Beautiful Teaching: Classical Education Courses for Parents and Classroom Teachers

    "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all  

              Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

-John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

What: Stratford Caldecott's work Beauty for Truth's Sake is one of the most important books written about Classical Education, in particular for its emphasis on what was called in the Medieval world, the quadrivium. If you read anything about classical education, you will often hear the term trivium, bandied about. The Trivium had to do with literary arts (reading and writing) whereas the quadrivium had to do with the numerical arts (arithmetic). This work seeks to help us understand math as an integrated part of a classical education guided by ultimate questions about the world and how we relate to it properly.

Who: Educators and parents who are interested in the history of math and how math, or more properly, the quadrivium, relates to and is an integral part of classical education.

Class Limit: Places are limited so that we can all participate in discussion.

Course Dates: The course will run from September 6th to October 25th, 2024. There will be 7 live meetings.

Please note that this class is being held on Friday nights. There is also a Wednesday night option if Friday is not good for you. Please do not sign up for both.

Time: Fridays from 7:00pm-8:00pm (Central)

Please note that we will not meet on Friday, October 4th.

Course Overview: 

September 6th - Introduction, "To Sing with the Universe"

September 13th - Chapter 1, The Tradition of the Four Ways

September 20th - Chapter 2, Educating the Poetic Imagination

September 27th - Chapter 3, The Lost Wisdom of the World

October 4th - No Class

October 11th - Chapter 4 The Golden Circle

October 18th - Chapter 5, "Quiring to the Young-Eyed Cherubims"

October 25th - Chapter 6, The Liturgical Consummation of Cosmology 

and Conclusion, Beyond Faith and Reason

Requirements: 

A copy of Stratford Caldecott's Beauty for Truth's Sake

Recorded: Our courses are interactive, so we encourage live attendance. All courses are recorded and available 48-72 hours after the course and will be available for 1 month. You will be sent a YouTube link. 

Cost: $40 (non-refundable)

About the Teacher

Aaron Mitchell has been teaching various disciplines in classical schools since 2012. He received his B.A. from Cornell College with a triple major in Classics, Philosophy, and Religious Studies. Upon graduation, he began teaching at Great Hearts Academies in Phoenix, AZ. While there, he taught Middle and High School Latin, History, and Music. In 2017, Aaron was privileged to return to St. Peter’s Classical School, his High School Alma mater, as a faculty member. During his tenure there he taught Greek, Latin, Literature, and Euclidean Geometry. He has spent the last few years doing curricular development for Math and Classical Language instruction at St. Peter’s, particularly focusing on classical language instruction using both inductive and deductive methods, and how an ancient understanding of quantity effects math instruction. He currently teaches Humanities and Euclidean Geometry at Great Hearts Academies. He enjoys reading poetry, playing music with his wife Corrie, and watching their son play youth baseball.