Anything Less

“What is Christian Culture? It is essentially the Mass. That is not my or anyone’s opinion or theory or wish but the central fact of two thousand years of history.”

-John Senior, The Restoration of Christian Culture (1983)

A Class For Humanities Teachers

In addition to the four 2021-2022 classes already announced, next year I am offering a class through GibbsClassical.com specifically for humanities teachers.

Young teachers have it rough. To begin with, they are often only a few years older than their students. A lack of experience often leads to a lack of confidence, and yet young teachers have a habit of creating overly ambitious lesson plans. When they fall behind, they lose sight of the real purpose of a classical education, which is the cultivation of virtue. I have been there myself.  

In Teaching High School Humanities for Beginners, I am offering instruction to young humanities teachers on a wide range of issues, from lecturing to writing letters of recommendation. While the class runs (between September 7 and December 7), teachers enrolled in this class can email me their catechisms, quizzes and assessments, parent emails, replies to parent emails, and questions about individual student/faculty issues and receive a response within 36 hours. This class is geared toward first through third year humanities teachers, although seasoned veterans are free to enroll, as well.

My goal is to give young humanities teachers the instruction and perspective they need to be confident and competent behind the lectern. I take a common sense, unsentimental approach to classroom management and welcome blunt questions about everything related to school life. Registration will open for Teaching High School Humanities for Beginners (and all four other 2021-2022 GibbsClassical.com classes) this Friday, May 21st.

Enrollment is limited to 16.

Here are the rest of the details:  

Teaching High School Humanities for Beginners / 14 weeks ($450)

Tuesday evenings at 8:00pm EST, September 7 through December 7

Class sessions run 65 minutes.

Curriculum: The Restoration of Christian Culture by John Senior; The Abolition of Man by CS Lewis; Lost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy

A few topics covered in this course: The current state of classical Christian education (and the individual teacher’s place within the movement); choosing and defending your curriculum; the “discipleship model” of education (and its relative merits); the “read and discuss” lesson plan; life outside the classroom & negotiating school politics; writing and grading good assessments; classroom management; parent management; the character and personality of the teacher as a teaching tool; the art of the lecture.

Direction

The mask mandate was lifted in Virginia two days ago. However, in the city of Richmond, every business I have been to over the weekend is still enforcing it. Small shops, big shops, chain stores, grocery stores.

If anyone has a list of businesses in Richmond that are no longer requiring customers to wear masks, I would love to see it.

On Bitcoin

Gibbs: (walking out of Ready Player One in the year 2018) That was lousy.

Time traveller from 2021: Believe it or not, three years from now, the premise of that movie will come true and overtake our currency markets. Lousy or not, that movie will prove prescient.

Gibbs: You’re crazy.

Time traveller from 2021: You live in the nation that made Cardi B a star. You didn’t think a good movie was going to prove prescient, did you?

Gibbs: Fair point.

A Guide To Dating In High School

“Last month, I told my sophomores, “You have written enough for me this year. Let me write something for you.” And so we hashed out a deal where, on the appointed day, the class would give me four essay prompts, I would choose one and write a 1000 word essay in response during class.

Of the four essay prompts I was given, the most intriguing was, ‘Write a guide for dating in high school.’ A little less than an hour later, I read them the following essay…”

My latest for CiRCE includes an 1100 word guide for dating in high school which I wrote at the request of my students.

A Senior Thesis I Would Like To Hear

Thesis: Solo sports are superior to team sports.

Arguments: On the practical differences between the two, this thesis would argue solo sports (tennis, swimming, golf, and track & field) are superior because they can easily be practiced and played into adulthood, unlike team sports (volleyball, basketball, and soccer), which are rarely carried into adulthood. On the philosophical differences, this thesis would argue solo sports are less beset by banal, unsubstantiated claims about “the virtue of teamwork,” and so solo sports suffer less from overvaluation and flattery than team sports.

Note: If you are a high school senior at a classical Christian school who is interested in writing such a thesis, I may be willing to act as your advisor. Contact me for an interview through GibbsClassical.com

GibbsClassical.com 2021-2022 Classes

Registration opens on Friday, May 21, for the following GibbsClassical.com classes:

Fall 2021 Courses: Foundations of Modern Politics and British Ladies of the Nineteenth Century

Friday afternoons, September 3 through December 10 (no class November 26th)

Foundations of Modern Politics will start at 1:45pm EST

British Ladies of the 19th Century will start at 3:05pm EST

Sessions run 65 minutes.

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Spring 2022 Courses: The Divine Comedy for Beginners and Modern Romance: The Cult of Courtly Love in Theory, Literature, and Film

Friday afternoons, January 7 through April 8

The Divine Comedy for Beginners will start at 1:45pm EST

Modern Romance will start at 3:05pm EST

Sessions run 65 minutes.

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Enrollment Levels

All classes are being offered on both the student level and the auditor level. Discounts are available for anyone who enrolls in multiple classes.

The Student Level: Students will have entry into Friday Zoom classes, as well as access to recordings of class videos and the class Canvas page, where students may ask questions and carry on discussions about the class texts. Two essays will be assigned to students. Students are not required to complete the essays but may do so if they choose. Students who complete the essays will receive feedback on their work and may resubmit their work for additional feedback if they choose. 

The Auditor Level: Auditors will receive recordings of the class videos delivered by email every Saturday. The Auditor Level does not come with a Canvas login. It is ideal for anyone whose schedule does not allow attendance on Friday afternoons and who does not plan on doing any written work for the class. Twice during each course, I will hold an hour-long open Zoom session for Auditors who want to talk about the curriculum or ask questions.

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Pricing

Student level: 14-week classes

1 class: $325

2 classes: $625

3 classes: $900

4 classes: $1175

Auditor level: 14-week classes

1 class: $265

2 classes: $510

3 classes: $750

4 classes: $980

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Course Descriptions and Curricula

Foundations of Modern Politics (Fall 2021)

The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke; The Oxford History of Christianity edited by John McManners; The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels

We live in a time where there is a good deal of confusion about what conservatives and progressives actually believe. Conservatives tend to have predictable opinions about marriage, guns, taxes, and morality, but what philosophical convictions underwrite these opinions? What philosophical convictions underwrite progressive opinions on these matters? What does it mean for a man to consistently reason and act according to conservative principles? In order to answer these questions, one must go back to the beginning of the debate between conservatives and progressives. Students in Foundations will be given the tools and perspective they need to see beyond the surface of contemporary news stories to the theological convictions which drive modern men and women.

British Ladies of the Nineteenth Century (Fall 2021)

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen; Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, London saw a number of clubs and societies emerge which were sympathetic to the progressive philosophies of the French Revolution. In the several generations which followed, some of the most compelling arguments in favor of traditional virtues (and traditional sexual mores, in particular) came from novels written by British ladies. British Ladies of the Nineteenth Century offers a look at the profound storytelling, dazzling craft, virtuous heroines, and harrowing cautions created by Austen, Shelley, and Brontë.      

The Divine Comedy for Beginners (Spring 2022)

The Divine Comedy translated by Mark Musa; Peter Leithart’s Ascent to Love

In the last thousand years, no author has created a more beautiful and comprehensive vision of Christian virtue than Dante. The Comedy is a sprawling, sublime work of poetry which recounts Dante’s journey from the miserable depths of Hell to the glorious heights of God’s throne room. While there are too many great books to read them all in just one lifetime, no classical education is complete without a reading of the Comedy. This class will cover the whole of Dante’s most celebrated work. The Comedy is an epic which can be reread endlessly and understood on many levels, but The Divine Comedy for Beginners is tailored for readers who are venturing through the poem for the first time.

Modern Romance: The Cult of Courtly Love in Theory, Literature, and Film (Spring 2022)

Tristan and Iseult; Love in the Western World by Denis de Rougemont; Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet; About Love by Andreas Capellanus; Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds and Psycho

Modern beliefs about romantic love are neither new nor ancient, but largely derive from courtly love stories popularized in France during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. These courtly love stories idealized romantic love as a vexing “inborn suffering” which centered on lust, pining, secrecy, and taught that the only true love was a forbidden love. In this class, I will take students through the most important courtly love stories, the work of the most important courtly love theorists, and show students how the cult of courtly love persists to this day.