One of the most surprising things about Classical Education today is the widespread utilitarian approach to teaching Latin. Although classical educators generally emphasize intangibles like Truth, Goodness, and Beauty and regard wisdom and virtue as the proper ends of education, …
By Alexis Mausolf “Perfect love casts out fear.” – 1 John 4:18Have we ever needed to hear this truth more urgently? We live in a climate of division, reaction, and uncertainty – all rooted in fear. While musing on this …
UD’s Living Latin curriculum for K-5 is partly based on current research on comprehensible input (to the extent that it is compatible with the tradition of classical liberal arts education – we’ll touch on that another time). Comprehensible input is …
UD’s Latin through Stories curriculum exposes students to both sheltered and unsheltered language, because both are important and necessary for language acquisition. Gouin Series, Little Socratic talks, picture studies, and some of the picture books are examples of mostly sheltered …
Sheltered vs. Unsheltered Language in UD’s Latin through Stories Curriculum Read more »
Here are some of our current curriculum pilot students in action! To find out about participating in our 2021/22 pilot please click here. A six year old reciting Psalm 42:1 Listen to this 6 year old sing Twinkle, twinkle little …
It’s the time of year when many people like to watch Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker ballet. But did you know that in the story on which it is based, the evil mouse king is in fact not defeated by Marie’s shoe, but …
One of my main inspirations for UD’s Living Latin curriculum, for which I am currently writing Level 1 (K-4th grade), came from an appendix in a book on St. Ignatius’ Idea of a Jesuit University (1954), by Father George Ganss (1905-2000). In this appendix entitled “Historical Sketch of the Teaching of Latin,” Fr. Ganss shows that up until the 1700s, and especially during the Middle Ages and Renaissance Humanism, Latin was taught as a living language, and this corresponds to different objectives than today: “[M]odern methods of teaching Latin aim chiefly to impart knowledge about the language and its literature. In contrast, the ancient methods in the 13th and in the 16th centuries aimed chiefly to develop an art – the art of speaking, reading and writing the language” (p. 226).