Teaching History Backwards

Years ago I took a course at the Institute for Christian Studies on Christian worldviews. The Instructor, Dr. Kenneth Hermann, also taught college level history courses. I still remember his intriguing idea of teaching history backwards. Through the wonders of the internet, I found an article by Dr. Hermann in which he explains the idea.  What do you think?

Here is another article on teaching history backwards.

What Should Be Done? Create silence.

If I were a physician and someone asked me, "What do you think should be done?" I would answer, "Create silence, bring about silence." God's Word cannot be heard, and if in order to be heard in the hullabaloo it must be shouted deafeningly with noisy means, then it is not God's Word; create silence!  Ah, everything is so noisy; and just as strong drink is said to stir the blood, so everything in our day, even the most insignificant project, even the most empty communication, is designed merely to jolt the senses and to stir up the masses, the crowd, the public, noise! And we humans, we clever fellows, seem to have become sleepless in order to invent every new means to increase noise, to spread noise and insignificance with the greatest possible ease and on the greatest possible scale. Yes, everything is soon turned upside down: communication is indeed soon brought to its lowest point with regard to meaning, and simultaneously the means of communication are indeed brought to their highest with regard to speedy and overall circulation; for what is publicized with such hot haste and, on the other hand, what has greater circulation than -- rubbish! Oh, create silence! - Soren Kirkegaard 

All Things Tolkien

I've been listening to some of the lectures from The Tolkien Professor.  What a great resource.

Learning Formal Logic the Natural Way

My ten year old, eight year old, and I have been slowly working our way through Harry Stottlemeir's Discovery for about two months (one discussion per week).  I continue to be amazed at the effectiveness of this simple story to communicate formal logic and critical thinking to my children. The best part is seeing them discover the logical principals for themselves, many times anticipating the discoveries made by the story's protagonist.

I asked the boys last week, who is the teacher in our weekly discussions?  They both immediately said that I was.  Then I asked them what I had taught them?  An interesting discussion ensued where they quickly abandoned the idea that I was the teacher and discussed the possibility that either the book was the teacher, the author of the book was the teacher, or whether they were the actual teachers.

The range of ideas in this very short text is vast, we only discuss a page or two per week.  You do need the teacher's guide (it seems expensive but is well worth it).  One chapter takes us 2-3 weeks to cover.  Here are some of the leading ideas from chapter four:

1. Are thoughts real?
2. What is ambiguity?
3. Vagueness
4. How thinking leads to understanding
5. The role of thinking in knowing oneself
6. Three types of quantifiers
7. Accepting reasons as proof
8. Harry's inference that Tony tried to hit him with a stone
9. What is accidental?   

    

  

Epizeuxis, Polyptoton, and Hypophora - Oh My!

Ward Farnsworth's beautiful book, Classical English Rhetoric, provides copious examples of eighteen rhetorical figures in the English language.  The examples start around the year 1600 and end around 1950; the height of English rhetoric.  It includes Chesterton, Churchill, and Burke; Dickens and Melville; Emerson and Thoreau; Samuel Johnson and many many more.

The examples by themselves are simply fun to read, but could be aptly used for imitation in a writing or rhetoric study.

Ancient Writing Texts

I've been thinking some about writing instruction, looking at various books and curricula, reading reviews, etc.  In the process I came across Progymnasmata: Great Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric.  The book consists of English translations of four ancient Greek composition textbooks.  In each, the progymnasmata is explained and in some of the texts examples are provided.  Most of the greatest authors (or just about any writer or speaker) from before the time of the New Testament until the modern period would have used one of these texts or one similar.

Here are a couple of quotes from The Exercises of Aelius Theon.  First on the progymnasmata in general:

These things are, as it were, the foundation of every kind of discourse, and depending on how one instills them in the mind of the young, necessarily the results make themselves felt in the same way later.  

And this good advice on making corrections to a student's writing:

The making of corrections (by the teacher) in the early stages of study is not aimed at the removal of all mistakes but at correction of a few of the most conspicuos in such a way that the young man may not be discouraged and lose hope about future progress.