In late 2023, ACES launched an ambitious project to develop a classical curriculum package suited to our Australian context that could be adopted (and adapted) by schools. As many of you are aware, a number of sample curricula – some quite detailed and practically ready to pick up and use – already exist in the United States. While purchasing these are helpful in the short-term, what we really lack is a comprehensive curriculum that specifically addresses Australian concerns and, more pointedly, that maps on to the Australian Curriculum.
Anya Leonard
Until you read the Classics, you simply don’t know how much of it is around you.
Sure, there are some things that have survived into popular culture, a herculean task to be sure. A few of the Olympic gods, a reference to a wooden horse, a quote about stepping into a river twice might be surmised without having had the opportunity to read and understand the originals... but this is just a simulacrum, a thin veneer of the wisdom and insight gained from the great texts.
Conor Ross
Old Lady Manning had a dog, so simple and small
that would sit and pant outside with the family all.
The Manning family hobby was wholesome and sweet,
It was to wait for a full moon and hold a porch meet
And talk with delight of this or of that,
to smoke a pipe or count passing bats.
They would play crackajack and stretchy nose
and games plenty else that nobody knows.
Cheree Harvey
“When I began teaching my children, I realized that even though the world said I was educated, I found out I was only schooled.” Leigh Bortins of Classical Conversations fame cuts to the heart of the matter in her book The Core, published in 2010. I am reading this fascinating book for the third time in as many years, as I practice what I preach - spending time thinking deeply with fellow parents about the reasons why and also how I teach my children in the classical, Christian tradition. Is it really the best way? How do I make sure I don’t leave gaps in their education? How will I find a like-minded community? What does it mean to be truly human – a test score or a soul? Slowly, reading one chapter a month has definitely allowed for the truths to be contemplated in a more meaningful, deeper way.
Denise O’Hagan
‘All poetry, as discriminated from the various paradigms of prosody, is prayer.’
-- Samuel Beckett
I never bent my head to tread the short
flight of stone steps down, carefully, or
noticed that they were damply uneven,
dipping in the middle. The silence and
cool never closed their clammy arms
around me, nor did my eyes adapt slowly
to take in the gloom. The single light-bulb,
wire-looped from the peeling ceiling, and
suspended in front of her raised portrait,
never swayed before me. Yet technology
proves an efficient conduit: I enlarge the photo
little by little, notice more. On the low-slung
Conor Ross
Early in October, ACES hosted an immersion course in conjunction with Beautiful Teaching, “Teaching History Classically” with Mark Signorelli leading. Mark has over twenty years of experience as an educator and is the headmaster of Lumen Gentium Academy, a classical Catholic secondary school in New Jersey USA.
Difff interviews ACES President Kon Bouzikos (Educating Humans Podcast)
In this bonus episode, Difff interviews Kon Bouzikos, the President of The Australian Classical Education Society. Kon speaks about his passion for Classical Education, and the mission of the ACES.
St John's College Information Evening
The Ramsay Centre is hosting an evening to find out more about St John’s with Associate Professor Andrew Poe. He will deliver a lecture on “Thinking and Unthinking Political Necessity: A Democratic Reading of Book 2 of Plato’s Republic" and share his experience of the Great Books education he received at St John’s College. The talk will be followed by light refreshments and conversation.
ABC Radio National 'Big Ideas': We need wisdom for good education and learning
Dr Paul Morrissey discussed why the utilitarian approach in the Australian education system was not enough - a lecture given at our April 'Classical Renewal' conference.
