Monday Matins

Almost every Monday morning, St. Augustine Co-op begins the week with Matins in the Matthew Room, led by Rev. Marcus Kuehn.  All are welcome to attend.  Below is the order of service for tomorrow.  (If a feast day falls within the week, we usually celebrate it on the Monday.)

St. Augustine Classical Lutheran Co-op

Monday, January 16, 2012, 8:30am

Order of Matins

The Confession of St. Peter

Opening Versicles p. 219

Psalmody p. 220

Additional Psalm sung together Psalm 118:19-29

Office Hymn LSB 512 At the Name of Jesus

Readings

Acts 4:8-13

2 Peter 1:1-15

Mark 8:27-35

Common Responsory p. 221

Sermon/Children's Message

Canticle: Te Deum p. 223

Offering

Kyrie sung together

Lord's Prayer sung together LSB 957

Collects

Collect of the Day

Heavenly Father, You revealed to the apostle Peter the blessed truth that Your Son Jesus is the Christ. Strengthen us by the proclamation of this truth that we too may joyfully confess that there is salvation in no one else; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Benedicamus

Benediction

What's on my children's iPods?

In our household, we don't have TV. We don't have Playstation or Wii. We limit our children's access to the computer. But we do allow our children to listen to anything they want to -- as long as they can find it on their iPods.

So what is on their iPods? Let me give you a partial list:

1. A good variety of orchestral music.
2. Hymns sung by St. Paul's Lutheran Children's Choir (Fort Wayne, Indiana).
3. The Small Catechism set to music.
4. Voice recordings of poems that the children are memorizing.
5. Children's audiobooks -- in German.
6. Spelling lists for school.
7. Latin curriculum audio CD.
8. Liturgical and sacred choral music.
9. Bach, Bach, and more Bach.
10. A really good recording of Handel's Messiah. (It's a family tradition for us to take the kids to a live performance every year.)
11. Audio files of the children's youth orchestra concerts.
12. German children's folk songs.
13. Classical Kids storybooks (Mr. Bach Comes to Call, Vivaldi's Ring of Mystery, etc.)

As we update the content on their playlists for them, they are often surprised by what they discover. A few days ago, our five year-0ld son exclaimed to his seven year-old sister: "Guess what I found on my iPod?! I have 'Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending!' Quick!! What number is it in the hymnal? I want to sing along!"

Public education vs Lutheran education

Guest post by Dr. Tom Korcok

In the Province of Ontario, the government has committed itself to increasing the high school graduation rate to 85%. It is a noble sounding goal and, as the Premier boasted in the last election, the government is well on its way to achieving it. Since Mr. McGuinty took office, graduation rates have risen from 68% to 77%. Who could argue with that?

In fact, much of that progress has been achieved by making it more difficult for educators to fail students. There are scores of “Credit Recovery Programs” that ensure that as long as a student is physically present they will pass the course. (See Globe and Mail article High-schooldaze: In Ontario, failure is not an option.)  But do higher graduation rates equal well educated students? Does a document from the Ministry of Education stating that you have successfully “earned” the required 30 high school credits mean you have received a good education?

If you peruse the history of Lutheran education, you cannot avoid an educational model that has prevailed in Christian schools for over fifteen centuries – the liberal arts. The ideas upon which the arts are based are very old, but it is that quality which should make them attractive to parents and educators alike. They are educational truths which transcend time and popular trends. They have been tested and they have endured. They have proven themselves indispensible allies to the Church as it seeks to be faithful in its calling to teach.

For more about why confessional Lutherans should care about education, we recommend Dr. Korcok's book Lutheran Education: From Wittenberg to the Future.

Reflecting on the first months

As 2011 drew to a close, I reflected on many things that happened throughout the year. In January, our fourth child was born. We were in the middle of a difficult year of homeschooling. The last few months of the pregnancy had been tiring, and all of the extra midwife appointments and routine tests and examinations had caused many unwanted interruptions to the school days. I often felt like I just wasn't getting anything done. When Lukas was born, the homeschooling aspect of my life became even more difficult. I focused on the core subjects, but even after scaling things back to the bare minimum we still found ourselves "doing school" until dinnertime on most days. Add to that the sleepless nights, and a three year-old who hadn't yet outgrown the terrible twos, and you'll understand why I was glad when June rolled around, and we started being able to close one school book after another, and finally begin our summer vacation. I enjoyed the lazy months of July and August, spending time outdoors with the kids. I didn't forget about school completely though, because these months were also spent preparing for the start of St. Augustine Classical Lutheran Co-op. It was an exciting time, and we could hardly wait to begin in September.

So how were those long-anticipated first weeks and months of school at St. Augustine's? Did the co-op meet the high expectations we had for it? Did our children learn as much as we hoped they would? Are we moms still friends with each other?

Well, the first weeks were not without incidents. In the first month, my three year-old broke a window at the church where we are renting space. It cost almost $300 to replace. The schedule we had laboured over for weeks before school started had to be modified over and over again. We had to adjust to a new space, a new schedule, and for some families the idea of homeschooing in general. It was a huge learning curve for both the moms and the kids. We all had our share of exasperating moments. But we worked through them, and now those moments are much less frequent.

And the rewards started coming quickly. Our 7 year-old daughter started learning Latin, and she loves it. One day my husband and I were talking about vocation with the kids. Suddenly our daughter asked, "Does 'vocation' come from the Latin word 'voco' (I call)?" Wow. Dad was impressed.

Our school day has become more stream-lined and efficient than it used to be. We start our day early. Sometimes we miss having the occasional relaxing breakfast with Dad on days that he doesn't have to go into work until later, but we also finish earlier than we used to. On most days we have done everything but the music practising by about 2:00. And we still take Fridays off completely.

Yes, we moms are still friends with each other. We have gotten to know each other better, and although I can only speak for myself, I imagine the others would also agree that we have formed closer friendships than we had before. Even more importantly, though, we've continued to cultivate and strengthen our relationships with our children. We have been able to deal with discipline issues, teach them Christian values, and just generally be there. Although nobody likes to witness their child hurting or saying something mean to another child, I've been thankful that I've been there to deal with those things.

As for that three year-old, he very proudly and confidently recites Psalm 100 and most of Psalm 46 from memory, has found a new favourite hymn (LSB 656), whipped through his three Explode the Code phonics primers, and is now starting to read.

Have the first months of St. Augustine been perfect? By no means. Have they been successful? Absolutely. The second half of the academic year will surely continue to bring us many challenges, but we are ready to tackle them. And we look forward to continuing to reap the many rewards for our children and our families.

Classical Christian Education explained

Recommended listening!

Classical Christian Education, with Cheryl Swope, 11/3/2011 - Issues, Etc.

In this interview with Todd Wilken on Issues, Etc., Cheryl Swope unveils the modern, relativistic pedagogy she was taught in teacher's college, and contrasts it with classical Christian education. Now a Lutheran, she says that she has since learned a "better anthropology of man," which has formed her understanding of what education should be.

Ms. Swope is with the Consortium for Classical and Lutheran Education.

Rupert Murdoch: 'Blow up what doesn't work' in education

Rupert Murdoch: The Steve Jobs Model for Education Reform - WSJ.com

Mr. Murdoch, an accomplished pragmatist, criticizes the public education system for failing to deliver enough exceptional workers into the job market. In presenting the problem from the corporate perspective, he echoes the concerns reported time and time again by business leaders who are struggling to find the talent their firms need to compete in today's fast-paced, technology-driven economies. Interestingly, the chairman and CEO of News Corporation starts off his article by stating that "everyone" today is in favour of education reform, but that the hard part is determining which model to adopt.

So far so good, and this is where we would want to jump into the conversation to advocate for classical education.

For his part, Mr. Murdoch suggests that the answer - or at least a significant part of it - is to use technology to transform the educational experience. He finds that children today gravitate naturally to new technologies, but that schools have not changed their approach to capitalize on the new reality. He also lashes out at the traditional classroom model. Here in concise form he exposes some of the structural problems with the system:

The top-down, one-size-fits-all approach frustrates the ones who could do more advanced work. And it leaves further and further behind those who need extra help to keep up. Teachers are likewise stunted. Some excel at lecturing. Some are better at giving personal attention. With the right structure, they would work together like a football team. With the existing structure, they are treated like interchangeable cogs.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the proposed solutions, what Mr. Murdoch proposes is somewhat simplistic. He suggests that with the right technology, learning would be less of a chore, almost as if we could find a technology solution that would trigger some previously-untapped, innate learning instinct, making the whole process easy. In this line of thinking, Mr. Murdoch essentially falls into the same trap that Dewey pedagogues fell into. Certainly 3-dimensional animations, online video clips, or interactive iPad presentations can be for today's students what diagrams and charts were for the previous generation, but there is a limit to what visual aids can do. This is why those who promote classical education argue exactly against visual-based learning, maintaining that it is an inferior kind of training. A student might get a rough idea of what the Bernoulli principle is from a video, but he or she will never become one of the expert aerospace engineers Boeing wants to hire without spending hours, weeks, and months wrestling with the equations of fluid mechanics, solving problem after progressively more difficult problem. His or her brain will finally respond by opening up new neural pathways, recognizing and saving new patterns through this laborious struggle. It is the same in every field of study and human endeavour.

Never forget that it is the mind we must train. Learning is less of a natural process than it is a discipline. It requires work, often hard work. If Mr. Murdoch were to reflect on how he managed to become a successful practitioner in his field, he will certainly remember that it took many years of extreme effort and mental exertion, with each new skill building only slowly upon previous skills. What's more, he had to make many mistakes (an almost-foreign word in today's educational discourse), and realize that they were mistakes, in order to get the feedback required to improve his capabilities. We are now starting to describe the real process whereby the human mind learns. It is through the crucible of hard experience, complete with pain, frustration, and finally satisfaction at accomplishment, that each of us becomes who he is.

But there is more. The classical model also does not neglect the spirit. We will take up that critical component of a complete education in the next post.

No child left behind

No parent wants his or her child to be left behind by the school system.  But the fact remains that some children, especially boys of the active 'kinesthetic' type, are still more likely to fail to learn the core subjects well enough in grade school to have a solid foundation for high school studies.  Instead, many of them do learn early that they make good class clowns and can provide hours of entertainment for the other students during recess, but that reading, writing, and arithmetic are not "their thing."  That which is not enjoyed is not rehearsed, and that which is not rehearsed cannot be enjoyed, so the cycle goes on and students "fall through the cracks."

In the United States, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 mandates standardized testing for all federally-funded schools.  As a condition of continued funding, each school is required to show continuous improvement in test scores year-over-year.  Various corrective measures kick in if scores do not improve.  Standardized tests and the follow-up processes based on the scores are useful tools for improving accountability and quality.  (Ontario also has standardized tests in grades 3, 6, 9, and 10.)  In spite of the optimistic name of the American legislation though, this type of 30,000-ft approach cannot prevent your child or mine from falling through the cracks.

Solving this problem requires close engagement with the student.  It takes a teacher or a parent who is willing to invest time with that student to coach him through.  The student often needs to be separated from his 'audience' of 25-30 peers and instead be taught one-on-one.  Sometimes it also takes a very unorthodox approach.  I read of one home-schooling parent whose son did his best reading while hanging sideways off the sofa.  Most school systems will rarely find the time to engage with every child - they are, after all, focused on giving the average student an average education.  But parents working in a collaborative environment with their own children will definitely be able to meet the needs of each student much better than any institution can.