I’ve read Joseph Pieper’s little book Leisure: The Basis of Culture a few times, and every time I find it worth the slog in the beginning to make it to the chapter 4. Chapter 4 confirmed to me that convivial was a word to latch onto and make my own – one way or another….
Chapter four in Leisure, the Basis of Culture was one that connected a lot of dots for me back when I first read it. It was because of the ideas sparked by chapter 4 that I picked the word convivial for my blog title, because it summed up what I wanted for my home: feasting…
I am currently in the midst of the summer teacher class “Bringing Scholé to the Home & Homeschool,” taught by Dr. Christopher Perrin. He’s been assigning chapters from The Liberal Arts Tradition and Leisure, the Basis of Culture, and though I’ve read both books before, it’s been excellent to revisit Leisure (it’s been years since…
Scholé is not just something we do for or with our children. Scholé is for everyone, including homeschooling moms. Whether you call yourself a classical educator, a Charlotte Mason mom, an eclectic homeschooler, or something else entirely, you need to draw on the wells of learning yourself in order to model the life of loving…
What does scholé even mean? Blame Josef Pieper and Christopher Perrin. Pieper’s seminal work, Leisure, the Basis of Culture opens with this: [pullquote align=”center”]The Greek word for leisure (scholé) is the origin of Latin scola, English school. The name for the institutions of education and learning mean “leisure.” [/pullquote] The classical ideal for education, which…
Or, what we really want out of social media Although Americans want to believe it, and manipulate to contrive it, there actually is no such thing as “too big to fail.” History shows us rather the opposite. At a certain point, human entities and institutions can become too big not to fail. Human institutions with…
I have many good and even close friends I first met on the internet. Back in the day when being online was weird, I had a blog. I also read blogs. I remember the day where Brandy Vencel, whose blog I read and with whom I’d had countless conversations in comment threads, sent me a…
We’ve all been there, zoned out on the couch, flicking through the screens. It might be Instagram. It might be Amazon. It might be headlines or search results. But we compulsively scroll. A little niggling feeling tells us that we should stop. Then we spot another little nugget – a photo, a meme, an emoji,…
Moms are leaders of their children, giving vitality to the nervous system of the family. I remember over a decade ago, I had joined a 24-hour fitness club so that I would feel obligated to exercise. One early morning I was dutifully on the treadmill and some news commentary show was on all the big…
Lifelong learning is not just for our kids. The connections and big ideas in our kids’ lessons can become our own.