Classical & Contemporary Best Practices in Learning for Parents & Teachers
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Oct 04, 2020
Identifying and dealing effectively with logical fallacies is only one part of informal logic. Informal logic is the kind we use during everyday discussions and information-gathering. The other part of this discipline is truth-knowing.
Knowing the truth has become a huge issue in today’s climate of ubiquitous social media on which everyone’s opinion gets airtime, seemingly unlimited media outlets for information dissemination, and the overwhelming role that technology plays in all of it. So, let’s spend a short, video-less episode pointing ourselves in the right direction.
One of my favorite posters on Quora is Peter Kruger, an attorney in Wisconsin, who is a seeming polymath with some experience in astrophysics, woodworking, welding, and teaching English. His posts are always well-crafted and informative, so I wasn’t surprised when I came across a fantastic – if not also rather lengthy – delve into truth-finding by Mr. Kruger. The post functions as a sort of primer on vetting sources and is absolutely the best writing on the subject I have seen lately. He does use some profanity and his politics have a decidedly moderate-liberal slant, but read around all that, if you want, and you will have learned a great deal about identifying credible information sources.
The essence of his post is this list of questions you should consider about any information source:
Just listing these questions does not do his work justice, so I have reproduced his post here on this blog, verbatim. I hope he does not mind. I don’t think he will, since the whole thing is out there on Quora, anyway. If I get any kind of cease-and-desist request, I will immediately comply. So you’d better go read it now, if you are so inclined.
A great exercise Mr. Kruger included in his post is this terrific infographic / cartoon strip from The Oatmeal.com. It is WELL worth your ten or fifteen minutes to watch it. No kidding. Viewing this graphic will be the best time you spend in the understanding of finding the truth.
Again, a quick reminder that this whole blog is designed to help you assimilate knowledge and skills that you can subsequently impart to the kids in your life. So, the overarching question is, “Can you imagine ways in which the information in this episode can be translated and transferred to said young ones?” Maybe this is a great topic for comments on this episode or a discussion on the forum…
Sep 16, 2020
Sept. 16 Edit: Just added some online resources about the Constitution below Dolley’s cake recipe at the end of this post. Some good stuff! Not sure how you plan to do your less-than-an-hour of reading the Constitution to celebrate September 17, but watching 100 celebrities, politicians, judges, and schoolkids do it on The Words That Built America has got to be the best way.
I know I just got done posting the video for the last episode, but Constitution Day is right around the corner – this Thursday, September 17 – and I wanted to make sure you had time to get your ducks in a row. 🙂 This will be a video-less post. I am sure most of you are heaving a sigh of relief…
Also, wanted to prod those of you who are on the fence about using our new 21st Century Lyceum Forum to post about how your family is coping with the reopening of school while mitigating the Covid virus situation. I am one of the newest members of the waitlist for St. Louis University’s kidney transplant program. The first two hurdles are getting past a couple of VERY experienced nurses as they review one’s application for the program and then every medical record ever generated about a person. The reason this is pertinent is that during the couple of hours I was on the phone with Kathy (I know, it’s hard to believe I was on the phone for a couple of hours ;-). And I may have changed her name to protect the innocent.), we were discussing how families have been affected by recent events and what they could do to handle things.
Imagine, during the portion of the call when I was telling her about 21CL, my surprise when she started talking about pods in exactly the same vein of thinking that I had considered discussing the idea with you all. She said, “Yeah, I think families should start forming pods. Kind of like some homeschoolers do. But they could still use the virtual programs that the local schools provide. This is just a way for parents to share child supervision not only between each other in a home, but between families in a neighborhood or group of friends. One parent watches a group of kids from four families part of one day. Another parent from the group watches them later.”
Wow. I have spent the past month trying to figure out how to say that on here. Thanks, Kathy. I hope her thoughts help a family or two get their juices flowing on this.
As for Consitution Day, we can read aloud at about 180 words a minute. The U. S. Constitution has just under 7600 words, including the amendments. That means that the whole thing can be read aloud in just under 45 minutes. I cannot honestly think of a better way to spend a September 17 afternoon or evening with family and friends.
If you couple the reading of the most important political document in the history of mankind (yes, that’s my opinion – but I’m pretty sure most would agree…) with some family games like Trivial Pursuit, Stratego, or Twister (which is a great metaphor for the discussions that happened throughout the summer of 1787 in Philly) and a feast of dishes the Framers would have eaten on a daily basis, you have the makings of a great Constitution Day family party!
Some quick research turned up food and drink that would have been available to guests of various hotels and taverns of the time and place. You can Google it, too, but Carolinn and I decided on having some fish in honor of George Washington, who ate fish and other seafood from his own fisheries almost daily; a green bean and carrot dish called farce; macaroni and cheese, in honor of Jefferson (even though he was in France at the time); pickles, olives, chocolates, and other imported treats to the Philadelphia of the 1780s; and a cake made from an original Dolley Madison recipe. I’ve reproduced the cake and frosting recipes below, in case you are interested.
I have found myself becoming more and more nostalgic and reflective of that important summer 233 years ago as I watch our nation being stretched at the seams. The Constitutional Convention was rife with quarrels and belligerence, to be sure, but always undertaken with a spirit of resolving those disagreements with solid, practical, even compromised conclusions. I have much faith and hope that we will eventually begin treating our disagreements the way the 55 Framers did – with passion and loyalty for our own positions, but with respect and an open mind for those of others.
Have a great Constitution Day!
“Dolley Madison’s Layer Cake
…This recipe for layer cake was a Madison specialty, frequently served to guests…
Egg whites
Butter
Sugar
Milk
Cornstarch
Flour
Vanilla
Beat the whites of 8 eggs until stiff and in peaks. Put aside. Cream 1 cup butter with 2 1/2 cups sugar. Add 1 cup milk slowly, mixing well. Add 3/4 cup cornstarch and 3 cups sifted flour to the butter-egg mixture. Mix well and add 2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla. Fold in the egg whites carefully. Bake in 4 layer pans, well-greased. Bake in a medium (350 degrees F.) oven 30 to 35 minutes, or until the cake springs back when touched lightly. Cool on racks and frost with Dolley Madison’s Caramel
“Caramel
Brown sugar
Light cream
Butter
Vanilla
Mix well 3 cups brown sugar, 1 cup cream, and 2 tablespoons butter. Put the mixture in the top of a double boiler and cook gently for 20 minutes. Just before removing from the stove, after the caramel has thickened, add 1 teaspoon vanilla, stir constantly. Remove and cool. Fill the layers of the cake and put the icing on top as well.”
—Presidents’ Cookbook (p. 89)
Sep 08, 2020
I’ve taken a month-long hiatus for a few reasons. First, some other things have come up that needed attending to.
Second, I’ve been researching ways to improve 21CL. (Yup. That’s the pseudo-acronym I’m using from now on…) Foremost of those improvements is OUR NEW FORUM at:
https://21cl.boardhost.com/index.php.
Seriously, go check it out and take it for a spin. You will need to complete the simple registration to gain access.
Third, I have been procrastinating. There are about a dozen remnants of unfinished, failed posts on my various devices. My hope was to post something in August that was uplifting and encouraging about the upcoming opening of school. Alas, the world has moved ahead while I have not. Sorry. But it’s probably a good thing. Now that school has started and most folks have at least got some kind of temporary set up for kids to return to schooling, my thoughts are really no longer germane.
But yours are.
Please consider going to that new 21st Century Lyceum Forum and commenting on my first substantial post, “What are you and your family doing to mitigate schooling during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak?” Are you using your local public school resources? In-person or virtually or a hybrid? What other ways is your local district connecting with families? Have you investigated private or parochial schooling, homeschooling, or some other option? How are you supervising both the instruction and just day-to-day care of your child(ren)? Have you thought of adapting the pod or co-op idea? If so, how? And so on, ad infinitum…
Please share your thoughts, ideas, and trials and tribulations with other 21CL members as we all gingerly tiptoe through this viral craziness. Perhaps we can serve as resources for each other as we pick our way through.
Just click on the post, “On all of our minds…” on the Index page and hit the Post Reply button to type your message.
Fourthly and finally, I wanted to move forward with a better curricular (for lack of a better term) plan for the blog. Now that we have flirted with logical fallacies, established how classical training became passé in nineteenth-century America, and gained some initial experience with Bernice McCarthy’s 4MAT system of planning for learning constructively and within the natural learning cycle, it’s time to re-group.
This episode’s video is a re-introduction to informal logic and fallacies…, but this time with feeling! 🙂
The original plan was to acquaint everyone who needed such acquaintance with logical fallacies in such a way that the teachers and moms and dads and such who were following this blog could apply their newfound knowledge and skills to mentoring their young charges with the same. This was an outgrowth of my original goal of offering classical and contemporary best practices in learning for parents and teachers.
As I was sitting in front of my laptop, wringing my hands about the reopening of schools and what to do next, I came across the Classical Academic Press. I’ll discuss this great company more in the video, but suffice it to say that I have decided to adopt their considerably age-appropriate and comprehensive Logic offerings here. I dare you not to love their approach!
I’ll be integrating their M. O. for learning informal logic – the kind we use in everyday communication – with the principles and practices of McCarthy’s 4MAT system. Here it is…
Video Full Disclosure: If you have a thing about spiders, I need to let you know that a friendly neighborhood one joins me around 9 minutes in. After much consideration (and lots of prodding from Carolinn to run it – she thinks it’s hilarious), I am posting this take. It is not the best take of the seven I did for this episode, but it is pretty entertaining. If you are squeamish about crawly things, just turn away from your screen and listen only. It still works as a solely audio post.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbD6_R2gWuQ&feature=youtu.be
Jul 27, 2020
So, this is the final episode of the learning styles miniseries with a revelation that has almost certainly become apparent over the past four episodes – that, in order to allow each learner to both take advantage of his or her own strengths and preferences as well as improve in style areas in which he or she is weaker, Dr. McCarthy has found a way for us to work within each style during each lesson, unit, course, etc.
In this episode, we discuss how brain hemisphericity is integrated into the cycle created by the four types. The result is an eight step teaching and learning process.
[video width="1920" height="1080" mp4="https://21stcenturylyceum.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/S1-E7.mp4"][/video]
Jul 27, 2020
The fourth learning type is driven by the question What If? Beginning with the Extend step during the How? learning type, the learner begins to apply the new learning to more and more personal projects. We will learn to Refine and then Perform the personal project begun in the last episode.
Jul 27, 2020
Mastering the learning we have begun in episode one of the series on Learning Styles and then expanded upon in episode two is the goal of this session. By practicing and then extending (applying) our new knowledge about learning styles and preferences, we become even more conversant with the concept of diversity in learning and become even more fluent in ways of using our learning to effect positive change on those whom we guide.
[video width="1920" height="1080" mp4="https://21stcenturylyceum.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/S1-E5.mp4"][/video]Big Announcement – Time Sensitive!: Dr. McCarthy will be presenting a webinar this coming Tuesday, July 28, at 1:00 CST. Registration is free and you will get to hear from the founder of 4MAT herself about the fundamentals of the system and its possibilities in these challenging educational times. Don’t miss this opportunity if you can possibly attend! Part of each webinar from About Learning is a quick overview of the ways you can connect with them to learn more about the system. Remember, all I am offering here on 21CL is a very tip-of-the-iceberg summary.
Jul 25, 2020
This second episode on learning styles digs into the more theoretical aspects of Dr. Bernice McCarthy’s 4MAT system as it relates to learning preferences. After a quick activity to focus our imaginations on what we know so far about learning styles, we briefly check out Dr. McCarthy’s teachings on how the styles are developed by combining the two facets of learning – perceiving new information and then processing it.
Big Announcement – Time Sensitive!: Dr. McCarthy will be presenting a webinar this coming Tuesday, July 28, at 1:00 CST. Registration is free and you will get to hear from the founder of 4MAT herself about the fundamentals of the system and its possibilities in these challenging educational times. Don’t miss this opportunity if you can possibly attend! Part of each webinar from About Learning is a quick overview of the ways you can connect with them to learn more about the system. Remember, all I am offering here on 21CL is a very tip-of-the-iceberg summary.
I encourage anyone who wants to help kids learn to look into About Learning’s various training opportunities.
Jul 19, 2020
This episode is the beginning of a brief few-episodes foray into the world of learning styles as a way to enhance learners’ experiences with perceiving and processing new knowledge and skills.
We open this session with a quick review of the origins of classical schooling, it’s over 2000 years of acceptance as the norm in Western education, and the way 19th century America adopted the Prussian assembly-line system of schooling. Being aware of – and teaching to – individual students’ learning styles has been one very natural reaction to the Prussianization of American schooling in the past half-century.
The last few minutes of this 14-minute video post is the initial step of our investigation of Bernice McCarthy’s 4MAT system. I simply can’t wait for you to experience this thoughtful, incredible integration of teaching and learning best practices over the next few weeks. We will just scratch the surface in the videos, but you’ll find lots of resources below if you want to take a deeper dive into all this.
[video width="1920" height="1080" mp4="https://21stcenturylyceum.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/S1-E3.mp4"][/video]
I know we are seemingly taking a break from our survey of the kinds of informal logic to which I believe (and hope you are beginning to believe, as well) our kids need some exposure from as early an age as is practical. But the learning styles piece seems particularly important right now as we all wait with bated breath to see what will happen with our nation’s schools in just a few short weeks. (I’m writing this in mid-July of 2020.)
But I do want to leave you with these two snippets: First, the truth facet of making great arguments (and there is a difference between a proper argument and a contentious quarrel) cannot be flippantly executed. For our arguments to be completely valid, our facts and data must be vetted. Sources should be trusted, impeccably researched, and as free of bias of any kind as possible. Of course, bias and perspective are important rhetorical components, but we have to monitor that and be consummately honest with ourselves and others about it.
As I thought might happen (and have anticipated excitedly), friends have begun suggesting ideas to me as they have proofed the first episodes of this blog. I am passing on a few interesting news sources that have come to me recently. They are all self-described as neutral and unbiased outlets and two of them land a quick-read email in your Inbox each weekday morning. The Flip Side and 1440 are those feeds. All Sides is more thorough, but is a well-curated overview of daily stories from a multitude of sources. Thanks to my buddy, Rick, for the tip…
The second little prize comes from Chris and is the following humorous graphic about logical fallacies: (I couldn’t find the person to whom credit should be given. If you know, please help me out…)
Thanks, Chris!
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