A True Good Beautiful Life

About A True Good Beautiful Life

Come discover Charlotte Mason's philosophy of education using the Classical ideas of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Join us for weekly conversations and highlights with homeschooling parents, teachers, artists, entrepreneurs, and dreamers as we seek out and cultivate the True, Good, and Beautiful in our lives at home and in the classroom.

Publisher

Jennifer Milligan

Category

education · kids & family

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

2 Jun 2023

Latest episode

2 May 2025

Latest episodes

43 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   2 May 2025

   Recovering Schole in Education

   Welcome, welcome to my last episode of this limited series podcast! It is bittersweet for me for sure! While responsibilities take me away temporarily from this full format, I do plan to continue sharing helpful tips, resources, and insights through social media and my website, so please if you don’t already, follow me on my Instagram and Facebook pages - A True Good Beautiful Life and my website: ATrueGoodBeautifulLife.com . And so to recap, the telos of this podcast is to share the pedagogical ideas of Charlotte Mason in light of the Classical ideals of the True, Good, and the Beautiful. Because Charlotte Mason belongs to the Classical tradition (the historical traditional understanding of this pedagogy), I wanted to show how these two methods can harmonize well with each other. They both emphasize paideia, which is the classic holistic approach to educating the whole child -- mind, body, and spirit. They both stress living/great books, observing and getting out in the natural world or cosmos, and thinking deeply about a feast of ideas. And while there are many other shared characteristics and goals, the one we are going to talk about today is how Charlotte Mason's motto of “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life,” marries perfectly with the traditional Classical approach to learning, nurturing character, and promoting virtue - schole. With the revival of Classical Education over the past few decades, many in that field, including my special guest today, are trying to recover this ancient ideal of schole, or restful learning. Today’s education seems to be inhabiting both ends of the spectrum of learning – a style that is too rigorous or one that is too lackadaisical. But today, I hope that we can encourage you to seek a balance by devoting some of your day engaging in schole, which will surprisingly promote wonder, love, and learning for you and your students. Back in the 4th century, Aristotle wrote that "schole [or leisure, as it it often translated], represents the highest human activity, that our labors were not what life was all about but that work was for the purpose of getting to enjoy leisure” – and that this concept would lead to human happiness (10.7). So what does this old Greek word have to do with education? Why revisit this idea from Episode 10? Because this is the final episode for the foreseeable future, I wanted to highlight and dig more thoroughly into this idea of leisure, or schole. I want to leave you with these important thoughts to contemplate as you begin your summer season and think about your upcoming school year. I want to give you permission to stop and rest and to consider cultivating this same rest in your homes and schools. I want to show you how this old Greek philosophy would make Charlotte Mason smile centuries later and how she incorporated it into her own philosophy of education. My final special guest of this season of the podcast is Dr. Christopher Perrin, and in the next hour or so, he is going to share with us his passion for education and how we can flourish as human beings through this old but forgotten concept of schole. He has recently published a book all about schole and I know you will want to read it. As you listen, see how this concept matches well with Charlotte Mason's motto on education. 10 Pedagogies of Schole: Make Haste Slowly Much Not Many Repetition: The Mother of Memory The One Who Loves Can Sing and Remember Wonder and Curiosity Schole and Contemplation Embodied and Liturgical Learning By Teaching We Learn The Best Teacher is a Good Book Learning in Community Favorite Resources: The Schole Way: Bringing Restful Teaching and Learning Back to School and Homeschool by Dr. Christopher Perrin "The Schole Way" (https://classicalu.com/courses/the-schole-way/) Classical U online recorded course by Dr. Christopher Perrin “Schole (Restful) Learning,” Classical U online recorded course by Dr. Christopher Perrin The Good Teacher: Ten Key Pedagogical Principles That Will Transform Your Teaching by Dr. Christopher Perrin and Carrie Eben Christopher Perrin's Substack Account (https://substack.com/@christopherperrin) "Bringing Schole Back to School" article by Dr. Christopher Perrin, Substack The Age of Martha: A Call to Contemplative Learning in a Frenzied Culture by Devin O'Donnell Teaching From Rest: The Homeschooler's Guide to Unshakable Peace by Sarah Mackenzie Josef Pieper: Leisure: The Basis of Culture published by Ignatius Press Josef Pieper: Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation published by Ignatius Press Josef Pieper: An Anthology published by Ignatius Press Common Arts Education: Renewing the Classical Tradition of Training the Hand, Head, and Heart by Christopher Hall "Schole Sisters" (https://scholesisters.com/) An Introduction to Classical Education: A Guide for Parents by Dr. Christopher Perrin Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition by Karen Glass The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education by Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain Wisdom and Eloquence: A Christian Paradigm for Classical Learning by Robert Littlejohn and Charles Evans COMMONPLACE QUOTES "Schole is both fundamental to education and related to other fundamental elements of a traditional classical education: the curriculum of the liberal arts and natural sciences; the conversation contained in the great books or archived human wisdom; the cultivation of the moral and academic (or intellectual) virtues; the cultivation of wisdom; and the inherited pedagogies of wonder, memory, imitation, and practice. This book holds up schole as the chief lens by which we will consider education, but it is already in a dance with these other elements." - Dr. Christopher Perrin, The Schole Way: Bringing Restful Teaching and Learning Back to School and Homeschool “We are un-leisurely (ascholia) in order to have leisure (schole). " - Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 10.7.6) “Scholé means something like undistracted time to study the most worthwhile things with good friends, usually in a beautiful place, and usually with good food and drink. It has a range of meaning because scholé is at the same time a disposition of the teacher and student, an atmosphere or setting, and an activity. It was at the heart of our understanding of what education was for about 2,000 years up until about 1900, when education was replaced by the progressive, modern “education” we have today.” - Dr. Christopher Perrin, The Schole Way: Bringing Restful Teaching and Learning Back to School and Homeschool "A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher." - Luke 6:20, The Bible, NIV Prayer Before Study: “O Ineffable Creator, who, from the treasures of Your wisdom, have established three hierarchies of angels, have arrayed them in marvelous order above the fiery heavens, and have marshaled the regions of the universe with such artful skill. You are proclaimed the true font of light and wisdom, and the primal origin raised high beyond all things. Pour forth a ray of Your brightness into the darkened places of my mind; disperse from my soul the twofold darkness into which I was born: sin and ignorance. You make eloquent the tongues of infants. Refine my speech and pour forth upon my lips the goodness of Your blessing. Grant to me keenness of mind, capacity to remember, skill in learning, subtlety to interpret, and eloquence in speech. May You guide the beginning of my work, direct its progress, and bring it to completion, You who are true God and true Man, who live and reign, world without end. Amen.” - St. Thomas Aquinas; found in The Schole Way:  Bringing Restful Teaching and Learning Back to School and Homeschool by Dr. Christopher Perrin as well as online - https://classicalliberalarts.com/catholic-theology/catholic-prayer/prayer-before-studying-by-st-thomas-aquinas/ . . . 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 APPLICATION Consider trying some of these practical ideas in your home and school: keep a commonplace book, take an art class, copy scripture or poetry by hand, choose a literary mentor to read through, start a book club, start a supper club, add handicrafts and the common arts to your weekly plans, read less books in order to dig deeper, hang beautiful art up, have less class periods during the day for more contemplation in each class, build up your home/class library, create a peaceful space for reading, go out into nature and journal, memorize poetry and have a recitation night, pray throughout the day together, keep a sketchbook, include feasting and celebration in your school calendar, play music in the background, read books aloud to each other, have the older kids plan an event with/for the younger kids Get a copy of Christopher Perrin's book, The Schole Way, and see how you can foster this idea and practice in your homes and classrooms. Then read the other books listed above for more insight and recommendations. Engage in handicrafts by making your own books! Learn how to bind and decorate them and then fill them with your favorite quotes like a commonplace book or junk journal.

2. 

   4 Apr 2025

   G. K. Chesterton & His Epic Ballad

   Today you will hear about an epic poem that you never knew you needed to know! The topic is also about a man whom you may have never heard of but is by no means insignificant in history and the literary world, past and present. His wisdom and character permeate society even today, after his death 89 years ago. G. K. Chesterton…. Do you recognize that name? Yes? No? Curious why you haven't heard of him? He was a giant of a writer during his lifetime and because he wrote so much on so many topics, he is hard to pigeonhole, as well as to argue with. Chesterton was a prolific writer, intellectual, thinker, and defender of truth and tradition, family and beauty, the poor and Christianity, education and self-sufficiency, self-employment, and independence. He wrote 100 books, hundreds of poems, contributed to 200 books, 5 novels, 5 plays, +/- 200 short stories (including the famous Father Brown mysteries), he edited his own newspaper, and wrote 4,000+ essays… (imagine writing an essay everyday for 11 years!) He wrote in all kinds of genres…. such as theology, politics, and literary criticism. His Catholic faith deeply influenced his writings and used his wit and paradox to investigate complex issues of society, morality, and religion.  There are even modern societies that promote his work and ideas, like The Society of G. K. Chesterton, Chesterton Schools Network, the Chesterton Society at Hillsdale College, and the Philadelphia Chesterton Society. Chesterton influenced future greats like C. S. Lewis, Mahatma Ghandi, George Orwell, Orson Wells, Alfred Hitchcock, Earnest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and J. R. R. Tolkien, just to name a few. He is considered by some to be the best writer of the 20th century (Dale Ahlquist of the Society of G. K. Chesterton). Please sit back and enjoy my conversation with revisiting professor, Dr. Fred Putnam. Favorite Resources: The Ballad of the White Horse by G. K. Chesterton (Ignatius Press) The Ballad of the White Horse by G. K. Chesterton (Seton Press) The Life of Chesterton: The Man Who Carried a Swordstick and a Pen by Holly Geirger Lee The Compete Father Brown Stories by G. K. Chesterton (Wordsworth Classics) Chesterton Spiritual Classics Collection: Heretics, Orthodoxy, The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton The Everyman Chesterton, edited and Introduced by Ian Ker (The Everyman Library series) The Golden Dragon: Alfred the Great and His Times by Alf J. Mapp The Dragon and the Raven by G. A. Henty Librivox audio recording (free) Project Gutenberg recording (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1719) (free) Who is This Guy and Why Haven't I Heard of Him (https://www.chesterton.org/who-is-this-guy/) article by Dale Ahlquist Lecture 21: The Ballad of the White Horse (https://www.chesterton.org/lecture-21/) article by Dale Ahlquist Why the World Still Needs G. K. Chesterton article by Shawn White The Society of G. K. Chesterton  (https://www.chesterton.org/discover/) COMMONPLACE QUOTES “Not merely a world full of miracles; it was a miraculous world.” “Unless a man becomes the enemy of an evil, he will not even become its slave but rather its champion.” - regarding the US’s entrance into the Great War “A dead thing can go with the stream, only a living thing can go against it.” “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” “There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.” “Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.” “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” “There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.” “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” “To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.” “People forget how to be grateful unless they learn how to be humble.” “The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.” “The free man is not he who thinks all opinions equally true or false; that is not freedom but feeble-mindedness. The free man is he who sees the errors as clearly as he sees the truth.” “Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong about it.” “The one thing that is never taught by any chance in the atmosphere of public schools is this: that there is a whole truth of things, and that in knowing it and speaking it we are happy.” “If we do not clear the outline of the White Horse with unwearying care, grass will very soon choke it and we will lose it forever. It is not the moral tradition that keeps us, it is we who keep (or do not keep) it.” - Ekaterina Volonkhonskaia . . . 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 APPLICATION Read or listen to The Ballad of the White Horse. If you choose to listen, gather printmaking supplies and try your hand at designing a printblock of the White Horse of Enthandun/Uffington and make some greeting cards or frame it as a small wall hanging. Plan to celebrate October 26th - The Feast of Alfred the Great, at home with readings and prayers: Wisdom (Proverbs) 6:1-3, 9-12, 24-25; Psalm 21:1-7; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17; Luke 6:43-49. Think about God's calling in your life and how you can be a noble and good leader in your homes, communities, and places of work.

3. 

   7 Mar 2025

   Poetry & Shakespeare's Sonnets

   There are mysteries all around us. Like was there a real King Arthur? What happened to the colonists on Roanoke Island in 1590? Who was Jack the Ripper? Who killed JFK? Is Big Foot real? While these and many other mysteries perplex us, in the literary world, the mystery of who inspired Shakespeare’s Sonnets, who is supposed to be the sonneteer, and who are the young man and dark lady in which the poems address, baffles critics and lovers of poetry to this day. But despite the musings and gallons of ink spilled in writing about these mysteries,  Shakespeare’s Sonnets are a fascinating poetic creation to be admired and enjoyed simply for its beauty of language and artistic feat. Poetry is like performing magic with words. But instead of turning you invisible or levitating a chair, your heart feels pain and joy, solitude and curiosity, anger and wonder. Raise your hand if you like poetry? Raise your hand if you studied poetry in school? Raise your hand if you keep volumes of poetry in your bookshelves. I wonder if not many of you raised your hands. Is it because you were never exposed to it? Or was it because your only experience with it was to dissect it and try to figure out what the poet was meaning, only to end in frustration and confusion? Today we are going to explore the beauty of words, the world of poetry, and the magic of Shakespeare. I hope that you will come to see that poetry speaks to us, challenges us, and changes us in various and surprising ways. Poetry is a staple in a Charlotte Mason education. Charlotte Mason said that “Poetry is a criticism of life; so it is, both a criticism and an inspiration; and most of us carry in our minds tags of verse which shape our conduct more than we know” (Vol. 4, Book 2, p. 10). She recommended that children should practice reading aloud, “for the most part, in the books he is using for his term’s work. These should include a good deal of poetry, to accustom him to the delicate rendering of shades of meaning, and especially to make him aware that words are beautiful in themselves, that they are a source of pleasure, and are worthy of our honour; and that a beautiful word deserves to be beautifully said, with a certain roundness of tone and precision of utterance.” (Vol. 1, p. 227) Today I have with me a returning guest, Dr. Kathryn Smith, who was my co-director and professor at the MAT program at Templeton Honors College. You may recall her intriguing explanation of the genres of literature back on Episode 12, where we discussed the Lyric, Tragedy, Comedy and Epic forms of literature. Now you won’t find Dr. Smith on the east coast anymore but all the way across the country in Colorado, teaching Humane Letters classes. So I am excited to have her back and to talk about one of her passions and expertise, Poetry and Shakespeare’s Sonnets – those 14-line marvels that are not only works of art but windows into love, beauty, time, and humanity. Favorite Resources: A Child’s Introduction to Poetry by Michael Driscoll R is for Rhyme: A Poetry Alphabet by Judy Young A Treasury of Poems for Almost Every Possibility edited by Allie Esiri and Rachel Kelly Favorite Poems For the Garden: A Gardener's Collection by Bushel and Peck Books Favorite Poems of the Sea: A Coastal Collection by Bushel and Peck Books Favorite Poems of the Wild: An Adventure Collection by Bushel and Peck Books Favorite Poems for Bedtime: A Child's Collection by Bushel and Peck Books Favorite Poems for Christmas: A Child's Collection by Bushel and Peck Books Poetry Patterns published by Evan-Moor Corp. The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets by Helen Vendler “On Teaching Poetry” by Mary A. Woods -   https://www.amblesideonline.org/PR/PR02p111TeachingPoetry.shtml “The Teaching of Poetry to Children by Mrs. J. G. Simpson   - https://www.amblesideonline.org/PR/PR12p879TeachingPoetry.shtml see "Favorite Resources" from Episode 12 for more poetry books COMMONPLACE QUOTES “Poetry is a criticism of life; so it is, both a criticism and an inspiration; and most of us carry in our minds tags of verse which shape our conduct more than we know”  - Charlotte Mason, Volume 4: Ourselves, Book 2, p. 10 “These should include a good deal of poetry, to accustom him to the delicate rendering of shades of meaning, and especially to make him aware that words are beautiful in themselves, that they are a source of pleasure, and are worthy of our honour; and that a beautiful word deserves to be beautifully said, with a certain roundness of tone and precision of utterance.” - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 227 Poetry is “the musical expression, by means of words, of thought charged with emotion . . . . the elements of poetry are thought, emotion, music; and I lay stress upon the music, because I believe it to be not only an element essential to poetry, but an element too apt to be overlooked. Poetry appeals primarily to the ear, and its sounds out to satisfy the ear. . . . For the child the order I have given is reversed. It is not, ‘thought, emotion, music,’ but ‘music, emotion, thought.’ A child will hear and enjoy the music of a poem before he can appreciate the emotion; he will appreciate the emotion before he can understand the ghost. Now this order, which is the natural and therefore the healthy one, is obviously to be followed in all attempts to teach young children.”  Mary A. Woods, “On the Teaching of Poetry," The Parents' Review, Vol. 2, 1891/2, pp. 111-116 “Most people will agree with me that poetry ought to be taught. Doubtless there are still some who hold that [poetry] is a mere amusement, a trifle fit only for the nursery or the drawing room, and unworthy to encroach on the sacred hours devoted to science and mathematics and physical exercise. And others will tell me that it is too good for the schoolroom. Poetry, they say, the ripest fruit of the ripest thought of mankind, should not be squandered on minds too crude or too weak to receive it: the audience of the true poet, if fit, must always be ‘few.’ But these two classes are in a minority, and I do not propose to deal with them to-day. I must assume that poetry is good, and that, being good, it cannot be too good for our children.” -  Mary A. Woods, “On the Teaching of Poetry,” The Parents’ Review, Vol. 2, 1891/2, pp. 111-116 "To withhold good pictures from children because we thoughtlessly conclude them to be incapable of noticing anything but grandness of colour, is to despise them, to value them too lightly," so with poetry you must believe that a child is capable of enjoying and admiring the very best, if only you show him how to begin. You must let him see that you yourself delight in well chosen epithets and true pieces of word painting; you must let him feel that you only care for poems which put a pleasant thought into your mind or a pleasant picture before your eyes; you must let him realize that when you go with him for a country walk, you can add a charm to the brook or the meadow, or the oak tree, or the wild rose, by a familiar quotation, and his taste will not be long in forming itself. This taste should be formed, or should be in process of forming, before the child goes to school.” - Mrs. J. G. Simpson, “The Teaching of Poetry to Children,” The Parents’ Review, Vol. 12, 1901, pp. 879-883 “We must change all this if we want our children to have the real poetic feeling in them drawn out and developed. We must read our poets and learn them by heart till our minds are full of the best thoughts and the loveliest expressions that the world has yet uttered; and be sure that as we read and learn, our own appreciation will grow, and we shall begin to understand more fully why we must teach our little ones only what is good, and why we are doing them a real wrong if we let their minds be filled with what is poor and trivial, while all the world's richest treasures are lying ready for them to take and use as their own possessions.” - Mrs. J. G. Simpson, “The Teaching of Poetry to Children,” The Parents’ Review, Vol. 12, 1901, pp. 879-883 ". . . 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 APPLICATION Read samples of haiku poetry and check the syllable patterns. Discuss how the imagery helps paint a picture or evoke a feeling. Help your student write their own. First brainstorm descriptive words and phrases about a nature subject. Then use that list to write a sentence about the subject using three ideas/concepts. Finally, cut and adjust the phrase to follow the 5-7-5 syllable pattern. Encourage your students to copy it out and illustrate their poems. Host a Poetry Tea where each student must bring and read aloud a narrative poem of significant length. Make sure they are all different so that they can enjoy hearing something new and appreciate the attention, creativity, and time such a lengthy poem requires. Take one of Shakespeare’s sonnets and have students pick out a few beautiful lines. Then have them paraphrase it. Together as a class, consider what wonderful things have been lost (ie. rhyme, alliteration, consonance, word order, sounds, syllables, rhythm). Notice that the words are just as important as the plot/meaning.

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5.0 / 5

12 ratings

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5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 45 / 100

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0

Engagement

77

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