Joshua Gibbs

A School Is Only As Classical As Its Teachers

“There is a very real sense in which all the headmaster’s work comes down to the work his teachers do in the classroom. Delivering a classical education is like a relay race. The board runs the first leg, the headmasters runs the second, the curriculum runs the third, but the teacher runs the final leg.Continue reading “A School Is Only As Classical As Its Teachers”

The Demand For Flattery At Private Schools Is Nearly Constant

This demand is both supplied and incited by sentimental bloggers who tell their readers, “Parenting is hard, but you’re doing great. Society demands too much of you anyway.” Here is how to fight such flattery.

Houllebecq Against Euthanasia

This recent essay about euthanasia by Michel Houllebecq is (so far as I know) the only essay by France’s most controversial intellectual in more than a year. As a secularist, lech, and generally loathsome individual, it is nonetheless a remarkable read.

Intellectuals I Admire Even Though They Were Mostly Wrong

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Caspar David Friedrich Herman Hesse

9 Reasons Your Theology Program Changes So Often

From one classical school to the next, the two aspects of the high school curriculum most often in flux are the writing program and the theology program. Why? Here’s why your theology program changes so much and how you can create something more stable.

Gresham’s Law

The latest episode of Proverbial is devoted to Gresham’s Law: Bad money drives out good money.

Lecture Needs Discussion; Discussion Needs Lecture

The modern educator draws too neat and stiff a distinction between lecture and discussion. A good teacher lectures during discussion, discusses during lecture. The line which separates the two is not nearly as neat as we think. Lecture is the authority of the teacher; discussion is the autonomy of the student. Obviously, these things needContinue reading “Lecture Needs Discussion; Discussion Needs Lecture”

Some Art Warrants A Generous Audience And Some Does Not

“In the first few years I wrote for FilmFisher, I believed a position of lenience and generosity toward a work of art was necessary to truly understand it. However, while I was writing generous film reviews, I was also teaching Dante and Jane Austen, and eventually I came to the rather obvious conclusion that itContinue reading “Some Art Warrants A Generous Audience And Some Does Not”

Sentimentality Makes Life Harder For The Weak, Not Easier

Over the last twenty-five years, smoking rates are down and suicide rates are up. This must have something to do with the rules of discourse which surround either subject. If we spoke of suicide as bluntly as we speak of smoking, suicide rates might go own, as well. And yet, the more common suicide becomes,Continue reading “Sentimentality Makes Life Harder For The Weak, Not Easier”

Book No. 6

“Student: But I have taken personality tests before and found them helpful. Gibbs: What would you say to a person who claimed to find horoscopes helpful? Student: I would want to know how horoscopes were helpful. Gibbs: How was the personality test helpful? Student: The test told me about myself. Gibbs: Did you, by anyContinue reading “Book No. 6”