Aporia

In this episode, Danielle reads the first half of Paradise Lost, Book 1 with occasional pauses for reflection and clarification.

This is an introduction to our next series that will take listeners through John Milton's Paradise Lost. This series, which is part audiobook, part teaching, and part discussion, will invite you to take part in the great conversation around this great work. For further study, see Milton's Sonnet 19 and Lewis's A Preface to Paradise Lost. 

We discuss how Aristotle envisions education in Politics, and ways in which that vision is explained in greater depth in works like Nicomachean Ethics and Poetics.

In our Book Club series, we will be discussing The Great Tradition, an anthology edited by Richard M. Gamble; this work collects writings from the great minds of the West, and all of the selections center around the idea of education. 

In our first episode, we discuss selections from Book 5, 6 and 7 of Plato's Republic. We discuss the allegory of the cave and how it connects to education. We also discuss the tripartite soul and other features of education for the polis that Plato outlines in the Republic.

In this episode, we apply the concepts of authority, leadership, and submission to the context of crisis and difficulty. In the midst of crisis, panic is too easily the first response. We discuss how leaders can be sober minded, tethered, and communicative when diagnosing the issue and implementing solutions. Often times when there is acute or chronic pain within an organization, we can jump to solutions or responses that cause us to lose sight of the goal. When leaders remember to own what they should (not all that they could) and resist the temptation to micromanage, this will keep them more steadily fixed on the organization's goal. As we lead through this imperfect world, we encourage you to lean into the community of those leading with you within the organization or in similar organizations, and we encourage you to fix your eyes on Christ - the ruler of all - and have hope in his faithfulness.

In this episode, a very special guest, Justin Dillenschneider (Danielle's husband), shares about his work with house leaders within a classical Christian school. The ideas of authority, leadership, submission, and service are revisited within student leadership contexts. We discuss the goal of the house system, leadership selection and training, various leadership opportunities for students, and potential difficulties that arise when training student leaders. 

We may not exactly consider teachers to be leaders - but they certainly are. We discuss teachers as "tour guides" and "coaches" who lead students academically and spiritually. We compare the mental models of classroom management, which focuses on detail-oriented task-completion, to classroom leadership, which focuses on empowerment and a grander vision. 

In this episode, we focus on the structures of leadership and the ways that administrators can use their authority to lead and empower their staff. We also brainstorm alternative ways to structure administrative leadership and faculty development. For administrators, building relationships, supporting those they lead, and empowering those they lead are core concepts for practical application.

The boards of classical Christian schools operate differently than public school boards. In this episode, we unpack the nature of authority, leadership, and submission when serving on a board of a non-profit organization. Knowing the role of boards will help us understand the whole organization and give us a sense of gratitude for the countless, thankless hours board members serve.

In classical Christian schools, we see the relationship between parents and educators as a partnership. We discuss approaches for parents to consider to foster strong relationships with schools and how to handle concerns and difficulties within a classical Christian school. Likewise, we consider ways that parents can be vigilant about upholding their authority when other sources - even good things - threaten to usurp their God-given role to lead, protect, and disciple. 

Spoiler: submission isn't just for followers. We discuss how all authorities must submit to the ultimate authority, God. While submission might not always be easy, the authorities found within classical Christian education are put in place through God's sovereignty. We discuss how even when we disagree or think our authorities may be wrong, we are still to submit to them as unto the Lord. Christ our Lord is the model of submission through his death on the cross. Through his resurrection, we can find hope in God's good purposes and Christ's future reign.

What does authority have to do with leadership? As humans, we want leaders, but we often do not want authorities. As we learn to live in community in classical Christian schools, we often find ourselves in states of confusion over what authorities to trust and how to lead well. In this series, we hope to empower community leaders, parents, administrators, teachers, and students at classical Christian schools to steward authority well as they lead.

In this episode, we define authority and its many manifestations within a classical Christian school setting. We consider auctoritas, authority's connection to ethos, and authority's connection to various types of power. We discuss reward power, coercive power, referent power, expert power, information power, and legitimate power in terms of the family and school settings. (For more on the types of power, see Leadership: Theory and Practice by Northouse.) We discuss the ways in which power and authority are connected to leadership, and how to rightly steward authority.

Teachers and administrators impact the formation of students, so it is necessary to think about how even teachers and administrators are formed. We discuss the various aspects of teaching and administrating that can form (or deform) us. We consider how daily habits, words, and thoughts can positively or negatively impact the kind of people we become and culture of our schools. 

We discuss the role the portrait of a graduate plays in helping us understand our goal of formation. We also discuss some of the potential difficulties with striving toward this goal, yet we find formation to be a more hopeful goal than information. 

We discuss ways that math and science classes contribute to formation. For further reading, we recommend the following works: Mathematics for Human Flourishing by Francis Su, The Liberal Arts Tradition by Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain, and Teaching and Christian Practices: Reshaping Faith and Learning edited by David Smith and James K. A. Smith.

Classical Christian education gives teachers the freedom to engage students with various pedagogical methods. As classical Christian teachers, we must learn to take ownership of our classrooms, to delve into the appropriate teaching methods, and intentionally form our students through our courses. In this episode, we discuss the culture of the classical Christian classroom as it is comprised of three elements: the students, the curriculum, and the teacher. We discuss various aspects of the class that are formational: classroom liturgies, reading, discussing, assessments, and grading - just to name a few.

We discuss the various aspects of administration that influence school cultures, such as admissions, schedules, budgets, co-curriculars, and homework. 

After delving into the recent history of education, we discuss the danger of information becoming the goal of education at the K - 12 level. 

We discuss the history of the concept of education being formation as it is seen in various sources: Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and C. S. Lewis. As embodied souls, we must recognize that our actions shape our soul's desires. We delve into Plato's Republic, discussing Plato's vision of the just soul as it relates to Lewis's concept of "men without chests" seen in Abolition of Man. We connect these concepts to scripture by discussing the creation of man and Deuteronomy 6. Additionally, we discuss James K. A. Smith's work Desiring the Kingdom and how it sheds light on liturgies that shape us. We discuss how education leads us through cycles of discovery, wonder, worship, action, and wisdom. Ultimately, we consider the vital role education can play in forming students' loves in a way that results in their flourishing. 

In this episode, we share our experiences with classical Christian education. Both hosts have experienced a fair amount of aporia. Tim tells more about his background: how he got into classical Christian education, his experience in teaching and leading classical Christian schools, and those who helped him along the way. Danielle explains the beginnings of her teaching career, how she grew as a teacher, and the vision behind the podcast as a resource for teachers, administrators, and parents. 

In this episode, we discuss Plato's dialogues "Euthyphro" and "Meno" to get a better picture of aporia. If you have not read these dialogues, do not fear: we give an overview of both dialogues and discuss some key passages. In these passages, we discuss the unpleasantness of experiencing aporia and Socrates as a gadfly. We consider Euthyphro's poor response to experiencing aporia due to his reluctance to admit his ignorance, and Meno's positive response to aporia by being willing to consider Socrates's questions with humility. There is the danger that aporia will lead to apathy, but as Socrates exhorts, "I think that we will be better men, braver and less idle, if we believe that one must search for the things that we do not know." Ultimately, we must remember that even though we may not have all of the answers, aporia should only spur us on to search for Truth.

In our first episode, we define the term "aporia" - a Greek term for "impasse" or "puzzlement" - and discuss how "aporia" appears in the Bible. Our discussion of "aporia" leads us to a deeper consideration of the Christian life and our experiences with education.