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David Mark's avatar

I appreciate the encouragement, I’m an older brother at the end of a labour intensive career in floors and custom shower work. Making time to develop one’s intellectual skills can be challenging at the end of a hard day. Thanks again for posting all this information. Discipline and no excuse making certainly helps. Learning to be a better man and do better is a life time of work on so many levels, but that is what God has called us to do and be on this short journey, running the race to win not lose. Pax Vobiscum

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Jacob Allee's avatar

Amen!

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Josh Crews's avatar

The article is a feat of strength! I believe every father must get acquainted with what is a liberal arts education and shepherd their kids receiving one.

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Jacob Allee's avatar

Amen.

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Maddie Dobrowski's avatar

Thank you for this article! I just sent it out to my colleagues as a reminder of why we do what we do. :) Also, I love your Thomistic explanation of the division and purpose of the liberal arts.

I have a question as well. Do you know if Aristotle ever talks about this division? I have a vague memory of reading something by him about education during my grad school studies but I can't remember the exact reading.

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Jacob Allee's avatar

Hunt around good used book stores like Half Price Books and see if you can find a good deal on a set. There is also a way to buy it digitally on Logos Bible Software.

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Jacob Allee's avatar

Hi Maddie, thanks! I think the ancient notion of the Liberal arts was a bit different in conception, though sharing many of the same underpinnings. I think the Scholastics in the late Middle Ages really brought us the more systematic approach to Liberal learning that we now think of in just this way. I think the unity of Christian thought helped to bring a unified vision for education as well.

Do you have a set of the Great Books of the Western World? If so, I’d commend the first volume of the Syntopicon to you and the section on Education. That would allow you to explore more easily what Aristotle had to say on the matter. If you don’t have a set, may I recommend selling all that you have and buying the pearl? ;-)

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Maddie Dobrowski's avatar

I don’t yet have those titles but they are going right to the top of my list now. Thanks for the recommendations! My graduate studies are more metaphysics-focused but I am personally very interested in exploring the philosophical underpinnings (especially in the ancient and medieval worlds) of classical education.

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Jay's avatar

Great article. Any recommendations or further reading on how to make this happen? I’ve got several kids and the oldest is approaching school age. We’re planning to homeschool our children as private schools are out of our budget.

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Jacob Allee's avatar

Hi! Praise God that you’re looking at homeschooling! It’s a wonderful way to go. Here is the hub for the material I am creating (mostly geared towards 7th graders on up to adult learners). https://stgb.substack.com/p/humane-letters-great-books

We are planning to develop more material for younger students and for family read-aloud books, but we aren’t there yet. If you need good material for younger kids you should check out Memoria Press.

If you have any specific questions, or can tell me what kind of things you’re looking for, I am happy to help you in any way I can. I want to support families just like yours!

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Dan Segal's avatar

On connections between numbers, geometry, music, check out Donald in Mathmagicland (Disney, c.1957),

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U_ZHsk0-eF0&t=6s&pp=ygUYZG9uYWxkIGluIG1hdGhtYWdpYyBsYW5k

As for education as merely job training to make a lot of money, Proverbs 17:16 asks us, “Of what use is money in the hand of a fool, since he has no intention of acquiring wisdom?”

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Jacob Allee's avatar

Nice. I’ll check that out.

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Dan Segal's avatar

I trust you’re familiar with Dorothy Sayers’ Lost Tools of Learning?

https://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html

Doug Wilson, a somewhat controversial Calvinist adopted this approach

https://www.amazon.com/Recovering-Lost-Tools-Learning-Distinctively/dp/0891075836

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_education_movement

Where, though, to attend college?

www.ralston.ac

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M.E. Woodward's avatar

Doug Wilson is not someone I’d recommend following, unless one is, like him, a believer in Sola Scriptura. As for me, no.

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Dan Segal's avatar

You’ll want to buy both this little ISI booklet, part of a series to help thoughtful students survive and thrive in corrupted colleges,

https://www.amazon.com/Students-Liberal-Learning-Guides-Disciplines/dp/1882926536

and this more thorough volume by the same author, the late, great James Schall, a Catholic priest:

https://www.amazon.com/Another-Sort-Learning-James-Schall/dp/089870183X/

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Beth Austin's avatar

Thank you for this fantastic reminder of what the Liberal Arts are and why they are important. You have put your finger exactly on the problem with education in the US today - a problem that plagues even Christian schools here. As a society, we have come to believe that the purpose of education is to get a better paying job. How sad that we have forgotten our heritage as people of the Book, who built Western Civilization to be a society of free people, citizens, able to govern themselves. This is the exact reason that I do not feel like I'm "wasting" my MA in History by homeschooling my children! Please keep up the reminders - they are so important, and quite timely!

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Jacob Allee's avatar

You are what will help rebuild the west! May God bless you and your family!

My wife earned her masters in philosophy while 2 of our 4 kids were still very little. She would rock them to sleep while reading aloud the Brothers Karamazov for her class. My kids benefit infinitely from having such a mom, your kids will too.

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Jacob Veliz's avatar

This is by far the best article I’ve read on this subject. Thank you brother and looking forward to engaging with more of your content.

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Jacob Allee's avatar

Thanks for the encouragement! Nice to meet you.

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Adrian Gaty's avatar

Unfortunately, educators are now applying the soulless specialist approach to even the liberal arts. Reading great literature has been replaced with “literacy skills,” which can be taught as easily with a comic book or restaurant menu as with Dante…

There are many reasons why ADHD rates are soaring, but one of them is that this inhuman skills based education is simply boring!

Gaty.substack.com

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Truman Angell's avatar

You are a powerhouse, Jacob.

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Jacob Allee's avatar

That’s kind of you to say my friend.

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