Modeling What We Teach: Studying the Classics

 

Modeling What We Teach: Studying the Classics

One of the things I love about John Adams Academy is the opportunity and emphasis on parent education. A fundamental part of a classical leadership education is parental/family involvement in a scholar's education. We must be prepared to have discussions and engage in Socratic dialogue around the dinner table, in the car, and in any teaching opportunity that arises. We cannot do this effectively if we are not familiar with the works our scholar is currently studying. Additionally, as parents, we have the role of Mentor to our child. If we wish to mentor them well, we need to be acquainted with great works of literature, art, music, and the big ideas of those who have gone before us (history, math, science, philosophy, economics, etc). 

In a recent parent/community education class (the school offers an ongoing seminar called Inspiring Greatness), the theme was "Face to Face with Greatness: Learning from the Classics". I have always been a voracious reader and a huge fan of classical literature, but I will admit that I have often read it more for my own pleasure rather than to understand the ideas and themes that the author was trying to put forth. As Linda Forman talked about our need throughout life to study the classics, I considered that I expect my children to do more than just read them for pleasure. It is wonderful to have a pleasurable experience, but to truly study literature or another classical work, we must labor to understand, to uncover, and to apply. 

Linda challenged us to make it a personal challenge to come face to face with great minds throughout history who inspire us. She asked us to make a list of 10 authors whom we would most like to resemble and then, one at a time, to study and pore over everything they wrote, created, and did. The goal is to come to understand who they were as individuals and what they believed and taught about the world. I immediately began making my list in my Commonplace Book. Here are the names I chose that night, (leaving myself the opportunity to chose the last two later).

1. Louisa May Alcott
2. C. S. Lewis
3. Victor Hugo
4. Charlotte Bronte
5. Leo Tolstoy
6. Charles Dickens
7. Thomas Jefferson
8. Joseph Smith, Jr. 

I have read all of these beloved authors before (although not everything they have written), and I know that they have the power to change and shape me. I came home that night and jumped back into Little Women, a novel that I have read at least a dozen times throughout my life. I felt empowered by a self-chosen course of study and anxious to get going! So many of the school's Nine Core Values were at work here: Scholar Empowered Learning, An Emphasis on Classics and Mentors, and Modeling What We Teach. I want my children to learn at the feet of the greatest thinkers the world has ever known, and I must continue to actively strive for that in my own life as well. Although I nearly always have a classic or two on my bedside table, having a specific plan of study changes my perspective. 

Who is on your list? I would love to hear-- and perhaps add them to my own!

-- 

Michal Thomas

Of Snack Attacks and Virtue

This morning, as I was trying to pack lunches through the brain fog caused by not having consumed enough of the sweet, sweet Starbucks nectar, I discovered someone had eaten the lunch “goodies”.

This is a bad thing. Lunch “goodies” are for lunch, and kept in the basket on top of the pantry, out of reach of the casual grazer. Punishment for eating food set aside for lunches was grave—I would complain and moan until all within hearing wished I would just go ahead and water board, instead. So, it worked fine, usually.  Usually…

The most obvious culprit was my son. Because, let me be honest; the kid’s a snacker. He likes snacks. He likes snacks like clowns love killing. (As we all know, clowns are deadly). He’s also, apparently, a bottomless pit, who grew an inch and half taller in the last month and a half. He’s a growing boy, fast eating us out of house and home.

So, I interrogated asked him. And to my surprise, he got that look our dog gets when you leave the room and come back to catch him with his nose in your coffee mug. (It is nectar, after all)

"I’m sorry mom."

Which was right and good of him to tell the truth.  I could then only complain at half-intensity. Not very satisfying, but it didn’t stop me, because, in my defense…I really needed more caffeine to have full self-control that early in the morning. So I kept nagging, as I shoved carrots and juice boxes into bags.
That’s when his little sister Georgia entered the kitchen, also with the thieving puppy face, and said,

“Mom, he’s just covering for me. I did it. I ate the crackers.”

“No, you didn’t. I did it,” he said.

“No, Wyatt. It’s ok. I did it,” she countered.

And on it went...

They were like those Disney Chipmunk’s, Chip and Dale… ‘No, no I insist.’ ‘No, No, I must insist.’ ‘Please, allow me…’ back and forth. It was all very discombobulating, as I had no one to aim my grumpy at. My grumpy needs a target, kids!

“Ok!” I jumped in. “Enough!”

I looked at both of them, and saw they were both telling the truth…the sticky-fingered little rats!

At different times they had each taken a snack from the basket. But I was stuck with the fact that they had both made a choice to be honest, and not allow the other to take the fall for what they each thought was their own crime. Both of them were willing to face the music at Mom Court, in order to do the right thing.

Dang it, now what was I going to do? Where did THIS leave my grumpy?!

“I am still angry. You guys both broke the rules. You know better. I don’t want to see it happen again. But I am also pleased… Do you know why?”

“Because we told the truth,” came the man-boy.

“We showed Public and Private Virtue! Oh yeah!” said the little one, doing a happy-dance shuffle.

And once again, I was offered a chance to have a real conversation, using the Core Values as a teachable moment tool.

How many times do you find yourself able to do the same thing? I bet many, many times. This is one of the things I love the most about John Adams Academy! These core values give us something solid and measurable to point to when we teach these character lessons in our home.

Although I have always held a high expectation for behavior, and I am proud to say, they usually meet that expectation, I can honestly say things have even improved since coming to JAA. I have a theory about that; I think it is a good thing to be part of a secular school community that is filled with kids who are learning that to be a good citizen is the “cool thing”.

At our school, these Core Values are the glue that holds them all together. They are all a part of the “Strong Character Club” and it isn’t just a bunch of good ideas that get presented at an assembly once a year, and everyone hopes stick... it is the foundation, the daily walk they take through these doors.

Every day they see them, and learn to live them, and apply the Core Values to their own selves they are building with our help.  Every day they become more and more of who they are going to be, and these Core Values are always going to be a part of that person. The cores will be in their minds when they think, and in their guts when they act, and in their hearts when they just know right from wrong.

You know why I really had to quit moaning, and put the kibosh on the grumpy? Yep. Model what I Teach. I’m learning, too.

By Amber Harris
John Adams Academy Parent