This Week's Miscellany (04/07/23)
Good Friday, Is Classical Education Racist?, Christmas Mouse Nuns
Hello to new subscribers and welcome all to another edition of This Week’s Miscellany. TWM is full of my favorite things from around the web, typically trending literary.
Today is Good Friday. Lent didn’t go at all how I planned with so much sickness in the house. But here we are, finally healthy and ready to head to church at 3pm to observe Good Friday and venerate the cross.
I wrote about observing the Triduum in the domestic church for Word on Fire. And wanted to share one of my suggestions from the piece: sacred music for Holy Week.
Handel’s Messiah
Lent at Ephesus
Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion
Plough had a review of a novel about the creation of Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion which sounds fascinating.
And here’s a long list of Easter picture books from
The Classical Canon
As someone who believes in the value of reading the great texts, I try to closely follow what’s happening in the world of classical education. If there was a good Catholic classical school in town (like we had in Texas), I’d sign my kids up in a hot second. But is all well in the world of classical education? In our city, a classical charter school I considered sending my children to was the center of a viral news story two weeks ago. The principal was forced to resign because students were being taught (prepare yourselves!) Renaissance art.
That’s right. The curriculum included Michelangelo’s David which some parents thought was pornographic. Other parents were disgruntled that they hadn’t been warned ahead of time that their children would be shown one of the most admired statues in the history of art. This absurd response was affirmed by the school board.
The school board chair who forced out the principal over this issue was asked by a journalist about what classical education is:
I tend to think of a classical education as being the mode in the 17th, 18th century, where you study the Greeks and Romans, and Western civilization is central. A tutor or teacher is the expert, and that teacher drives the curriculum. You’re describing something where it seems the parents drive the curriculum. How does your classical education differ from the classical education as I think of it?
What kind of question is that, Dan? I don’t know how they taught in the 17th, 18th century, and neither do you.
After recovering my astonishment that someone in charge of the education of children would have neither knowledge nor curiosity about the history of education, this particular issue also made me consider how “classical” education is being co-opted in this highly politicized moment. To expose students to the great texts is to invite them into an exciting conversation. It is not to shield students from anything that might make them uncomfortable.
Here’s a great piece by scholars whose excellent work I’ve followed for some time:
As Black educators, we endorse classical studies by Angel Adams Parham and Anika Prather for The Washington Post.
In this increasingly polarized debate, both sides reveal an astonishing lack of historical understanding combined with a lamentable lack of imagination. Have the classics and classical education at times been used to exclude and oppress? They certainly have. Is exclusion and oppression innate to an education steeped in the history and literature of the Mediterranean crossroads? Certainly not.
What should be included in the canon of western literature? This is a very important conversation. Dr. Jessica Hooten Wilson is a highly distinguished scholar as well as a dear friend. She was the brilliant force behind the 2022 Catholic Imagination Conference and is a comrade-in-arms in resurrecting interest in Sigrid Undset. She loves classical education, has founded a classical school, and wants to fill the hearts and minds of students with truth, beauty, and goodness. This is a must read:
Is White Supremacy a Feature or a Bug of Classical Education? By
White supremacy has zero place in classical Christian education. It must be rooted out with the same force with which abolitionists sought to purge America of the evil of slavery. We must separate ourselves from those who knowingly support any form of racism and misogyny, while also undergoing an honest self-examination in the process. (I’m adding misogyny to the equation because white supremacy in America has a tendency to go hand in hand with the oppression of women.) If we in the classical Christian school movement want to combat accusations of racism and patriarchy, we need to consider carefully our textbooks, conference speakers, and public statements, walking the talk in the curriculum we teach, the public intellectuals we promote, and the output we produce.
Classical education should not be co-opted to be a refuge for racism and misogyny. And those of us who care about classical education should have no tolerance for such attitudes. The response from to Dr. Hooten Wilson’s expansion of the canon of great texts to include figures like Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois and historically celebrated women such as St. Hildegard of Bingen, Héloïse d’Argenteuil, Marie de France, St. Catherine of Siena, and Christine de Pizan is telling. Matthew Freeman writing for the American Conservative accused her of a “woke outburst” criticizing the CLT exam for having her on its board. (Just check out the author bank for the CLT exam to see how excellent it is. Well done, Jessica, and the rest of the board.)
Is it woke-ism to see the value in female writers such as Jane Austen? Is it woke-ism to read The Souls of Black Folk? If encouraging the reading of Marie de France and Frederick Douglass is woke-ism, Mr. Freeman, then sign me up! I have no patience with those who seek to make classical education into the racist and misogynist caricature of its critics.
The Year of Jane
Speaking of the value of women writers, we’re in the thick of Emma for our Year of Jane book club. The Sunday book club email will likely arrive later in the week because we’ll be busy Eastering!
A Delightful Update
My second book in The Sister Seraphina Mysteries series, The Curious Christmas Trail, is a finalist in the picture book category for an Association of Catholic Publishers award. I’m so pleased because this is my favorite book in the series. Grab one while you’re thinking about it and save it for a Christmas gift! It can be read as a stand-alone book.
Here’s a little review from GoodReads: “The Curious Christmas Trail is the kind of children's Christmas story you want to crawl inside. The cozy, Christmasy illustrations and the tight-knit mouse community at Saint Wulfhilda's will draw children in as the young mice work to solve a mystery and help an aged religious sister.
Also includes directions for paper snowflake-making and putting on your own Christmas pageant, guaranteeing children will want to revisit this book year after year.”
Grab a copy from my publisher Pauline Books & Media or from Amazon.
And that’s all folks! Wishing you all a wonderful weekend. And a huge thank you to Emma, Kenzi, Hannah, Rachel, and Peggy for upgrading to a paid subscription. This is a reader-supported newsletter so if you enjoy getting these emails, please consider supporting this Substack by upgrading to a paid subscription with the button below.
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Thanks for reading!
Haley
(Editor of Word on Fire Spark, Author, Former Podcaster)
Haley’s Children’s Mystery Series about Mouse Nuns
THANK YOU, Haley, for highlighting this conversation about classical education. I'm so appalled by how it's being co-opted by ideology, as seen by the backlash to Dr. Hooten Wilson.
Thank you for drawing attention to the need for classical education and Dr.Hooten Wilson's work. We have been using a classical education framework as homeschoolers and I am incredibly grateful for all the richness it has provided. I recently wrote a piece 'The great forgetting' https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/the-great-forgetting
which focuses on how the loss of memory is leading to a decline of our cultural heritage. Mainstream schools have dropped the practice of memorization during the mid 20th century to the detriment of language, knowledge, and tradition. Classical education is one of the avenues that still upholds these values. Thanks again:)