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