us that it is the small decisions in a man’s life that make up his character. We then get to see the consequences of those decisions. Plutarch does not judge for us. He lays the man’s life before us and we are left to judge. It truly is a remarkable way to study character and morality.” - Rachel Lebowitz, "Preface" to the Annotated Plutarch Series: Pericles "Though you have not seen Him, you love Him, though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls." -1 Peter 1:8-9 ". . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . " - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Consider exploring Citizenship in your homeschool or classroom by adding a study of Plutarch's Lives, Shakespeare's plays, Bible reading, and understanding how the government works. Discuss with your children or students how they can participate in some kind of service project, local long-term service opportunities, or mission trips. Begin reading through Charlotte Mason's Volume 4: Ourselves with your middle/high schooler and be ready for some great discussions!
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Growing Hope with Christie Purifoy
04/05/2024
Growing Hope with Christie Purifoy
“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” - Genesis 8:22 These are the promising and encouraging words from God to Noah, after the world-wide flood of judgment centuries ago. And these are the first words you read when you open up Seedtime and Harvest, the newest book by author and gardener, . I have never met Christie but I have gotten to know her through the pages of her books. After reading her first book, Roots & Sky, on a train from West Virginia to Philly, I continued to look forward to her next books because Christie has an honest and poetic way of sharing her heart, her life, and her passions, which I can see include her family, her faith, her community, her home, and her gardens! I was captivated by her second memoir, Placemaker, and inspired by her following three gardening books. It was perfect timing to read this winter as spring has sprung and I am itching to finally get back into the gardens after several summers of neglect because of Graduate School. Seedtime and Harvest is Christie’s newest book from her gardening series – three in total. The first one is Garden Maker and the second is A Home in Bloom. They are the prettiest books I have run across in a long long time! Today, I have the honor of conversing with Christie about her books and her gardens and I simply cannot wait to meet her! I hope that by the end of our time together, we will all discover some TRUTH, GOODNESS, and BEAUTY from the practice of placemaking and gardening. At the end of the episode, I conclude with a little description of one of the most beautiful gardens in the world, , right here in Pennyslvania. It is spectacular and I hope you get a chance to visit it someday soon! Christie's books: COMMONPLACE QUOTES “We are so accomplished at making functional places for waiting, for passing through, and for consuming, but how do we make places able to embrace the fulness of our human selves?” - Christie Purifoy, A Home In Bloom, p. 10 “What if our homes could be places that brought us back to life? For that is what sacred places do. They restore us and renew us and resurrect our spirits.” - Christie Purifoy, A Home in Bloom, p. 10 “gardeners cultivate harmony . . . When we set out to cultivate the music of life, the song is always new, always changing, always surprising, always good. Life cannot be static, or it ceases to be life. Life is growth. And what are we growing in a garden? Whether the tangible fruit is a tomato or a rosebud, in a garden, we are growing roots. We are growing connection. We are growing wholeness. And we are growing hope.” - Christie Purifoy, Seedtime and Harvest, p. 13 . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Think of some traditions or rituals you can enjoy at home to help you see the beauty around you and help you become rooted where you are. Perhaps light a candle at meal times, set out an afternoon tea, put out a bird feeder and watch your backyard visitors flit about, or begin or end your day with prayer. Go out and purchase a packet of Zinnia seeds and sprinkle them wherever you want to see some color. Look into where you can purchase different flower bulbs that you can plant to provide you with a vision of beauty and hope throughout each month of the year. How can you build community with your neighbors and family this spring?
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Jane Eyre Book Chat
03/22/2024
Jane Eyre Book Chat
Welcome to A TRUE GOOD BEAUTIFUL LIFE podcast! If you are at all familiar with English novels and period dramas on the big and little screen, you will by no doubt know of the heroine – Jane Eyre. It is a fascinating and chilling story that Charlotte Bronte wrote with the popular Romantic and Gothic story elements of her time. Now, after rereading it for the first time in decades, I am amazed at the TRUTH, GOODNESS, and BEAUTY found in its pages. It is a real work of literary genius. As one whose writing is perhaps more manageable to understand because it is written in first person perspective, and one whose heroine is relatable and charming, Bronte leads the reader through a thought-provoking narrative that contains echoes of fairy tale forms, along with some realism, naturalism, and supernatural flavor intricately weaved throughout the chapters. Jane Eyre is described by Joyce Carol Oates, in the "Introduction" to one of my editions of the book, as one who would “'resist' the terms of her destiny (social or spiritual). . . we have after all the willful heroines of certain of Shakespeare’s plays and those of Jane Austen’s elegant comedies of manners. But Jane Eyre is a young woman wholly unprotected by social position, family, or independent wealth; she is without material or social power; she is as Charlotte Bronte judged herself, 'small and plain and Quaker-like – lacking the most superficial yet seemingly necessary qualities of femininity.'" (p. v) First written under the pseudonym, Currer Bell, when Charlotte Bronte was 31 years old, Jane Eyre became an instant success. Not only does it have melodramatic scenes birthed from classic eighteenth-century Gothic romance novels, the story also contains within itself, fascinating introspective analysis by the narrator herself. Writer Karen Swallow Prior describes Jane Eyre’s “ordinariness” is what makes “the novel extraordinary.” (p. 14) Jane is Everywoman and it’s this realism and humanness and Jane’s modern ideas of equality that make it innovative and, according to G. K. Chesterton, the “truest book that was ever written.” It is exciting to watch Jane’s story arc and personal development as she moves from place to place – from the Reed’s mansion Gateshead, to Lowood School, to Thornfield, to Whitecross, and finally to Ferndean. One thing that remains throughout all her travels and experiences, is her dedication to understanding what is TRUE, doing what is GOOD, and appreciating what is BEAUTIFUL. And that is what we are going to talk about today! Favorite Resources: by Charlotte Bronte and Karen Swallow Prior (2006 miniseries starring Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens) by Dr. Dan B. Allender and Dr. Tremper Longman III by Jean Fleming COMMONPLACE QUOTES "Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for the faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom as pronounced necessary for their sex." (Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, Bantam Classic Edition, p. 115) Rochester - "Dred remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre: remorse is the poison of life." Jane - "Repentance is said to be its cure, sir." Rochester - "It is not its cure. Reformation may be its cure; and I could reform -- I have strength yet for that --if--but where is the use of thinking of it, hampered, burdened, cursed as I am?" Jane - "It seems to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would in a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections to which you might revert with pleasure." (Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, Bantam Classic Edition, p. 144- 145) Jane - "a wanderer's repose or a sinner's reformation should never depend on a fellow-creature. Men and women die; philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness; if any one you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals for strength to amend and solace to heal." (Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, Bantam Classic Edition, p. 234) Jane - "Do you think I am an automaton?. . . . Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! -- I have as much soul as you -- and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal -- as we are! . . . . I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you." (Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, Bantam Classic Edition p. 271-272) Jane - "And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults..." (Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, Bantam Classic Edition, p. 155) Jane - "You are no ruin, sir -- no lightning-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop." (Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, Bantam Classic Edition, p. 484) Jane - "Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation; they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be . If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth -- so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane -- quite insane, with my veins running fire, and my hear beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opions, forgone determinations are all I have at this hour to stand by; there I plant my foot." (Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, Bantam Classic Edition, p. 342-343) “'resist' the terms of her destiny (social or spiritual). . . we have after all the willful heroines of certain of Shakespeare’s plays and those of Jane Austen’s elegant comedies of manners. But Jane Eyre is a young woman wholly unprotected by social position, family, or independent wealth; she is without material or social power; she is as Charlotte Bronte judged herself, “small and plain and Quaker-like – lacking the most superficial yet seemingly necessary qualities of femininity.'" (Joyce Carol Oats, "Introduction" to Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, Bantam Classic Edition p. v) the "truest book that was ever written" (G. K. Chesterton, Twelve Types - "Charlotte Bronte," Project Gutenberg - "I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils." (Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte) "Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth it has always been a sign that you are alive." (Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte) "Emotion links our internal and external worlds. To be aware of what we feel can open us to questions we would rather ignore. For many of us, that is precisely why it is easier not to feel. But a failure to feel leaves us barren and distant from God and others. We often seem caught between extremes of feeling too much or not enough." (The Cry of the Soul by Dr. Dan B. Allender and Dr. Tremper Longman III) "Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality. Listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And reality is where we meet God . . . Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the heart a voice. To understand our deepest passions and convictions, we must learn to listen to the cry of the soul." (The Cry of the Soul by Dr. Dan B. Allender and Dr. Tremper Longman III) "What is it we crave, if not life? Not our life that comes with the seeds of death embedded in it. But real life, true life, pure LIFE." (The Homesick Heart by Jean Fleming, page 45) "Our dreams erupt from the desire for love- a love beyond. We want to know human love, but human love is not enough. Our longings prowl hopefully. Driven by an undefined hunger, we can fall into two tragedies. We can seek wildly and indiscriminately, tasting every fruit, or we can retreat into dreams, enjoying phantom princes and missing the real thing." (The Homesick Heart by Jean Fleming) ". . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . ." - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION What are you longing for in life? Are your passions drawing you closer to intimacy with God or pulling you away from it? How can we prioritize our love for God over everything else? What "laws" or Scripture or words of wisdom can you hide in your heart so that when different temptations arise, you can withstand them? Consider how your emotions reflect your attitudes towards God and the things he's doing in your life. Are we experiencing seemingly negative emotions (like fear, anger, despair, etc.) in a righteous or unrighteous manner?
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Cultivating Writers & the Barnes Foundation
03/08/2024
Cultivating Writers & the Barnes Foundation
Welcome to A TRUE GOOD BEAUTIFUL LIFE podcast! On today's episode you are treated in our TRUE and GOOD segments to a sweeping vision of what an ideal PreK-12 Writing program looks like according to my special guest, teacher, and mentor, Linda Cerynik of . We touch on writing methods from Charlotte Mason to Classical, an eclectic mix of our favorite things. Linda takes us from grade to grade highlighting some of the touchstones students can strive for and some activities we can do as parents and teachers to help them develop and succeed as writers. Some principles of Narration (not mentioned in the podcast): should be done from high-quality literary books retell after one reading recall past material before each narration do not interupt or question the student during narration let the student's personality and interests shine ask synthetic or Socratic questions to cultivate deep thinking, other connections, and knowledge in students after the narration advance to silent narration with older students The Progymnasmata (an ancient Greek and Roman program that teaches Rhetoric in stages): fable narrative anecdote maxim refutation confirmation commonplace encomium invective comparison personification description argument/thesis Four Rhetorical Devices high schoolers can use or look for in an essay or speech: Logos - appeal to logic Ethos - appeal to ethics and credibility Pathos - appeal to emotions Kairos - appeal to time On the BEAUTIFUL segment of the show, I end with sharing my field trip to in Philadelphia, PA, and its amazing decorative arts collection from all around the world. You will be in awe at the famous artists represented and the various arts and crafts displayed next to old European oil paintings. It is a sight to behold and a wonderful expression of the divinely-inspired creative nature of humans. Some favorite resources: by Karen Glass by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White by William Zinsser by the Circe Institute COMMONPLACE QUOTES . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION For early Elementary students, be sure to have lots of play time to build strength and dexterity for holding and manipulating a writing instrument. Such toys and activies can include play doh, marbles, pick-up sticks, clay, watercoloring, dry erase markers/regular markers, chalk, collecting things in nature, playing in sand and mud, weaving with Rainbow looms, crafting with scissors and glue, practicing letters on lined paper, Lego/block building, playing with little figures like Squinkie Do Drops, Calico Critters, and Star Wars action figures. Begin oral narrations with 6+ year olds naturally, with retellings of their day, TV show, or family read aloud. For late Elementary and Middle School students, continue oral narrations. Begin written narrations slowly -- one per week and build up to daily narrations -- 150-300 words per day. Begin practicing more technical aspects of composition, like developing a full 5-paragraph essay, with an introduction and conclusion. Introduce guided poetry writing. For High School students, continue oral narrations and try writing some creative narrations -- like a newspaper account or screen play of what occured in their literature or history book, learn how to edit their own work, and try to cover all four kinds of essays -- descriptive, narrative, persuasive, and expository. Consider using the four Rhetorical appeals Linda mentioned: Logos, Ethos, Pathos, and Kairos.
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Discovering Dante & The Tool of Narration
02/23/2024
Discovering Dante & The Tool of Narration
ON THIS EPISODE Hell. What do you think of when you hear the word "Hell?" A place full of gnashing of teeth? A pit deep in the center of the earth? A black hole? A realm filled with shades of Greek heroes and the god of the Underworld, Hades? And what about Heaven? What images and phrases flash in your mind? These places, Heaven and Hell, are important elements of Christian theolog. On today's episode, I have the honor of talking with Kristen Rudd, a fellow teacher who is an authority on the Classics and teaches various subjects, including Dante's Divine Comedy, which is the topic of our discussion. Learn the background of Dante's brilliant literary work and the three stages of his travels through the poem, the Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio, and Paradisio (Heaven). Discover some of the elements of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in this masterpiece that we can apply to our own lives today. You can learn more about Kristen by contacting her at: - her website - her college coaching Learn more about Classical Education by contacting: program - Masters in Teaching in Classical Education program Favorite Resources: by Peter Leithart by Guy Rafa by Sonya Shafer (free eBook) by Karen Glass COMMONPLACE QUOTES “ ….Truth (minds), goodness (wills), and beauty (senses) are the same one reality, which engages various faculties. When we engage reality through the clear abstraction of the intellect, we talk about reality as true. When reality is the target of our will, we pursue it as good. And when reality enthralls not only our minds and wills, but also our senses and feelings, we call it beautiful. ( John-Mark L. Miravalle, Beauty: What It Is & Why It Matters (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2019), 38.) "The most common and the monstrous defect in the education of the day is that children fail to acquire the habit of reading. Knowledge is conveyed to them by lessons and talk, but the studious habit of using books as a means of interest and delight is not acquired. This habit should be begun early so soon as the child can read at all, he should read for himself and to himself history, legends, fairy tales, and other suitable matter. He should be trained from the first to think that one reading of any lesson is enough to enable him to narrate what he has read, and will thus get the habit of slow, careful reading, intelligent even when it is silent, because he reads with an eye to the full meaning of every clause." - Charlotte Mason, Vol. 1: Home Education, p. 227 "Direct questions on the subject-matter of what a child has read are always a mistake. Let him narrate what he has read, or some part of it. He enjoys this sort of consecutive reproduction, but abominates every question in the nature of a riddle. If there must be riddles, let it be his to ask and the teacher’s to direct him to the answer. Questions that lead to a side issue or to a personal view are allowable because these interest children – ‘What would you have done in his place?’” - Charlotte Mason, Vol: 1: Home Education, p. 228-229 “Narrating is an art, like poetry-making or painting, because it is there, in every child’s mind, waiting to be discovered. . .” - Charlotte Mason, Vol. 1: Home Education, p. 231 "Narration should “touch the emotions, fire the imagination, create mental pictures with its wording, and convey living ideas, not just dry facts” - Sonya Shafer, Five Steps to Successful Narration, p. 15 "A child’s individuality plays about what he enjoys, and the story comes from his lips, not precisely as the author tells it, but with a certain spirit and colouring which express the narrator. By the way, it is very important that children should be allowed to narrate in their own way, and should not be pulled up or helped with words and expressions from the text. A narration should be original as it comes from a child – that is, his own mind should have acted upon the matter it has received. Narrations which are mere feats of memory are quite valueless." - Charlotte Mason, Vol. 1: Home Education, p. 289 "But, it will be said, reading or hearing various books read, chapter by chapter, and then narrating or writing what has been read or some part of it – all this is mere memory work. The value of this criticism may be readily tested; will the critic read before turning off his light a leading article from a newspaper, say, or a chapter from Boswell or Jane Austen, or one of Lamb’s Essays; then, will he put himself to sleep by narrating silently what he has read. He will not be satisfied with the result but he will find that in the act of narrating every power of his mind comes into play, that points and bearings which he had not observed are brought out; that the whole is visualized and brought into relief in an extraordinary way; in fact, that scene or augment has become a part of his personal experience; he knows, he has assimilated what he has read. This is not memory work. In order to memorize, we repeat over and over a passage or a series of points or names with the aid of such clues as we can invent; we do memorize a string of facts or words, and the new possission serves its purpose for a time, but it is not assimilated; its purpose being served, we know it no more. This is memory work by means of which examinations are passed with credit." - Charlotte Mason, Vol. 6: A Philosophy of Education, p. 16-17 “the labour of thought is what his book must induce in the child. He must generalise, classify, infer, judge, visualise, discriminate, labour in one way or another, with that capable mind of his, until the substance of his book is assimilated or rejected, according as he shall determine; for the determination rests with him and not with his teacher.” - Charlotte Mason, Vol. 3: School Education, p. 179 “Asking direct questions on the content is the best way to squelch your child’s natural curiosity for knowledge. The focus will quickly shift from learning for the joy of learning to Will this be on the test. Don't let that happen.” - Sonya Shafer, Five Steps to Successful Narration, p. 24 ". . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . ." - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Get yourself a copy of The Comedy and start reading a Canto a day and follow up with Kristen's FaceBook group #100 Days of Dante. Narrate what you have read to a friend or family member. Engage in some fan fiction or fan art and take a scene from the poem and write a side story or draw what you imagine is being described. Study the Cardinal Virtues and Theological Virtues and the Seven Deadly Sins and discuss with your child or students how you can cultivate the former and avoid the latter.
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Birds & The John James Audubon Center
02/09/2024
Birds & The John James Audubon Center
Welcome to A TRUE GOOD BEAUTIFUL LIFE podcast! In this week’s episode, we are going to take a deep dive into one of Charlotte Mason’s classic subjects: Nature Study. In one of my earlier episodes, I chatted with my friend Stephanie Newcomb about the benefits of nature study and some of our favorite resources. Today, I am fortunate to talk to one of my sister-in-laws who comes to us from South Carolina! Megan Tolosa is an avid birder and knows so much about these creatures that I am always impressed by her knowledge and skills. So for our TRUE segment of the show, we are going to discuss various aspects of birds, for this month is the annual Great Backyard Bird Count and so I thought it would be perfect to focus on birds and how we can begin to identify them and in our GOOD segment of the show, how to care for them and participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count. Finally, at the end of the show for our BEAUTIFUL segment, I will share with you my daughter’s and my field trip to the , here in Pennsylvania. So it’s over an hour all about birds! I hope you will stick with us for it’s going to be great! ON THIS EPISODE Together Megan and I will share with you the 8 clues you can use to help you identify what bird it is you are seeing, how and when to use binoculars, different types of bird feeders and food you should offer them, and some activities to help impress upon the minds of your students the wonderful nature of these creatures. The 8 Characteristics to look for are the following: Group Shape Size Behavior Habitat Season Field Marks Voice Suggested seed: sunflower and safflower Suggested bird feeder: the Squirrel Buster Favorite Resources: The Great Backyard Bird Count Cornell Lab of Ornithology Cornell University Bird Academy Project Feeder Watch poster John James Audubon Center The Boy Who Drew Birds, by Davies and Sweet National Audubon Society First Field Guide: Birds National Audubon Society North American Birdfeeder Handbook by Robert Burton Peterson Field Guides: Feeder Birds - Eastern North America Peterson Field Guides: Birds of Eastern and Central North America National Geographic: Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America Sibley Birds East Thunder Birds: Nature's Flying Predators by Jim Arnosky Fine Feathered Friends: All About Birds by Tish Rabe The Berenstain Bears' Big Book of Science and Nature by Stan & Jan Berenstain Birds by Kevin Henkes (board book) Mrs. Peanuckle's Bird Alphabet (board book) My Colors: Early Birds Book by Patricia Mitter Baby's First Book of Birds and Colors by Phyllis Tildes Stinky Owl by Melanie Burgess ABC of Birds by Roger Tory Peterson Ducks Don't Get Wet by Augusta Goldin Owl Moon by Jane Yolen An Egg is Quiet by Dianne Hutts Aston Usborne Discovery: Birds About Birds: A Guide for Children by Cathryn Sill Stokes Bird Feeder Book by Donald & Lillian Stokes Virginia Bird Watching: A Year Round Guide by Bill Thompson Identifying and Feeding Birds by Bill Thompson Better Birdwatching in Virginia & West Virginia - DVD Field Guide Bird Bingo Match a Pair of Birds Memory Game Hoot Owl Hoot (board game) Sibley Backyard Birding Bingo What Bird am I: The Bird Identification Game Birds of North America - 100 Piece Memory Card Game The Little Book of Backyard Birdsongs The Little Book of Woodland Birdsongs The Backyard Birdsong Guide by Donald Kroodsma Peterson Field Guides: Bird Songs: Eastern/Central Sibley's Backyard Birds poster Sibley's Raptors of North America poster Sibley's Owls of Eastern (or Western) North America poster On Wings of Song: Poems about birds, Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets Birders: The Central Park Effect: A Film About Birds and People (DVD) Winged Migration by Jacques Perrin (DVD) The Big Year (DVD-movie) Hawk Mountain, PA Cape May, NJ COMMONPLACE QUOTES First and chiefest is the knowledge of God, to be got at most directly through the Bible, then comes the knowledge of Man, to be got through history, literature, art, civics, ethics, biography, the drama, and languages; and lastly, so much knowledge of the universe as shall explain to some extent the phenomenon we are familiar with and give a naming acquaintance at any rate with birds and flowers, stars and stones; nor can this knowledge of the universe be carried far in any direction without the ordering of mathematics. - Charlotte Mason, A Philosophy of Education, p. 254 Knowledge is that which we know; and the learner knows only by a definite act of knowing which he performs for himself. (Charlotte Mason, A Philosophy of Education, p. 254) . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Sign up and participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count. Consider making your own bird feeder and suet together as a class or family. Craft a mosaic bird bath using a terracota planter saucer and glass pieces. Begin a field guide collecton and practice drawing 3 of your favorite birds using pencil, watercolor, or soft pastels and note facts about them.
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For the Love of Latin & Commonplace Books
01/26/2024
For the Love of Latin & Commonplace Books
Welcome to A TRUE GOOD BEAUTIFUL LIFE podcast! ON THIS EPISODE Today, for our segment on the True, I have the privilege of talking with Erin LaMont of Classical Conversations about her love and the importance of studying Latin. She discusses the joys and difficulties of the subject and encourages us to keep on keeping on. Her Master Thesis sounds intriguing so I hope you get a chance to read through her labor of love. Later in the Good segment of the show, I share about the practice of keeping a Commonplace Book and how you can do the same. And lastly, in our segment on the Beautiful, I describe how I introduce the wonderful art and stories of Beatrix Potter to my 1st and 2nd graders, along with baking and special art pieces. So please, join us! It's going to be fun! Favorite resources Erin mentioned: ScorpioMartianus YouTube Channel by Erin LaMont COMMONPLACE QUOTES We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application -- not far far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech -- and learn them so well that words become works. - Seneca It is the duty of the nation to maintain relations of brotherly kindness with other nations; therefore it is the duty of every family, as an integral part of the nation, to be able to hold brotherly speech with the families of other nations as opportunities arise; therefore to acquire the speech of neighboring nations is not only to secure an inlet of knowledge and a means of culture, but is a duty of the higher morality (the morality of the family) which aims at universal brotherhood. . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 2: Parents and Children, p. 7 . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Download Duo Lingo and try learning some new vocabulary from a foreign language that you have previously learned or want to learn. Or find a good curriculum and try teaching yourself or your child a new language. Pick out a special journal where you can start writing down your favorite quotes from the books you are reading, or songs you're listening to or singing, or parts of speeches or sermons that really inspire or convict you. Put the kettle on and brew yourself up a pot of tea and enjoy reliving your childhood by reading some of Beatrix Potter's little tales of bunnies, hedgehogs and puddle ducks. Share these lovely stories and artwork with your children and students and practice a little watercolor yourselves.
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The World's a Stage
01/12/2024
The World's a Stage
Happy New Year! Welcome back! It’s been about six months since I started this podcast and so I thought I’d review what the purpose of this little dream is. Call me crazy but I just love learning about awesome ways to teach and encourage students, teachers, and parents . . . to help them find wonder, Beauty, and joy in the simple things in life as well as ideas to help them flourish as human beings and image-bearers of our Creator God. Because as I hope you all know by now, that education is more than academics, more than what you learn in a classroom or in your living room. To use Charlotte Mason’s words– it is “an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.” I have found that I have fallen in love with Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education as well as many elements of the Classical model of teaching and learning. Many of the educational things I have learned, I only learned about later in life, and so I want to reveal to our young teachers and parents today these precious truths about how children learn and what education is all about so they can implement these life-giving concepts into their homes and classrooms when their children and students are still young. So the first 21 episodes of the podcast have focused on some of the main elements of a Charlotte Mason Classical education (like Nature Study, Living Books, atmosphere, and handicrafts), using the Classical transcendentals - Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. My goal is to introduce you to these concepts and show you how you can learn and experience them in your everyday lives, and introduce you to people who embody various aspects of these divine ideas, whether it be a serious study using the 5 Common Topics, fun hobbies like caring for houseplants, empathizing with the world through a study in Geography, tackling life skills needed for a home business growing flowers, or learning to deal with trauma across the ocean in a new land. In this last half of the school year, I plan to discuss more in depth elements of a Charlotte Mason education and hopefully bring to you more book chats covering my favorite authors like Jane Austen, C. S. Lewis, Tolkien, and Beatrix Potter. I hope to also help you create peaceful moments at home, bonding experiences with your kids and students, and intriguing conversations with your classroom. I also hope to bring to your attention people in my life and outside my circle who have inspired me in one way or another and who I think will inspire you as well. So with that little introduction, let’s dive into today’s episode! It’s all about the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL of the theatre with my special guest, Adler Roberts of ! Favorite Resources: by Sanford Meisner , Lancaster, PA , Lancaster County, PA , Philadelphia, PA (for older students/adults) , Chester Springs, PA , Malvern, PA COMMONPLACE QUOTES "To be or not to be, that is the question." - Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene I “There is a danger in these days of much educational effort that children’s play should be crowded out [or what is the same thing] should be prescribed for and arranged until there is no more freedom of choice about play than about work. We do not say a word against the educational value of games (such as football, basketball, etc.) … but organized games are not play in the sense we have in view. Boys and girls must have time to invent episodes, carry on adventures, live heroic lives, lay sieges and carry forts, even if the fortress be an old armchair; and in these affairs the elders must neither meddle nor make.” -Charlotte Mason, School Education, Volume 3, p. 36-37 "Acting is living truthfully under imaginary circumstances." - Sanford Meisner, On Acting “To become intimate with Shakespeare in this way is a great enrichment of mind and instruction of conscience. Then, by degrees, as we go on reading this world-teacher, lines of insight and beauty take possession of us, and unconsciously mould our judgments of men and things and of the great issues of life” - Charlotte Mason, Ourselves: Vol. 4, Book 2, p. 72 "beautiful things are difficult" - Socrates, Greater Hippias "Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (in other words what Adler explained: "The actor's career develops in public but his art develops in private." “. . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information.” - Charlotte Mason, Home Education, Vol. 1, p. 174 APPLICATION Watch a silent film or a ballet and see how a medium that doesn't use words informs how you look at storytelling. 2. Play a game of charades in your classroom or at home to get kids in the habit of acting things out. And make presentations or recitations a normal part of your classroom routine and home culture so that speaking in front of others becomes second nature to your students. 3. Seek out and attend an interesting musical or play at your local theatre. Look for interesting story arcs and note whether or not it has a redemptive theme and whether or not it is a comedy or tragedy. How can you tell? If you need help, listen to Episode 12, where I interview Dr. Kathryn Smith of the Templeton Honors College about the four types of literary genres.
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"A Christmas Carol" Book Chat
12/15/2023
"A Christmas Carol" Book Chat
Welcome to another episode of A True Good Beautiful Life! It is almost Christmas! Are you giddy like me? Are the twinkling lights reawakening the wonder of that first Noel? Today I am letting you in on my first "Book Chat" with my dear friend Amanda Smedley, whom I have known for over 28 years, and is a great lover of books. Because this month I’m talking to you about Christmas things, starting last time with my discussion with Esther Anderson of Story of this Life regarding Advent and its history, today we continue by entering into the world of Charles Dickens’ novella, A Christmas Carol. We could have talked for hours on this little book. I enjoyed it so much that I hope we can do it again sometime soon! So for our TRUE, GOOD, and BEAUTY segments, we are going to dig into this classic Christmas text. Do you think it is possible to find TRUTH, GOODNESS, and BEAUTY in this story? Is there anything we can learn from this "ghost story of Christmas," a phrase used in Dickens' original title? Stick around and you will hear how this famous Christmas fairy tale shows how we are all like Mr. Scrooge and demonstrates the BEAUTY of a transformed life. Some favorite resources: Read with Me Kids Classics: A Christmas Carol by COMMONPLACE QUOTES "There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round – apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that – as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of , in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!” -spoken by Fred, A Christmas Carol, Stave 1 “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,” faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself. “Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing his hands again. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business." - spoken by Jacob Marley, A Christmas Carol, Stave 1 “Ghost of the Future!” he exclaimed, “I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?” It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them. “Lead on!” said Scrooge. “Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!” - spoken by Scrooge, A Christmas Carol, Stave 4 “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world." spoken by Scrooge, A Christmas Carol, Stave 5 "Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them . . . . His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him. He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny TIm observed, God bless Us, Every One!" - Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, Stave 5 “education is of the spirit and is not to be taken in by the eye or effected by the hand; mind appeals to mind and thought begets thought and that is how we become educated. For this reason we owe it to every child to put him in communication with great minds that he may get at great thoughts; with the minds, that is, of those who have left us great works ; and the only vital method of education appears to be that children should read worthy books, many worthy books.” - Charlotte Mason, Volume 6: A Philosophy of Education, p. 12 . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION This year, my husband, daughter, and I were able to catch a wonderful show of put on by a lovely local theatre right in the next town of Malvern, theatre. I was amazed at the quality of singing and the original music composed that incorporated traditional carols and the sound of bygone days. Ian Merrill Peakes played Scrooge and he made you feel the cold of his heart as well as the miraculous transformation of it as it softened and warmed with the help of the Christmas Spirits. People’s Light still has performances up through December 31st, so if you are local to Chester County, PA, you still have time to enjoy this wonderful production. If you are not local, try and find your local production and see it for yourself! You will walk away a little transformed yourself! A Christmas Carol is a short book. Take this next week to read through it with your family or students and see what kind of discussions will grow out of it. It may be a ghost story. It may be a fairy tale. But it is chalk full of deep thoughts and poignant life lessons that every person should consider right now. Here's a thought: If you could see your future, how might that impact how you are living right now? Journal what you would change and how you would go about doing it. Consider memorizing the speech Fred declared at the beginning of the novel (quoted above) to help spur in you some Christmas Spirit. How can you help the poor and needy this Christmas and New Year? How does this novel show that having money doesn't ensure happiness? What does?
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Celebrating Advent & Hosting a Wreath-making Party
12/01/2023
Celebrating Advent & Hosting a Wreath-making Party
Merry Christmas! Advent season is here! Today on the podcast I am so excited to talk with Esther Anderson of the famous parenting channel, ! With a nice little mix of the True, Good, and Beautiful, we will be talking about the history of Christmas and Advent, some famous traditions surrounding Advent, and an example of a beautiful product that Esther and her team have created to help celebrate the first coming of Jesus that first Christmas day. The last part of the show I’m going to share with you a fun activity that I love to do as I prepare for the Christmas season – making wreaths with some of my friends. So, grab a cup of hot cocoa, snag a gingerbread cookie if you have already started baking some (like me!), and cozy up and dream of sugar plums as we delve into a bit of Christmas charm. Some of my favorite resources: by Story of This Life by Ace Collins by Cindy Rollins by Ruth Chou Simons by Jennifer Naraki COMMONPLACE QUOTES 8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. 10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. - The Bible, Luke 2:8-14, KJV “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. 3 For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior . . . . 4 Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you . . . -Isaiah 43: 1b-4a . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Celebrate Advent by going through biblical or inspirational readings, or follow a specially created book like or Cindy Rollin's , or use , like Esther's from Story of This Life. Dwell on the incarnation of Jesus and why He came that Holy Night. Memorize the passage in Luke that tells of the birth of Jesus - Luke 2:8-14. Plan a wreath-making party with your friends or students. Either provide all the materials or even better, have all the participants provide various supplies that you can all share. Create early in December so you can enjoy the fruits of your labor all season long.
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The Joys & Trauma of World Travel
11/17/2023
The Joys & Trauma of World Travel
ON THIS EPISODE Have you traveled across the ocean? Have you taught a class in another country? Have you or your students experienced trauma that needed to be cared for? Travel opens up multiple opportunities for learning TRUTH and embodying GOODNESS. Today my special guest is another old teaching colleague of mine from Ad Fontes Academy in Centreville, Virginia. Kirsten and I taught together for several years and life later took us to different parts of the world, me to Pennsylvania and she to a completely new continent! Grab a cup of coffee and immerse yourself in a new teaching experience in a new world and new culture through the exciting travels and difficulties of my dear friend. Kirsten has some poignant points about dealing with trauma and helpful tips on being present with her students that I know you will find beneficial. Later in the show, I will explore another aspect of BEAUTY through the arts of hospitality and homemaking by organizing a Supper Club. Some of Kirsten's favorite resources: by Aundi Kolber by Dan Seiglel by J. Alasdair Groves and Winston T. Smith by Curt Thompson Calm App Lectio 365 App @aundikolber @adamyoungcounseling/ The Place We Find Ourselves Podcast @kjramseywrites @dralisoncook / The Best of You Podcast Some of my favorite cookbooks: by Erin Gleeson by Joanna Gaines by Reese Witherspoon by Gooseberry Patch (this has that amazing Christmas Eggnog Punch!) COMMONPLACE QUOTES Here is the whole secret of a successful holiday: the mind must be actively, unceasingly, and involuntarily engaged with fresh and ever-changing interests . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 5: The Formation of Character, p. 132 But the child . . . needs, like his elders, engrossing interests which shall compel him to think new thoughts. Fresh air for the lungs, fresh scenes for the eye, and fully healing and helpful only when the mind, too, is taken into account, and the jaded brain is spoon-fed, as it were, with new ideas. This is why foreign travel is delightful . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 5: The Formation of Character, p. 132 . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Create a classroom culture that promotes safety and empathy. Consider applying some of Kirsten's suggestions: self-care and self-attunement, a beautiful space, don't be afraid of awkward moments to address unkindness or confusion, be curious as to WHY your student is behaving that way, give your students the freedom to not be ok, and know that there is great comfort in being in the presence of God. Commemorate the places you've been. Set up a world map that you can mark with pins or flags all the places you've visited. Or string up postcards from other countries to inspire you and to remind you of all your memories. Call up 5 other friends and invite them to be a part of your Supper Club. You can do this every month or every other month and make it your own with however you want to do the food, include or not include activities, and how you want to work out hosting. Be consistent and you will find your friendships flourishing.
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"The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher" & The Brandywine Museum of Art
11/03/2023
"The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher" & The Brandywine Museum of Art
For our TRUE and GOOD segments, Linda Cerynik from and I take a deep look into the infamous speech given by the late veteran New York state teacher John Taylor Gatto. His acceptance speech at his award ceremony for being New York state's "Teacher of the Year" in 1992, is often referred to a " speech (also published in another of his books, called ) and in it he presents seven results of his teaching career. He claimed that he taught 1) confusion, 2) class position, 3) indifference, 4) emotional dependency, 5) intellectual dependency, 6) provisional self-esteem, and 7) that you can't hide. Pretty provocative to say the least. Hear about some of our experiences and remedies for some of these issues and consider how you would characterize your teaching at home or in the classroom. In our final segment on the BEAUTIFUL, I share with you about a little gem of an art museum tucked away in the Brandywine River valley in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania -- There you will discover art by the famous Wyeth artists -- N. C., Andrew and Jamie Wyeth. Not only do you see the museum's amazing collections and tourable homes and studios, they also host traveling exhibitions, two of which I share about on the podcast. See my website () for pictures of our trips. Some of our favorite resources: by Benjamin Franklin by John Taylor Gatto (if you can find the big green complete book, even better) by Sarah Mondale (with David Tyack, Carl Kaestle, Diane Ravitch, James Anderson, and Larry Cuban) Brandwine Museum of Art YouTube video on Thiebaud exhibit COMMONPLACE QUOTES Education is an atmosphere. - Charlotte Mason Children are born persons. - Charlotte Mason The glory of God is man fully alive. - Irenaeus, an early church father I am not a teacher but an awakener. - Robert Frost We give our children two things: one is roots, the other, wings. - Hodding Carter . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Read through "The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher" yourself and evaluate how you are treating your students and how you can improve one element of your teaching this week. Consider one way you can give your child/student the ability to choose something for themselves, whether it be how they structure their day, book selections, wake up time, music/art/sports options, how they spend their free time. Visit the Brandywine Museum of Art or look up pictures online or check out library books on the Wyeth artists and discover their works. Whose art do you like best?
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Exploring the Grand Canyon & Leave No Trace
10/20/2023
Exploring the Grand Canyon & Leave No Trace
Welcome back to another episode of a True Good Beautiful Life! Today, my friend Lindsey Habegger of and I will be discussing the amazing and breathtaking Grand Canyon for both our TRUE and BEAUTIFUL segments of the show and afterwards for our GOOD portion of the show, I will share with you the seven principles of the "Leave No Trace" concept, which will help us be better stewards of God’s creation as well as better humans to one another. Charlotte Mason believed that traveling and enjoying nature were wonderful ways to learn and appreciate the wonders and glory of God. What better way to do this than to explore the Grand Canyon! "The Leave No Trace" website and the "52 Week Hike Challenge" website both have helpful articles on the seven principles of "Leaving No Trace," used when you are hiking or camping. The principles include the following: 1) Plan Ahead and Prepare, 2) Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces, 3) Dispose of Waste Properly, 4) Leave What you Find, 5) Minimize Campfire Impacts, 6) Respect Wildlife, and 7) Be Considerate of Other Visitors. There is a lot that is involved in each of these aspects of caring for the places we visit and so I encourage you to check out either of these websites for further information. I do want to highlight a few that I found interesting: With regards to Principle #1- Plan ahead and Prepare: Be prepared by bringing the 10 essential hiking items: fire (matches, fire starter), first aid, insulation (extra clothing, layers), sun protection (lip balm, sunscreen/sunglasses), knife (other tools/repair kits), illumination (headlamp/flashlight), navigation (map/compass), nutrition & hydration (extra food and water), and an emergency shelter (bivy, blanket). With regards to Principle #2- Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces: you’ll want to look for a spot that is Resilient and Resistant and at least 200 feet away from any water source, like a lake, stream, or river. These include: hard soil, rock, snow, gravel, dry grass, and a built platform. Other tips with traveling on durable surfaces: Walk On the Trail - if you take shortcuts, you can hurt the microsoil and vegetation and damage the ecosystem. Hike Single File - try not to make the path wider than it is Camp On Established Camp Areas– search for a place that looks like a tent has already been there, such as noting a flat area that has been cleared of rocks and branches With regards to Principle #3- Dispose of waste properly: for human waste, dig a cathole at least 80 steps away from your campsite, water source or trail and try and find a sunny spot as the light will help break down the waste faster once you’ve done your business and covered it up. Seal up your used toilet paper and pack it out. There are also particular rules about using soap and disposing of trash and dirty water, so be sure to look those up. With regards to Principle #5- Minimize Campfire Impacts: It’s easier and safer to use a camp stove instead of a campfire as not all places allow you to have a campfire With regards to Principle #7- Be considerate of other visitors Downhill hikers yield to uphill hikers. Hikers yield to equestrians. Mountain bikers yield to equestrians and hikers. If you're mountain biking, be courteous by announcing your presence. Use a soft voice when addressing equestrians as horses can spook easily Some of our favorite resources: article by Brianna Flores book by "Scottsdale Travel Chic" YouTube channel by "We're in the Rockies" YouTube channel; they start with their visit to Las Vegas so you may want to skip over to their main section on the Canyon by the Grand Canyon National Park; there are several episodes in this series that you can watch COMMONPLACE QUOTES . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION If you can schedule a trip out to the Grand Canyon, go for it! It is something spectacular to see! If you can't, try watching some of the videos listed above to see what it is like. For a fun school project, have your kids draw out a large map of the Grand Canyon with all the various sights and landmarks and interesting facts and stats around the edges that they researched. They can even decorate the border with Native tribal designs, drawings of the local flora and fauna, and photos printed off at home. Put together a hiking backpack that contains all of the 10 Essentials supplies for hiking and keep in the back of your car for spur-of-the-moment adventures!
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Addressing Special Needs & Hospitality in the Classroom
10/06/2023
Addressing Special Needs & Hospitality in the Classroom
Welcome to A TRUE GOOD BEAUTIFUL LIFE podcast! Here we will discuss all things Charlotte Mason in light of the ideas of the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL! I am your host, Jennifer Milligan, and throughout this series I will share with you how to find and cultivate various elements of TRUTH, GOODNESS and BEAUTY in our homes and classrooms through conversations with homeschooling parents and classroom teachers; interviews with experts, entrepreneurs, and artists; discussions regarding the great books, great minds, and great resources; fun travel and field trip summaries; and practices and creative experiences that embody the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL life. Over 100 years ago, British educator, Charlotte Mason, declared that, "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life," and so today, I hope you will join me on this adventure in education. ON THIS EPISODE Nestled amongst nature and beauty, happy children are busy learning and creating. This magical place is , located in South Lansing, Michigan, and is the creation of , my guest on today's podcast. She has inspiring ideas and strategies to create a lovely space for anyone, even those with special needs, to be seen and to flourish. Some of the things we talk about during our TRUE segment are the use of audio books, short lessons to avoid fatigue, setting up multi-age ability-based instructional groups, practicing talking less (ie. Masterly Inactivity), engaging in Picture Study and Narration to help develop the muscle of attention, and the benefits of inviting parents into the classroom. In our segment on the GOOD, Sarah shares about how she teaches Hospitality in the classroom and how that helps develop ideal relationships amongst people. In our last segment on the BEAUTIFUL, Sarah explains how their program engages with the Fine, Common, and Performing Arts to round out an excellent Classical Liberal Arts program. Some of our favorite resources are: by Christine Verspaandonk by Charlotte Mason and Karen Glass COMMONPLACE QUOTES . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION How can you divide your students up so that they can get more individualized attention with people with their shared abilities? Is the environment causing some problems? What steps can you take to help your students thrive? Contemplate and put into practice how your classroom exhibits Hospitality, in general ways as well as serving as a "Hospital" and a "Hotel." What Fine, Common, and Performing Arts can you add to your students' life experiences? Can you involve the parents perhaps?
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Memory Tips & The Beauty in History
09/22/2023
Memory Tips & The Beauty in History
Welcome to A TRUE GOOD BEAUTIFUL LIFE podcast! Here we will discuss all things Charlotte Mason in light of the ideas of the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL! I am your host, Jennifer Milligan, and throughout this series I will share with you how to find and cultivate various elements of TRUTH, GOODNESS and BEAUTY in our homes and classrooms through conversations with homeschooling parents and classroom teachers; interviews with experts, entrepreneurs, and artists; discussions regarding the great books, great minds, and great resources; fun travel and field trip summaries; and practices and creative experiences that embody the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL life. Over 100 years ago, British educator, Charlotte Mason, declared that, "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life," and so today, I hope you will join me on this adventure in education. ON THIS EPISODE Can you remember a poem that you learned in Elementary School? Or a Bible verse from Sunday School? How about that speech you did in 9th Grade History class? Today I’m going to mix things up and start us off with our segment on the GOOD as I talk about some helpful habits to assist you and your students in memorizing material or practicing physical skills. Following that, I have an intriguing conversation with David Mathwin, the Dean of Students and History teacher at in Centreville, Virginia, the place where I first heard and learned about Classical Education. For our TRUE and BEAUTIFUL segments, Dave will share with us his philosophy on teaching and how he uses elements of BEAUTY to inspire and instill in his students the TRUTHS of History and life. So put your thinking caps on and let’s delve in! Our Favorite Resources: by Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel by James Lang by Charlotte Mason by Matthieu Pageau by Arnold Toynbee by Polybius by Herodotus COMMONPLACE QUOTES If you restudy something after failing to recall it, you actually learn it better than if you had not tried to recall it. The effort of retrieving knowledge or skills strengthens its staying power and your ability to recall it in the future. - Make It Stick, p. 203 . . . [it is often assumed that] a baseball player who practices batting by swinging at fifteen fastballs, then at fifteen curveballs, and then at fifteen change-ups will perform better than the player who mixes it up. But the player who asks for random pitches during practice builds his ability to decipher and respond to each pitch as it comes his way, and he becomes the better hitter." - Make It Stick, p. 206 Mixing up problem types and specimens improves your ability to discriminate between types, identify the unifying characteristics within a type, and improves your success in a later test or in real-world settings where you must discern the kind of problem you're trying to solve in order to apply the correct solution." - Make It Stick, pp. 206-207 Here, too, is a subject which should be to the child an inexhaustible storehouse of ideas, should enrich the chambers of his House Beautiful with a thousand tableaux, pathetic and heroic, and should form in him, insensibly, principles whereby he will hereafter judge of the behavior of nations, and will rule his own conduct as one of a nation. This is what the study of history should do for the child. . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 279 Next in order to religious knowledge, history is the pivot upon which our curriculum turns. History is the rich pasture of the mind – which increases upon the knowledge of men and events and, more than all, upon the sense of nationhood . . .” - Charlotte Mason, Volume 6: A Philosophy of Education, p. 273 How greatly is the reading of histories to be esteemed, which is able to furnish us with more examples in one day, than the whole course of the longest life of any man is able to do. Insomuch that they which exercise themselves in reading as they ought to do, although they be but young, become such in respect of understanding of the affairs of this world, as if they were old and gray headed and of long experience. Yea, though they never have removed out of their houses, yet are they advertised, informed and satisfied of all things in the world. - Jacques Amyot via Charlotte Mason, Volume 6: A Philosophy of Education, pp. 273-274) The beautiful, almost without any effort of our own, acquaints us with the mental event of conviction, and so pleasurable a mental state is this that ever afterwards one is willing to labor, struggle, wrestle with the world to locate enduring sources of conviction – to locate what is true. - Elaine Scarry, On Beauty and Being Just, p. 31 . . . beauty is a starting place for education. - Elaine Scarry, On Beauty and Being Just, p. 31 Half of the teaching one hears and sees is more or less obtrusive. The oral lesson and the lecture, with their accompanying notes, give very little scope for the establishment of relations with great minds and various minds . . . . The art of standing aside to let a child develop the relations proper to him is the fine art of education . . .” - Charlotte Mason, Volume 3: School Education, p. 66-67 Children have other ways of expressing the conceptions that fill them when they are duly fed. They play at their history lessons, dress up, make tableaux, act scenes; or they have a stage, and their dolls act, while they paint the scenery and speak the speeches. There is no end to the modes of expression children find when there is anything in them to express. The mistake we make is to suppose that imagination is fed by nature, or that it works on the insipid diet of children’s story-books. Let a child have the meat he requires in his history readings, and in the literature which naturally gathers round this history, and imagination will bestir itself without any help of ours; the child will live out in detail a thousand scenes of which he only gets the merest hint. - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 294-295 . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Make flashcards or use an online program like Quizlet or X-tra Math to practice vocabulary or facts. Incorporate interleaving and space out your study times. Think about a game you can implement in your classroom that will bring your subject to life for the students. How can you practice saying less or masterly inactivity in the classroom? What can you replace some of your lectures with?
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What are the Common Arts?
09/08/2023
What are the Common Arts?
Welcome to A TRUE GOOD BEAUTIFUL LIFE podcast! Here we will discuss all things Charlotte Mason in light of the ideas of the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL! I am your host, Jennifer Milligan, and throughout this series I will share with you how to find and cultivate various elements of TRUTH, GOODNESS and BEAUTY in our homes and classrooms through conversations with homeschooling parents and classroom teachers; interviews with experts, entrepreneurs, and artists; discussions regarding the great books, great minds, and great resources; fun travel and field trip summaries; and practices and creative experiences that embody the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL life. Over 100 years ago, British educator, Charlotte Mason, declared that, "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life," and so today, I hope you will join me on this adventure in education. ON THIS EPISODE It's Fall! Time for a new season of the podcast and I have more fascinating people and ideas to share with you as the autumn leaves begin fall and as we get underway with school. Have you ever heard of the Common Arts? Do you know what paper sloyd is? Well, if these words are new to you, or you want to know more about them, please stick around and listen to my inspiring conversation with Rose Tomassi of in Oreland, Pennsylvania. She has a lot of experience incorporating these valuable arts in her school and classroom, as well as in her personal life. Some of our Favorite Resources: by Christopher Hall by M. Swannell by William Heaton by Christopher Alexander by Matthew Crawford by Josef Pieper by Josef Pieper COMMONPLACE QUOTES " . . . we fancy ourselves connected, we are in fact distanced and disjointed. We're connected to the internet, but not to the soul. We're connected to networks, but not to the hearth, the kitchen, the workshop, the woods. We spend time enjoying them, but at arm's length, rather than apprehending them in our heads, hearts, and hands. We are tourists now, rather than natives." - Christopher Hall, Common Arts Education, p. 19 "The common arts are the skills that provide for basic, embodied human needs through the creation of artifacts or the provision of services. . . . The common arts formed the baseline rhythms of home and hearth around the world for millennia." - Christopher Hall, Common Arts Education, p. 19 “Man’s ability to see is in decline. Those who nowadays concern themselves with culture and education will experience this fact again and again. We do not mean here, of course, the physiological sensitivity of the human eye. We mean the spiritual capacity to perceive the visible reality as it truly is. To be sure, no human being has ever really seen everything that lies visibly in front of his eyes. The world, including its tangible side, is unfathomable. Who would ever have perfectly perceived the countless shapes and shades of just one wave swelling and ebbing in the ocean! And yet, there are degrees of perception. Going below a certain bottom line quite obviously will endanger the integrity of man as a spiritual being. It seems that nowadays we have arrived at this bottom line.” —Josef Pieper, “Learning How to See Again”, Only the Lover Sings, pg. 31 “Again we know that the human hand hand is a wonderful and exquisite instrument to be used in a hundred movements exacting delicacy, direction and force; every such movement is a cause of joy as it leads to the pleasure of execution and the triumph of success. We begin to understand this and make some efforts to train the young in the deft handling of tools and the practice of handicrafts. Some day perhaps, we shall see apprenticeship to trades revived and good and beautiful work enforced. In so far, we are laying ourselves out to secure that each shall "live his life"; and that, not at his neighbor's expense; because, so wonderful is the economy of the world that when a man really lives his life he benefits his neighbor as well as himself; we all thrive in the well being of each.” - Charlotte Mason, Volume 6: Philosophy of Education, p. 328 . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Pick something from your History or Literature class and have your class practice it -- such as baking cookies from the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie book, taste-testing different flavors of Turkish Delight from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, learning how to weave while reading The Odyssey, grow seedlings by the window or under grow lights as you read The Secret Garden, practice illumination as you study Medieval History, put on a play as you read through Shakespeare, churn your own butter with a Mason jar as you study U. S. Colonial History. At home, take a class or teach yourself how to knit or crochet. YouTube how to change a tire or replace the brakes on your bicycle. Start a Craft Circle with your homeschool group, church friends, or neighborhood and have everyone bring what they are working on or have someone teach you all something new. Try learning a new dinner recipe to try Saturday night. Support a local artisan by asking about their work and purchasing their designs.
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Houseplants & Dance
08/25/2023
Houseplants & Dance
Welcome to A TRUE GOOD BEAUTIFUL LIFE podcast! Here we will discuss all things Charlotte Mason in light of the ideas of the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL! I am your host, Jennifer Milligan, and throughout this series I will share with you how to find and cultivate various elements of TRUTH, GOODNESS and BEAUTY in our homes and classrooms through conversations with homeschooling parents and classroom teachers; interviews with experts, entrepreneurs, and artists; discussions regarding the great books, great minds, and great resources; fun travel and field trip summaries; and practices and creative experiences that embody the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL life. Over 100 years ago, British educator, Charlotte Mason, declared that, "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life," and so today, I hope you will join me on this adventure in education. ON THIS EPISODE What can houseplants teach you? Lots, and they are therapeutic as well. In our segments on the TRUE and the GOOD, my amazing sister-in-law Marianne Tolosa of tells us all about how to care for her favorite houseplants and how to propagate babies and treat pests. In our segment on the BEAUTIFUL, Brittany Ryan of shares with us the benefits of taking a class like Dance and the steps you can take to introduce your children to the activity. Some Easy Houseplants to Start With: Scindapsus Philodendron Spider Plant Snake Plant The Benefits of Dance: allows us to be creative uses different parts of our brain tends to help with time management, school studies, understanding of their bodies it's an athletic endeavor so their bodies are stregthened and toned opportunity to show themelves in a different way -- a social environment, a creative outlet, a chance to express themselves practice with multi-tasking demonstrates that there is a process to progress and accomplishing goals, as well as disappointments good habits it's just beautiful Two Types of Dance Studios: Competition Dance Studios - focuses on developing a competition team Concert Dance Studios - focuses on outside performances like recitals and "The Nutcracker," some may have a performance Dance Company that performs for charities and such . . .they provide opportunities that do not involve competition Some of our Favorite Resources: by Lauren Camilleri by Maria Failla "Bloom and Grow" Podcast by Maria Faila "The DMV Beneficials" FaceBook Group by Kay Maguire by Fourwords by Megumi Oshima and Hideshi Kimura (for the annual "Nutcracker" in Phoenixville, PA) Check out my website: aTrueGoodBeautifulLife.com and see some of Marianne's favorite plants from around her home on Episode 13's page. This is the last episode of the Summer Season! Thank you for being a part of this super fun project of mine and I can't wait to bring you more wonderful ways to embody the TRUE, GOOD, and BEAUTIFUL Life this Fall! COMMONPLACE QUOTES . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Consider purchasing a houseplant like a philodendron or spider plant and bring a little bit of nature and joy into your home. Already have some houseplants? Try propagating some and give them to your student's teachers or tutors for the first day of school for a fun twist on the traditional apple. Dance isn't just for littles and teens. Kimberton Dance Academy also offers Adult Ballet and Tap classes. You can also sign up for a local adult class on Ballroom or Swing dancing or watch some YouTube videos and kick up those feet! You'll love it and learn a new life skill in the process. For our teens, it'll be a hit at next year's Prom! Plan to attend your local production of "The Nutcracker" this winter. It is always a spectacular experience.
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Literary Genres & Poetry Teas
08/18/2023
Literary Genres & Poetry Teas
Welcome to A TRUE GOOD BEAUTIFUL LIFE podcast! Here we will discuss all things Charlotte Mason in light of the ideas of the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL! I am your host, Jennifer Milligan, and throughout this series I will share with you how to find and cultivate various elements of TRUTH, GOODNESS and BEAUTY in our homes and classrooms through conversations with homeschooling parents and classroom teachers; interviews with experts, entrepreneurs, and artists; discussions regarding the great books, great minds, and great resources; fun travel and field trip summaries; and practices and creative experiences that embody the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL life. Over 100 years ago, British educator, Charlotte Mason, declared that, "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life," and so today, I hope you will join me on this adventure in education. ON THIS EPISODE You can't follow a Charlotte Mason educational philosophy or a Liberal Arts curriculum without great literature. Today, in our segment on the TRUE, I have the honor of chatting with the Co-director of the Templeton Honors College MAT program (Masters in Teaching in Classical Education) and professor of Literature, Dr. Kathryn Smith. She is a mentor and a friendly face in Walton Hall as I patiently attend my graduate classes. She teaches the class "Reading: The Formation of the Soul" and in it our class read Dr. Louise Cowan's writings on the theory of genres and discussed how Literature helps guide our lives and form our character, and helps us understand the world and the cosmos -- the TRUTH. You will be fascinated by Cowan's "Genre Wheel" and how all the realms of Literature -- Lyric, Tragedy, Epic, and Comedy work together and have a form. Cowen associated the imaginary realms with topographical terrains and three stages: Lyric = a Garden (Anticipation, Consummation, Lamentation); ex. "The Garden of Eden" narrative of the Bible Tragedy = a Dynastic House in a Ruined Land (the Fall, Suffering, Reconciliation); ex. Oedipus Rex, King Lear Comedy = a City and a Fallen World (Infernal, Purgatorial, Paradisal); ex. The Divine Comedy, "The Good Place" TV show, Jane Austen's novels, Flannery O'Conner's stories Epic = Rebuilding out of the ruins a new City (the Battle, Founding, Ruling); ex. The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, The Lord of the Rings Following our conversation, in our GOOD and BEAUTIFUL segments, I get to share with you one of my favorite life practices, Poetry Teas, and my favorite resources and how to host one. So I hope you will join us as it's gong to be fun! Some of Our Favorite Resources: by Louise Cowan The Epic Cosmos by Louise Cowan The Tragic Abyss by Louise Cowan The Prospect of Lyric by Louise Cown by Kim Wilson by Fiona Waters A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson by Cecilie Mary Barker edited by Diana Larson edited by Roy Cook edited by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch edited by F. O. Matthiessen by Rupert Holland by The Metropolitan Musem of Art edited by John Borneman by Dawn Gottlieb and Diane Sedo by Gail Greco Why Poetry? helps with the study of language helps with memory, creative thinking helps ignites the imagination helps with beginning writing helps with sharing emotions helps brighten the soul COMMONPLACE QUOTES By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? - The Bible, Psalm 137: 1-4 . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Try reading from each of the literary genres this year. See if you can pick out the three different stages in each one and if the story lacks any of them. Plan a Poetry Tea once a week or once a quarter in your home or school room and have your children bring a favorite poem to share. Memorize a poem and recite it to a friend or your family. Try adding to your repertoire each month or each season.
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Hopewell Flower Farm & Learning How to See Again
08/11/2023
Hopewell Flower Farm & Learning How to See Again
Welcome to A TRUE GOOD BEAUTIFUL LIFE podcast! Here we will discuss all things Charlotte Mason in light of the ideas of the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL! I am your host, Jennifer Milligan, and throughout this series I will share with you how to find and cultivate various elements of TRUTH, GOODNESS and BEAUTY in our homes and classrooms through conversations with homeschooling parents and classroom teachers; interviews with experts, entrepreneurs, and artists; discussions regarding the great books, great minds, and great resources; fun travel and field trip summaries; and practices and creative experiences that embody the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL life. Over 100 years ago, British educator, Charlotte Mason, declared that, "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life," and so today, I hope you will join me on this adventure in education. ON THIS EPISODE Have you ever wanted to grow your own flower farm like me? Are your shelves filled with books on roses and gardening? Do the colorful tender blossoms light up your face and heart when you see them? Then take a seat and have a listen as I interview Leslie McCardell of . In our TRUE and GOOD segments of the episode, this lovely lady shares with me her family's adventure into flower farming and how operating this new business helps her children learn valuable life skills and empathy for the hurting around them. In our last segment of the show, the BEAUTIFUL, I continue my interview with of the . We talk about "Learning How to See Again." Not sure what that means? Then stick around! You won't want to miss what my professor has to say! Our Favorite Resources: by Georgie Newbery by Georgie Newbery by Jane Eastoe by Naomi Slade by Jane Eastoe by Erin Benzakein by Christopher Lloyd and Richard Bird by Josef Pieper by John Holt by Alexandre Dumas COMMONPLACE QUOTES Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life. - Charlotte Mason Imagine a form of education that does not try to change the child or transform it into an adult but rather provides a place where the child can flourish as a child. - Thomas Moore Man's ability to see is in decline. . . . We mean the spiritual capacity to perceive the visible reality as it truly is. - Josef Pieper, Only the Lover Sings, p. 31 There does exist something like "visual noise," which just like the acoustical counterpart, makes clear perception impossible. . . . The restoration of man's inner eyes can hardly be expected in this day and age -- unless, first of all, one were willing and determined simply to exclude from one's realm of life all those inane and contrived but titillating illusions incessantly generated by the entertainment industry. - Josef Pieper, Only the Lover Sings, p. 33 My responsibility is to basically not get in their way, do what I think is right, and not cause them to stumble. And if we can do those things, and if we can live ourselves in a way that shows them what it means to live truly, then I don't know what more we can ask for. - Dr. Fred Putnam . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Start some Zinnia seeds and tuck them into your landscaping for a pop of color and beautiful blooms. This fall is perfect for putting some spring bulbs to sleep and chill around your porch or mailbox. Don't have a lot of land? Try planting tulips in a window box or pots on the window sill with smaller flowers and herbs. Some life skills to try: photography, marketing, bouquet-making, color theory, entrepreneurial skills, interpreting weather, planning ahead... Some character issues to work on: pushing past discomfort, finding their gifts and strengths, empathy for the hurting... What kind of art or books are you displaying in your home or classroom? How have you designed the interior of your room or school building? What kind of music or sounds are you hearing? How are you spending your private, class, and family time? How are you reinforcing the values you have in your lives?
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Leisure, Liturgies & Cut Flowers
08/04/2023
Leisure, Liturgies & Cut Flowers
Welcome to A TRUE GOOD BEAUTIFUL LIFE podcast! Here we will discuss all things Charlotte Mason in light of the ideas of the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL! I am your host, Jennifer Milligan, and throughout this series I will share with you how to find and cultivate various elements of TRUTH, GOODNESS and BEAUTY in our homes and classrooms through conversations with homeschooling parents and classroom teachers; interviews with experts, entrepreneurs, and artists; discussions regarding the great books, great minds, and great resources; fun travel and field trip summaries; and practices and creative experiences that embody the TRUE, the GOOD, and the BEAUTIFUL life. Over 100 years ago, British educator, Charlotte Mason, declared that, "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life," and so today, I hope you will join me on this adventure in education. ON THIS EPISODE I have spent the last three summers working on my Masters Degree in Teaching in Classical Education at and I only have a few more classes to go. And through this experience, I have meet so many wonderful dedicated educators, both as classmates and as professors. is one of my professors and I learned so many fascinating things in his classes. Today, you get to taste a drop from his well of wisdom as he shares with us some deep thoughts on Leisure and practical tips for the classroom. Because we ended up running out of time, I have split this interview into two episodes so as not to cut our conversation short. Today, in our segments on the TRUE and the GOOD, we chat about instituting a Class Liturgy, why engaging in Leisure (the Classical way) is vital to human flourishing, and how to incorporate these ideas in our homes and classrooms. I end our BEAUTIFUL section with a fun note on the different types of plants you can use in your cut flower garden. So get your pencils out! Next week, we will continue our talk with Dr. Putnam, or Mr. P. as he often prefers, on "Learning to See Again" with regards to the BEAUTIFUL; along with an interview with my own flower-farming friend, Leslie McCardell of so make sure you don't miss it! My favorite book on cut flowers is Floret Farm's Cut Flower Garden and I have learned a lot from Erin. She explains that there are 8 Types of Cut Flower Plants: Tender Annuals Hardy Annuals Biennials Bulbs, Corms, and Tubers Perennials Vines Shrubs Flowering Trees Some of our favorite resources: by Alexandre Dumas by Josef Pieper by Josef Pieper by Josef Pieper by Devin O'Donnell by Douglas McKelvey by Donald Finkle by Floret Farm by Ariella Chezar by Alethea Harampolis and Jill Rizzo by Quin Ellis Please subscribe/follow and give us a 5 Star rating if you enjoy what you're hearing. I appreciate you so much! COMMONPLACE QUOTES We are not-at-leisure in order to be-at-leisure. - Aristotle Have leisure (be still) and know that I am God. - Psalm 46:10 Come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest. - Jesus Christ, Matthew 11:38 Our hearts are restless until they can find rest in thee. - Augustine, The Confessions, 1, 1.5 Leisure means an attitude of celebration. And celebration is the opposite of exertion. - Josef Pieper, An Anthology, p. 140 Bustle does not make a festival; on the contrary, it can spoil one. - Josef Pieper, An Anthology, p. 151 Every object shelters and conceals in its depth a sign of its divine origin. He who beholds it sees that this and all things else are good beyond all comprehension. He sees it and is happy. - Josef Pieper, An Anthology, p. 148 . . . we are not yet what we already are. - Josef Pieper, An Anthology, p. 4 . . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174 APPLICATION Consider how you can add some sort of liturgy in your classroom or home that will serve to create a time and space for learning. Is there a string of useful questions you could use to help teach your students material for your course? Or do you simply need to show that this particular time is set aside for something sacred? Pick your favorite poem or one that coordinates with your subject matter and start reciting it every day. See how long it takes to learn it. Purchase or barter for some flower seeds or plants and start your own mini cutting garden. You will find yourself smiling everytime you see the blossoms. Think of something you can do just for the sake of doing it, with no utilitarian goal in mind. Put your devices away and really engage with nature or the dear ones around you. Can you find time to celebrate this week?
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