Our high school Humanities studies at Providence Prep are anchored by Dr. George Grant's unforgettable moral philosophy course. We are often reminded, and we have seen for ourselves, that education as a form of repentance.

I took this picture last spring as my youngest son and I were moving towards the end of the school year – and the end of my homeschooling career. We decided to indulge in a final read-aloud of the Narnia books.

My prayer for my students and for myself as we plan for the coming school year:

Hard Times, by Charles Dickens, a favorite read of classical educators everywhere – how NOT to do it! – is full of brilliant and biting commentary on an educational system that ignores the soul-building stuff of the poetic imagination in favor of facts and figures.

Making time for Morning Time will probably require some re-imagining of what “doing school” should look like. If you are new to Morning Time, you will set yourself up for endless frustration if you try to simply add it on top of what you are currently doing—or what you think you should be doing.

I am certain that the daily delight and discipline of Morning Time—a.k.a Our Daily Feast—is the best pedagogical practice for bringing scholé to our homeschools Yet there is an even more important life practice which I believe is needed to bring scholé.

From the earliest days of our homeschool (22 years ago!), we spent at least an hour—and sometimes far more!—each day reading aloud, thanks to the influence of folks like Susan Schaeffer-Macaulay  and Sally Clarkson.

Years ago, when I first heard Chris Perrin talk about the concept of scholé, he posed the question: "How have you practiced scholé in your homeschool?" My Eeyore proclivities surfaced, and I immediately thought of all the ways I had failed to do it. Happily,