From what? you might ask.

From our oppressors, we would respond.

The English? you ask. (Poor English people. Can you imagine them watching us celebrate being independent from them every year?)

Not really, no, we respond. After all, none of us were ever oppressed by England.

I mean, raise your hand: Have you ever been oppressed by an Englishman or -woman?

Didn’t think so.

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The 4th is not about our freedom from England. It’s about freedom from tyranny — from unjust, exploitative, illegitimate force and violence.

It’s about the day when the leaders of the thirteen “united States” (not, interestingly, the “United States”) said that there are certain fundamental truths that everyone can see — truths about people and governments and God and countries — and that anybody who violates those truths forfeits his (or her) authority to rule.

But notice that they claimed these were truths everyone could see.  And notice how they felt it necessary to explain their actions to the world by writing up a “Declaration.”

And notice that they didn’t declare war on the 4th. They simply claimed to be speaking the truth and explaining themselves.

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Now, the guys who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence weren’t all good guys. But we can learn something from them, nevertheless.

The Declaration of Independence was an attempt to remind everyone of important truths (important truths they all already knew), to convince them that the government of England had violated those truths, and to convince them that the citizens of the thirteen American colonies were justified — because of those violations — in no longer seeing the government of England as their government.

The road to independence, in other words, begins with truth, reasoning, and argumentation.

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If you want to teach independence to your children, then, what must you do?

First, teach them to see truth.

Second, teach them to understand how others see the world.

Remember, the Declaration of Independence doesn’t appeal to truths that only Americans or Christians could see.  It appeals to truths that everyone could see. The Declaration of Independence tries to start its argument from “common ground.”

But even if you can’t find “common ground” with an opponent, you still need to understand how he or she sees the world.  You can’t help someone get from the wrong place to the right place if you don’t know where he’s coming from!

Third, teach them how to make a case, or construct an argument, that others will find convincing.

Remember, the job of the Declaration of Independence was to convince the rest of the world that the American colonists were right.  The Declaration isn’t a law that forced people to agree.  And it isn’t a declaration of war that threatened violence if they didn’t agree. Its job was to make a rational argument that rational people would find convincing.

Fourth, teach them how to write.

The Declaration is extremely well written. It wouldn’t have had nearly the force it’s had for 200+ years had it not been.

But also, the secret to the Declaration of Independence is John Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government.  Everyone had already read John Locke’s book, and been convinced by it.  All the Declaration had to do, then was to remind everyone of what John Locke had said about people and governments and God and countries, and then convince them that what Locke had said applied to the American situation.

John Locke’s book was a culture changer. Without it, there would have never been a Declaration of Independence.

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As homeschoolers, you have already declared your independence from the “normal” school system.  And that means you have the freedom to teach independence to your children.

The 4th of July is here to remind us not to let such opportunities go to waste!

-Micah Tillman

^{[Micah is a Mt. Sophia graduate who is working on his doctoral dissertation at The Catholic University of America. He also gets to teach philosophy (as a "teaching fellow"), which he loves.]}

Related posts:

• On the Reading of Old Books
• A Homeschooler’s Identity
• Dr. Gerald Culley Teaches on History, Philosophy and Mt. Sophia- Part I

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I was thinking, the other day, about the Classics. You all make your children read them during the school year, and maybe even over the summer. And I bet you’ve all heard some complaint to the effect of, “Why do we have to read this book? What’s so important about it?”

Where I teach philosophy, we are very much “into” the Classics.  We teach the Classic Philosophical Texts. That is our approach to teaching philosophy.

Other schools might focus on Classic Philosophical Problems, or Recent Philosophical Problems, or Contemporary Questions in Philosophy, or Historical Debates in Philosophy. And we do that too. It’s just our specialty is in teaching the Classic Texts.

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But why focus on classic books?  What do you tell your children?

Here’s some of my thoughts on the subject:

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The classics are, for the most part, very old, and very well-known. They’ve been popular for a very long time, in other words, and have been read by many, many historically-important people

When you sit down to read a classic book, therefore, you’re doing the same thing that countless other people have done before you, are doing right now, and will still be doing in the future.

You’re joining in an activity that spans the ages and the globe. You’re participating in an experience that is shared by thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people across time and space.

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You’re having the same experience now as the George Washingtons, Winston Churchills, Abraham Lincolns, etc. of history had when you read Shakespeare today. You’re having the same experience now as Cicero and Julius Caesar and maybe even the Apostle Paul had when you read Homer.

When you pick up a Jane Austen novel, you’re joining with a whole sea of unseen others who have picked up the same novel. When you read a C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkein story, you’re living through the same events that many great people have lived through as they read the same book.

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When you read classic books, therefore, you’re helping to tie history and the world together. You’re participating in the same activities and experiences that many others have. The experience you have, and activity in which you engage, of reading the story is the same as the experience others have had, and the activity in which others have engaged, around the world and through the years.

Furthermore, when you read classic books, you’re becoming part of a tradition. You’re participating in something larger than yourself.

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And, when you read classic books, you’re enabling yourself to better understand the people who have shaped your world, because (a) you’ve now shared some of their experiences with them (the experience of reading the book you’re reading, and of living through the story with its characters), and (b) you now know the characters and plots and stories that helped them to see the structures in their world and to understand the events in their lives.

The stories we read and hear and watch begin to act as metaphors for the events in our lives. We begin to see our world through the stories we’ve experienced. The stories we’ve lived through help us to see the organization and structure of what we live through in the real world.

There’s an important sense, therefore, in which you cannot understand another person unless you understand the stories they see the world through.

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So, we read the Classics in order to participate in the connecting of different times and places with each other, in order to participate in a tradition larger than ourselves, and in order to better understand other people (especially those who have helped to shape our world).

But there are other reasons as well.

What do you think?

-Micah Tillman

^{[Micah is a Mt. Sophia graduate who is working on his doctoral dissertation at The Catholic University of America. He also gets to teach philosophy (as a "teaching fellow"), which he loves.]}

Related posts:

• Great Books
• A Homeschooler’s Identity
• Teaching Independence

Students’ Unique Abilities

We firmly believe that God has placed into each child unique and beautiful abilities. No two students are alike, but they are all placed here on purpose by a purposeful God. At MSA, we want to help our kids find and develop those gifts as they learn, love, pray, socialize, serve, and grow.

Creating a Culture for Christ

Our unified and clear purpose is to create a culture that will look like and advance Christ’s kingdom. As the students (and adults) grow, so will that culture. There will be a culture for Christ within each student. Then through those students will come a culture for Christ around them.

Related posts:

• Mt. Sophia Academy- What is Our Mission?
• It’s 1/3 About You
• How the Blog Was Born

Oh the pain!  Can you imagine being in school till the middle of June!?

Well, maybe you can.

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Why is it, after all, that colleges always get out earlier than high schools and middle schools and elementary schools?

And why is it that some homeschooling families don’t do summer vacation at all?

Is there one right time to begin school every year?  Is there one right time to end school every year?

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When I first went off to college I was a little annoyed that the school year started before Labor Day.  In the Tillman household, we had always started school the day after Labor Day.  That just seemed like the natural time to start.

But then I found out that colleges work on a different calendar.  They begin at the end of August.

Why?

Who knows.

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Aristotle said that you can’t always figure out exactly what you should do head of time.  Sometimes you have to wait till you’re in the situation before you can see how you should act in that situation.  Sometimes you have to feel it out from within the situation, rather than trying to reason it out from outside the situation.

Imagine, for example, a football coach who calls a play for his team.  In the play, one wide receiver is supposed to run down the field for ten yards, and then make a sharp left turn.  Then the quarterback will throw him the ball.

Now, imagine that the wide receiver asks the coach how many steps he should take to get to the ten yard mark.  Or, imagine that the wide receiver asks the coach what he should do if one of the defensive players gets in his way.

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What would the coach say?

He’d say, “Look, son,” (coaches always call their players “son,” evidently), “you’ll figure it out once the play starts.  Feel it out.  You’ve got the experience.   You’ve got the training.  You’ve developed all the right habits.  You’ll see what the right thing is to do when you’re in the middle of the play; you can’t just figure it out ahead of time.”

____

There are many things in life like that.  You’ve got a goal, and a basic plan for getting there.  But many of the details can’t be figured out ahead of time.  You have to be in the middle of the situations that will arise before you can figure out what to do in those situations.

Of course, this only works if you’ve developed the right habits and dispositions and tendencies ahead of time.  It only works if you’ve become “virtuous” (to some extent), as Aristotle says.

But preparing yourself, on the one hand, and having a rational, step-by-step plan for every possible eventuality, on the other hand, are often two different things.

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So, why is it that we all seem to start and end the school year at different times?

Everyone’s got a goal (”Get educated!”) and a basic game plan (”Devote at least some of the year to schooling!”).  But college is a different situation than high school, and high school is a different situation than middle school, and all of those are different situations than homeschool.

And that means the people who make the calendar decisions for each group have had to work it out over time.  You can’t just impose a one-size-fits-all, purely rational policy on everyone in every situation.  Some things work for some people in some situations, that don’t for others in other situations.

But so long as those who are making the calendar decisions are well attuned to the needs of their students, and to the requirements of their curricula, and to the goals they’re trying to fulfill, they’ll be able to eventually figure out a way that works, even if they couldn’t have figured it out in the abstract ahead of time.

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And, as if things weren’t complicated enough already (wouldn’t it be nice if we could figure everything out ahead of time?), there’s often more than one good way of doing things.  Just because Option A is good doesn’t mean Options B and C aren’t equally as good.  All three may be better than Options D and E, but A, B, and C may all be “tops” (as it were).

So, some people go with A, without thinking badly of B and C, and others go with B, without thinking badly of A and C, and others go with C, without thinking badly of A and B.

I think it’s part of the greatness of God’s creation that there are often so many good options.

-Micah Tillman

^{[Micah is a Mt. Sophia graduate who is working on his doctoral dissertation at The Catholic University of America. He also gets to teach philosophy (as a "graduate fellow"), which he loves.]}

Related posts:

• Homeschooler, Justify Thyself!
• Teaching Independence
• On the Reading of Old Books

———————————-

While living in Charlottesville, Virginia in the summer of 2008, I was confronted with an idea: local eating.

In C-Ville, as in many other cities around the country, there is a push to “Buy Local.” There it took the form of restaurants whose menus depended on seasonal produce; a beautiful, bountiful farmer’s market filled with food and drink that was created in ways that honored God’s Creation; and grocery stores and markets that sourced locally, when possible.

Since that summer, I have been on a quest to eat locally.

I have joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program, where I get eggs and produce each week from a local farm.   I shop at farmer’s markets.  I support the grocery stores in my area that source their products locally and regionally (and fair-trade for imports).

I also serve on the board of directors for The Greenway Table, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing quality (read: organic, tasty and sustainably-raised) food for our community and to educating young people about the origins of their food.  We run a summer day camp, instructing middle-school students in the art and science of growing, harvesting and preparing fresh vegetables. We also are working with the local school system to introduce curriculum that focuses on food sources and healthy eating habits.

“What does this have to do with homeschooling,” you may ask.  Or, “What does this have to do with changing the world?  Aren’t these ideas a bunch of yuppyish hogwash, trendy, simplistic answers to bigger problems?”

Hardly.  Joel Salatin, dirt farmer, hero of the localvore movement and homeschooler, has called local eating- “opting out.” As in, “I am opting out of the industrial food industry.”

And, as Salatin has pointed out, this decision to “opt out” is easier for homeschoolers, since they’ve already opted out once in choosing to homeschool.

I like this term “opting out.” Many homeschoolers have already opted out of things that are culturally normative: choosing to not have a television or cable; making decisions about the kinds of media you allow into your home; most importantly, opting out of  school systems so that you can educate your children at home.

These decisions aren’t about sheltering your kids from the reality of the world.  Hopefully, these choices to opt-out of cultural practices that are damaging has the effect of moving us out into the world with more clarity, with more confidence in who we are.

These choices to be different, to stand out against a pervasive cultural tide, far from making us socially irrelevant, make us catalysts for change, persons for whom a history of choosing (as opposed to letting things happen) has empowered us to make changes in our world.

So, you’ve opted out once.  Or twice.  Or three times.  I want to encourage you to opt out again.  Plant a vegetable garden in your back yard.  Join a CSA.  Frequent a farmer’s market.  Teach yourself to can.

These choices matter immensely and can provide wonderful topics for family discussion about food, its sources and our responsibility to care for and enjoy the bounty of God’s creation.  More importantly, however, they provide us, as individuals and families, with the chance to stand out in an otherwise homogenous culture.

Related posts:

• A Laundry Room Life?
• Dr. Gerald Culley Teaches on History, Philosophy and Mt. Sophia- Part I
• Homeschooling vs. School-homing

One of Paul’s central concerns in the Epistle to the Romans is to help his Jewish and Gentile brothers and sisters in Rome get along with each other. Evidently they had been living as if they belonged to two different families — as if they had two different identities.

Paul wants them to see that if the Gospel is true, then they all have a new identity as part of the same family.

This got me thinking about what people do to establish their identities. How many ways are there of declaring who and what you are?

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Some people identify themselves using their clothes. (Maybe everyone does, actually.) They implicitly or explicitly announce their opinions about music, business, politics, religion, art, society, and life in general by dressing in certain ways.

They tell you who they are and what they value by what they decide to put on, how they decide to put it on, and/or what they decide to leave off.

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Other people identify themselves using their bodies. (Maybe everyone does, actually.) They cut their hair a certain way — or don’t cut it at all. They tattoo themselves so that their identity as a fan of this or that, or as loving someone or other is permanently clear to everyone. They work out, or don’t, to show the world who they are, what they stand for, what they value.

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Other people identify themselves through the activities they participate in. They attend certain meetings regularly. They go on certain trips regularly. They eat certain foods or drink certain beverages regularly. They frequent certain stores and restaurants, they read certain books, they watch certain television shows.

Each activity helps them identify themselves as belonging to the group of people who participate in the same activity — and each activity is, in part, their way of announcing to the world that they are the kind of person who participates in that activity.

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Identity-establishing, identity-reinforcing, and identity-announcing things are important for us as humans.

If you’re a human, Heidegger said, then you’re the kind of being whose being is an issue for itself. In other words, to be human is to be the kind of thing that wonders and worries and makes decisions about what kind of thing it is.

That means we have to know who we are — each of us has to understand her or his own identity.

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But Heidegger also said that to be a human means to be with other humans — even when those other humans aren’t actually present.

“Dasein,” he said, is “Mitsein.” “Being-there” is “Being-with,” even when there’s no one else there to be with.

When there’s no one else there, we feel it; when we are alone, we are being-with no one.

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This means it is important that we be able to identify ourselves to and for each other. It’s not enough that we understand our own identities. We also need other people to be able to identify us too — and to identify us accurately.

There’s nothing worse than being misidentified — than being taken for something or someone you’re not.

____

So here’s some questions I’m pondering:

What forms the identity of a homeschooler?

What does a homeschooler need to do in order to identify him- or herself (to him- or herself and to others) as a homeschooler?

What, in fact, do homeschoolers do in order to establish, reinforce, or announce their identities as homeschoolers?

What parts of what homeschoolers do to establish, reinforce, or announce their identities as homeschoolers are helpful and healthy? And are there any parts of what homeschoolers do to establish, reinforce, or announce their identities as homeschoolers that are either superfluous or detrimental?

Finally, what, if anything, should homeschoolers do to help non-homeschoolers understand what it means to be a homeschooler, so that non-homeschoolers don’t misidentify homeschoolers?

(I, for instance, think that “homeschooler” is an identity worth celebrating — and worth not only understanding, but helping other people to understand. But how?)

-Micah Tillman

^{[Micah is a Mt. Sophia graduate who is working on his doctoral dissertation at The Catholic University of America. He also gets to teach philosophy (as a "graduate fellow"), which he loves.]}

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• Homeschooler, Justify Thyself!
• Co-op As a “Type” of Happiness?
• A Laundry Room Life?

Winter is a time of reflection.

Let’s reflect a while on “culture changing”.

Mt. Sophia is all about helping our students maximize their potentials so that they can change the culture.

Through the winter, I will present pictures of Mt. Sophia folks who are engaged in culture changing.

Joanna Tillman graduated from Mt. Sophia and Carson-Newman College. At CNC, she double majored in photography and art. She also worked with Appalachian Outreach, first learning home repair and rebuilding skills, then taking teams out to make homes safe for the poor in Appalachian Tennessee.

Joanna now teaches art and home maintenance at Elijah School, giving skills to students who learn best in nontraditional ways. Mt. Sophia students are learning their artistic potentials under her guidance, also. Our students at both schools are learning to find and express themselves- empowerment to become culture changers themselves. (Note the plywood in the back of the car- on its way to Elijah School to become one home-maintenance project for the students.)

Joanna and a team of her music industry friends are culture changing in music, also. They started a website that gives free weekly downloads of songs from up-and-coming indie groups from around the world.  Look for holidayrecords.net

Related posts:

• A Season of Pictures- Feb 10
• A Season of Pictures- Feb 26
• A Season of Pictures- Feb 21

We’ve all been asked about our qualifications for teaching our children. We’ve all come up with some variation of “we learn it together” or “I find another mom/dad who helps with that, while I teach from my area of expertise” or “we find an online course”. We make it work.

But, what of those areas of life where this doesn’t work?

Academically, the model has been quite successful. However, not all education is about academics. If we don’t mold our children’s character and give them the foundation for a healthy spiritual life, haven’t we failed them?

As part of my preparation to teach essay-writing classes, I have been reading essays – lots of real essays written by real people for real people (as opposed to essays written by students, to be read by test graders, because they have to do well on their SAT’s).

In “On the Transmission of Christianity”, by C.S. Lewis (from God in the

Dock), the author discusses the failure of Christianity to be transmitted to the younger generation. He states, “None can give to another what he does not possess himself.”

He goes on to say:

“We are often told that education is a key position. That is very false in one sense

and very true in another. If it means that you can do any great thing by interfering with

existing schools, altering curricula, and the like, it is very false. As the teachers are, so

they will teach.

Your ‘reform’ may incommode and overwork them, but it will not radically alter the total effect of their teaching. Planning has no magic whereby it can elicit figs from thistles or choke-pears from vines. The rich, sappy, fruit-laden tree will bear sweetness and strength and spiritual health: the dry, prickly, withered tree will teach hate, jealousy, suspicion, and inferiority complex -whatever you tell it to teach.

They will do it unknowingly and all day long. But if we mean that to make adult Christians now and even beyond that circle, to spread the immediately sub-Christian perceptions and virtues, the rich Platonic or Virgilian penumbra of the Faith, and thus to alter the type who will be teachers in the future -if we mean that to do this is to perform the greatest of all services for our descendants, then it is very true.”

While Lewis was speaking about the institution of education, I believe that the principle is true on the personal level. If we are not being “fed” spiritually, we will have nothing to pass on to our children. If we are not allowing God to discipline us and build our character, how can we build the character of our child?

Are you spending time in the Word? Are you spending time in prayer? In fellowship with other believers? In corporate worship and teaching? Do you have people in your life who will hold you accountable to God’s standards? If not, how will you be equipped to pass these things to your children?

A friend recently asked me if I had thought about what kind of grandmother I would like to be (first grandchild coming in March). Of course I have. I want to spend time with this and future grandchildren. To have fun and learn and make memories. Most importantly of all, I want to pass on a legacy of faith, which I must first possess.

How about you?

Related posts:

• Welcome Adelaide Dagny Groop!
• On the Reading of Old Books
• Homeschooler, Justify Thyself!

Plato’s great experiment, noble as it was, came to nothing.

But that was then. This is now.

Here you sit, almost 2400 years after Plato, students in another academy. And one dedicated, as its name says, to wisdom. The influence of Plato is still strong at Mount Sophia. He believed that society would never become just and good until the character of its citizens was changed; until they began to acquire virtue and, in their wisdom, to permeate and renew the fabric of life.

Mount Sophia’s goals are not all that different from Plato’s. Its founders saw the ills and injustices of our own society, but they were convinced- and still are- that its situation is not hopeless.

What is needed?

People who are committed to the pursuit of wisdom and justice, who understand that noble actions come from noble character, and noble character from a noble soul.

That far, we are with Plato, but he needed once crucial element to reach his ideal.

For a soul to become noble, intellectual excellence must be combined with a transformation that only God can bring about through one’s faith in Christ.

Mount Sophia breathes some of the air of Plato’s Athens, but it breathes the air of Heaven as well.

Plato’s great experiment failed, at least in part because it lacked the transforming power of Jesus. Mount Sophia’s experiment, so like Plato’s, but richer and deeper, need not fail.

That experiment is you.

Related posts:

• Dr. Gerald Culley Teaches on History, Philosophy and Mt. Sophia- Part I
• Help Me Out Here?
• Pass on Your Legacy- Marilyn Groop

I was so blessed by his World Lit lesson, that I asked if I could post some of it. He said, “sure”.

So here goes (speaking of Athens in ancient times):

What had happened to Athens’ splendid experiment with Democracy? (It) finally degenerated into mob rule. Every form of government, it seemed, had been tried in the century just past, and all had failed.

What could be done? What was needed? Here Plato turned for inspiration to his mentor, Socrates. What was needed was virtuous people. People who understood duty and goodness. People who could put the welfare of all ahead of their own selfish desires. And because one could never hope to have a whole population rise to that level of excellence, the need was for leaders who did.

The state will never become stable, tranquil, just and good, Plato argued, until either philosophers become kings, or kings, philosophers. That, as you have seen or guessed, is where his great dialogue, The Republic, is headed.

It’s all very well to sit in an ivory tower somewhere and talk about such ideals, but the real world is out there waiting for real solutions. Some of Plato’s own students at the Academy that he founded must have raised that objection, because the time came when the teacher decided to face the world.

Events provided the raw material for his great experiment… (Plato was invited twice to Syracuse to work with the local ruler on establishing a philosopher kingship. The first time, the ruler, Dionysius, got irritated by Plato’s ideas and sold him into slavery. He was rescued by friends, but returned 20 years later when Dionysius II was ruling.- editor)

This time civil war broke out and Plato had to flee for his life. Syracuse, instead of becoming Plato’s ideal state, descended into decades of chaos and violence. Plato’s great experiment, noble as it was, came to nothing…

What is to become of it all? Stay tuned next week for the exciting conclusion (and actual point) of this important lesson.- Vicki

Related posts:

• Dr. Gerald Culley Wraps Up His Story and Gives the Object Lesson
• Mt. Sophia Academy- What is Our Mission?
• Homeschooler, Justify Thyself!