Five Tips for Teachers on Bringing Homer to High Schoolers
Goodkin: The Odyssey and its hero, who does not behave in ways that conform with our modern understanding of heroism, is more relevant than ever.
Goodkin: The Odyssey and its hero, who does not behave in ways that conform with our modern understanding of heroism, is more relevant than ever.
Five Tips for Teachers on Bringing Homer to High Schoolers
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How can a 3,000-year-old epic capture the attention of students shaped by screens and short attention spans? These practical strategies help teachers bring The Odyssey to life as a deeply human story of home, identity, courage, failure, and perseverance, inviting a new generation into one of our civilization’s enduring conversations.
In Sarah’s words, her teachers taught her “how to know what’s right and how to do what’s right.” That is what we mean when we say a classical education prepares young people for real life.
One day at a classical school changed the course of her life.
In seventh grade, Sarah spent a single day shadowing at Jackson Hole Classical Academy. She says she learned more that day than in the seven years of school before it.
What followed was an education in great books, Latin, and poetry learned by heart, including Rudyard Kipling's "If-" Years later, when Sarah arrived at West Point to train as an Army officer, she found that same poem on the walls of the barracks.
Today, Sarah is a West Point graduate preparing to lead a platoon of soldiers. Her story shows what classical education is for: forming young people who know what's right, do what's right, and give of themselves in service to others.
Classical Christian education in Africa is not a cultural import or a luxury reserved for the materially secure. It is a humane education that equips students to think, speak, serve, and flourish within their own communities.