Disability & Classical Education

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Welcome to A True Good Beautiful Life podcast! Today my guest and I will take some of you down an unknown path of life, for others maybe an all too worn path, and per chance even for others one that some have ventured a little ways in but yet do not know their way through or what is beyond the bend. We are going to talk about disabilities and how understanding disabilities is essential to human flourishing, Classical Education, and Charlotte Mason’s First Principle - “children are born persons.”

In the past, I briefly described what Charlotte Mason meant when she said that “children are born persons” –that they are a wonder of wonders; born ready to learn; that children are not blank slates, but that they are full persons with intellectual power, moral sense, and spiritual perception (Parents and Children, Chapter 24). Children are in fact image-bearers of our Creator God, thus deserving dignity, respect, and love.

This concept of loving children and students is at the heart of understanding how to live with and teach students with various kinds of disabilities.

My special guest today is Dr. Amy Richards, Affiliate Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Eastern University and Faculty Fellow of the Templeton Honors College’s Master of Arts in Classical teaching program. That is where I first met Amy. She teaches a course entitled “Difference and Human Dignity in the Great Tradition” and her newly published book, called  Disability and Classical Education: Student Formation in Keeping with our Common Humanity, and online lecture course through Classical U is our topic of discussion.

Conversation Topics:

• the telos of education
• strange vocations
• telic attention
• doxological classrooms
• the Anthropology Audit

Favorite Resources:

• Disability and Classical Education: Student Formation in Keeping with Our Common Humanity book by Dr. Amy Richards published by Classical Academic Press
• "Disability and Classical Education: Student Formation in Keeping with Our Common Humanity" online class by Dr. Amy Richards via Classical U
• Classical U
• Classical Academic Press
• What Can a Body Do: How We Meet the Built World by Sara Hendren
• God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine by Victoria Sweets
• www.ATrueGoodBeautifulLife.com

"The disabled person, with all the limitations and suffering that scar him or her, forces us to question ourselves, with respect and wisdom, on the mystery of man. In fact, the more we move about in the dark and unknown areas of human reality, the better we understand that it is in the more difficult and disturbing situations that the dignity and grandeur of the human being emerges." - St. John Paul II

". . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . ." - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174

1. What do you think the telos of education ought to be? Write out your mission statement for teaching.
2. Consider what kind of attention your educational institution practices themselves and cultivates in their students -- instrumental or telic? How can you cultivate telic attention in your classroom?
3. To truly be a welcoming doxological classroom, we need to see everyone as a gift. How can you anticipate difference in your classroom and incorporate universal design?