Spun Out of Arkansas, Somewhere Under the Aurora
Digest No. 20 - April 2025
On Commonplacing
If we really ‘get inside’ a book as we read, it has a way of getting inside us. We may absorb its beliefs and values about life. Consciously or not, we may start to become more like the characters that we admire. We may also take ‘one side’ on an important issue, rather than another, ten years after reading a book, unaware of the influence it has had upon us.
Mark A. Pike and Thomas Lickona, Narnian Virtues: Building Good Character with C. S. Lewis (Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press, 2021), p. 22.
Great Ideas: Virtue & Vice, Memory & Imagination, Education, Experience, Judgment
My reading this month has not been riveting, nor as widespread as I would have liked. Things didn’t go to plan, which should have been expected at this point. Best laid plans of mice and all. But I was grateful for the pressure to finish some reading for my MA in Character Education, which included Narnian Virtues. This is a fascinating book, and one that informs a substantial part of my MA project. I’ve said for years, long before I encountered Pike and Lickona’s work, that reading The Chronicles of Narnia was an important aspect of virtue development in Classical schools. And it turns out I wasn’t the only one who thought that!
My work also brings in the Knightly Virtues, which the Jubilee Centre at the University of Birmingham put together. There are some great resources on their website, and while such efforts aren’t aimed specifically at Classical schools, I think many teachers of the CCE persuasion will find something to consider in their work.
On Reading & Researching & Writing & Speaking
Since arriving at the Lab in 2023, I’ve had seven public facing essays published, six journal articles accepted (with two more still in progress), seven book reviews accepted (with three more request from journals), seven conference presentations given (with two more happening this Summer), and given six colloquia / professional development talks for schools.1 This isn’t so much to brag but to simply say this: I’m exhausted.
My two years here at the Lab have been great and I’ve done a lot, but I’m leaving with more projects in the works than when I came! I reckon that is just the way an academic life goes. One of the things that my department here does that has been really great is their weekly presentations. Every Friday, someone gives a presentation. Speakers range from guest lecturers, in-house faculty, or students talking about the projects they have going. Due to a series of unplanned changes, I ended up as the final speaker for the year. I presented some of the work I’m doing to fill in data from the 2024 Heritage Report on Classical Education. The lead researcher on that project, Rachel Cambre, has done the CE movement a great service by bringing these data points together. My own work is dependent on schools taking part in the data collection, so my numbers are still a lot lower than hers, but I’m hopeful that more schools will participate in my survey between now and the Fall.
I have two essays related to this project already in the publication queue, and I hope to share them here once they are put out to the public. But hopefully, this won’t be the last time I get to dig into this work.
On Traveling
While my time at the Classical Education Research Lab doesn’t end until June, some logistical things have meant our family needed to go ahead and relocate to our next destination: Florida. We’ve begun the process of packing and moving, and we’re looking forward to settling back in Pensacola for a bit, though we have thoroughly enjoyed our time in Arkansas (Wooo Pig Sooie). I’ll be going back and forth a bit for some things in May and June, and we have so much travel in those two months that I’m not sure the family will have much a chance to feel settled.
Along with this is the announcement that I will be taking up a new post for the 2025-2026 school year. Trinitas Christian School has invited me to become their Upper School Principal, and I’m happy to say I’ve accepted. Having spent nine years at Trinitas previously, it’s a school I know well, and I look forward to working there again.
May and June are both busy months, not only in terms of next steps but in my travel schedule. There won’t likely be much down time but it should be an exciting conclusion to my Arkansas adventure!
On Listening
There’s new Counting Crows music this month! I’m on the fence about some of the new tracks, but I like this one a lot.
I also had three book chapters published during my time at the Lab, though those were mostly completed prior to arriving in Fayetteville.
Congrats on so many published words and on the new position!!