SS #90: Background Knowledge (The Door to Reading)

SS #90: Background Knowledge (The Door to Reading)

Knowing how to read is about more than just sounding out words. Understanding any given book often requires background knowledge we don’t even realize we’re filling in and a lack of understanding or misunderstanding often comes from a lack of background knowledge. Language is analogical, communicating is metaphors more than we realize. Before we can…

SS #89: Dorothy Sayers’ Latin Lament

SS #89: Dorothy Sayers’ Latin Lament

Dorothy Sayers is author of the essay that brought back classical education as a major school movement: “The Lost Tools of Learning.” However, that was not the only essay on education she composed. Today, Mystie Winckler, Brandy Vencel, and special guest Renee Shepard discuss Sayers’ other essay, “Ignorance and Dissatisfaction,” to better understand Sayers’ thoughts…

SS #87: How to Contemplate (The Thinking Mom’s Checklist)

SS #87: How to Contemplate (The Thinking Mom’s Checklist)

In the heated cultural climate of today, a true conversation with real thinking behind arguments can be hard to find. Alan Jacob’s book How to Think explains why that is so and how to overcome the modern (or postmodern) hindrances to thought and contemplation. Jacobs doesn’t, in the end, tell us “how to think.” But…