The Consortium Podcast

This is Episode 33 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. In this episode, Scott Postma sits down with Jake Litwin to discuss the Integrated Humanities and Apologetics, and why the various concepts studied in these subjects are essential to a well-rounded high school education. Jake is a teacher at Kepler Education, teaching Ancient and Classical Humanities and Apol...

This is Episode 32 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. In this episode, Scott Postma sits down with Dr. Chris Schlect to discuss the Liberal Arts, its history in classical thought, what the liberal arts are, and what they are not. Dr. Schlect is the Senior Fellow of History at New Saint Andrews College, where he teaches courses in ancient and medieval civilizatio...

This is Episode 31 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. In this episode, we announce the new lineup of podcasts for the upcoming year. The Consortium Podcast is where listeners can listen into engaging academic conversations with teachers, authors, and professors engaged in Classical Christian Education.  The Everlasting Education podcast will continue in same vei...

This is Episode 30 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education.   Classes at Kepler Education have begun and in this episode, Scott Postma and Joffre Swait discuss some of the important ways students can have a successful academic year. Education is a student's vocation. It's a real calling for a specific time of a young person's life and there is much to be gained by a t...

This is Episode 29 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. In this episode, Scott Postma and Joffre Swait interview Dr. Mitch Stokes to talk about his new Calculus textbook., Calculus for Everyone, and what it means to teach math classically. Mitch Stokes (Ph. D., Notre Dame) is a senior fellow of philosophy at New St. Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho. In addition to...

This is Episode 28 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education.   In this episode, Scott Postma and Joffre Swait discuss the important (and sometimes annoying) question about how homeschool students are going to get any "socialization." Adding an additional dynamic to this question is the fact that many students are now taking online classes--like Kepler Students.    But...

This is Episode 27 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education.   In this episode, Scott Postma and Joffre Swait host a top-twenty countdown of Great Books that should make every student's reading list. Books are listed and discussed briefly according to historical time periods. While this list is far and away from being exhaustive, it will give listeners a solid picture...

This is Episode 26 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. In this episode, Scott Postma and Joffre Swait discuss the importance of Logic and Latin in Classical Christian Education. Stratford Caldecott asked the important question, “What kind of education would enable a child to progress in the rational understanding of the world without losing his poetic and artisti...

This is Episode 25 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. In this episode we interview Will Boyd, scientist, teacher, and homeschool dad, and talk about the fundamentals of science and its marriage to the humanities in a liberal arts education. Will blogs at the  Reformed Environmentalist and you can learn more about the science homeschooling resources he mentions i...

This is Episode 24 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. At Kepler, online education is not just the Zoomification of the classroom. It's so much more than that! In this episode Scott and Joffre discuss the various ways in which families are talking about the surprising benefits of online education. As they share quotes from conversations with Kepler families, they...

This is Episode 23 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. The widespread notions of cultural appropriation, political correctness, outrage culture, identity politics, and cancel culture did not arrive on the scene in the late 2010s in a vacuum. What is today colloquially known as “woke mentality” stems from a postmodern-academic-ideology-turned-activism known as Cri...

This is Episode 22 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. Reading is fundamental to an education. It is the intellectual backbone of every literate person. If one cannot read, one cannot be educated, as least in the liberal arts sense of being educated. But reading is difficult for some people and reading challenging, dense texts doesn't make the task any easier. In...

This is Episode 21 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. In this episode, Scott and Joffre discuss the importance of collaboration in Classical Christian Education because education in central to building up the kingdom of Christ: recovering a virtuous cultural and fighting the battle for the hearts and minds of the children of the Saints. Too often, Christians ten...

This is Episode 20 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. In this episode, Scott and Joffre discuss the Art of Rhetoric, including misconceptions about what it means, and why it's so important for students to study in the modern age of cancel culture.  Being apt in the art of rhetoric is part of what it means to be fully human. To be an apt rhetorician is to be able...

This is Episode 19 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. In this episode, Scott and Joffre discuss how educators, especially homeschooling families, have the most potential for cultivating both work ethic and creativity in their students' character. "Adulting" is hard and we don't always have an elegant solution for the challenges life providentially brings our way...

This is Episode 18 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. In this episode, Scott and Joffre are joined by Kepler CEO, Daniel Foucachon, to discuss the Kepler Model, a free-market approach to classical Christian education that empowers families by liberating teachers. A unique feature of this episode is that we unpack a review by homeschooling blogger, Erin Cox of Li...

This is Episode 17 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. Since parents are responsible for their child's education, it's helpful if parents both know how to be good teachers and how to identify good teachers for their children when it's appropriate to hire one. In his book, The Truth of Things: Liberal Arts and the Recovery of Reality, Marion Montgomery notes, "The...

This is Episode 16 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. Aristotle famously noted that poetry is more philosophical than history because while history teaches what man has done in particular, poetry teaches us what he can and might do universally. This quite evident in George Herbert's Poem, "The Church-Porch." In this Episode, Scott Postma and Joffre Swait unpack...

This is Episode 15 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. Cardinal John Henry Newman said that “A University seems to be in its essence, a place for the communication and the circulation of thought, by means of personal intercourse, through a wide extent of country." When we use the word University in the academic sense, we are technically shortening the phrase, uni...

This is Episode 14 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. In this episode, Scott and Joffre talk with Jonathan Roberts of the Ancient Language Institute about the best approaches to language acquisition and the benefits of learning ancient languages when obtaining a liberal arts education.   Kepler Education offers a number of language courses , both ancient and mod...

This is Episode 13 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. In this episode, Scott and Joffre discuss the importance of poetry in a liberal arts education. Poetry is more philosophical than history, says Aristotle. And this means poetry gives us insight into the human condition: what humans might do as opposed to history, which tells us what humans have done. The Roma...

This is Episode 12 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. This episode was recorded for Easter but due to technical difficulties recording a previous podcast, it was delayed. The content is nevertheless still quite relevant given Easter is the celebration of the most important event in human history, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrection absolutely chan...

This is Episode 11 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. In this episode is Scott Postma and Joffre Swait interview Roxana Corradino, an artist, college professor, and Kepler teacher, and discuss visual communications and the importance of its study in a liberal arts education. Images and signs are all around us. But unless we are aware that every day we are being...

This is Episode 10 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. In this episode, Scott Postma and Joffre Swait get practical about a classical liberal arts education. You can also learn more about Kepler Education and the consortium of teachers who share this vision for student flourishing by visiting our website at  https://kepler.education . Or, visit the Consortium Blo...

This is Episode 9 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. In this episode, Scott Postma and Joffre Swait make a thorough treatment of the meaning of a classical liberal arts education and show its importance and benefits, namely that it has the potential to cultivate a wise and virtuous people whose resultant happiness produces a free and flourishing society. A liber...