Welcome to my newest readers, fellow bibliophiles, and educators!
This spring, the meadow north of our farmhouse has been a spectacular display of greens and yellows. Daffodils arrived first along with overeager photo tourists. For years, volunteers have planted the daffodils in profusion along the city’s fresh water creek that borders this meadow. Once the daffodils faded and the meadow grass was mown, simple yellow blossoms emerged, a wildflower that I didn’t know. On Sunday afternoon, I watched as a mom and her young daughter bedecked in sun hats bent to gather armfuls of blossoms and set them in buckets.
The seasons and what they contain this first year in Arkansas continue to surprise me. What I see in creation feeds my soul, the soul of a newcomer to the region. And I need that. Desperately.
After one year, I’m still new in the place where I live, in the church we attend, in the school where I lead and teach. More than once, I’ve been told that I am new, I’m not a local, I’m not a “townie.” I don’t mind the lack of a label, which I suppose is a label in itself, but I’ve found out there’s so much to learn in my new roles.
It reminds me of David’s prayers in his early Psalms. Fraught with accusation and anxiety, his path forward as king was uncertain, wobbly even. In Psalm 26 and 27, he longed for God to be his stronghold. He longed to seek His face and worship Him, and yet both psalms end with a similar phrase, a confident one.
“My feet are planted on level ground . . . Teach me your way, Adonai; lead me on a level path . . .”
It has been my prayer in these months of hard changes. “Make my feet level, God, no matter what it looks like, no matter what it feels like.”
As the school year comes to a close, I was also encouraged by the words of a book I was invited to review for Front Porch Republic. In Learning to Love: Christian Higher Education as Pilgrimage, Alex Sosler reminds us that wherever we are educated, education is formation, whether we are aware of it or not. Sosler calls us to awareness. We all worship, idolize, and love the things around us. What surrounds us shapes us.
“Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”
Throughout his book, Sosler gently and effectively connects the soul’s journey with the life of the mind. These are the threads that encouraged me in my role as an educator. Read here for the full book review.
This spring
also generously reprinted several book reviews of mine from the last few years. McGuffey and His Readers: Piety, Morality, and Education in Nineteenth-Century America appeared originally at The University Bookman, and Mortimer Adler: The Paideia Way of Classical Education was first published at The Imaginative Conservative.On the road
Will I see you in June?
On June 2-3, I’ll be attending the Central Consortium of Classical Educators in Tontitown, Arkansas. It’s a one-day teaching and training event for anyone interested in classical Christian education with a reception the night before. My keynote centers in the first century countries as I talk about Seneca and Christ at age 12. Yes, centers in, not on. I believe the "where" of the roots of classical education hold some core truths. Spain, Italy, Greece, and Israel.
From June 14-17, I return to Dallas for the Society for Classical Learning national conference. I will be presenting a practicum to help grammar school teachers, Teaching Expression: Learning to Read Aloud. It won’t be filmed this year, but I led the same workshop at The Classical Thistle conference last year. It’s on YouTube for free! I’m also joining a panel at SCL led by Dr. Albert Cheng, Director of the Classical Education Research Lab at the University of Arkansas. That presentation is titled Redeeming Social Science for Classical Education: How Empirical Research Matters for Pedagogical Excellence and Advocacy.
As always, please feel free to email me. I welcome your thoughts and recommendations. And don't forget that the List Library at my website is always available to you, my readers!
Christine
P.S. Drop a comment or question below and let me know what you think!