Classical Education | Karen Glass On The Art of Asking Questions

We discuss Karen's many years of experience with questions and consider the purpose of questions and how they orient us toward or away from true learning. We discuss how a teacher, like Socrates, needs to be properly postured to practice the art of asking questions.

Show Notes

About our Guest
Karen Glass is part of the Advisory of AmblesideOnline. She has four children, ages 13 to 27, who have been homeschooled using Charlotte Mason’s methods from beginning to end. Karen has been studying and writing about Charlotte Mason and Classical Education for over twenty years and has written the popular books Consider This: Charlotte Mason and The Classical Tradition and Know and Tell: The Art of Narration. Her newest book, In Vital Harmony, is a seminal work for anyone wanting to discover the beauty of humane education in keeping with the spirit and the tradition of classical education.

Online Consulting and Courses with Karen
Karen also serves as a consultant for our podcast support team, Beautiful Teaching: Consulting in Classical Education.
She leads a book study for our listeners through our online sessions. More is coming soon! Click here to Subscribe to our newsletter so you can receive up-to-date information about more sessions Karen will be leading in the near future.

Show Notes
How we posture ourselves as questioners or learners matters. As an example, Karen points to the serpent in the Garden with Eve and then God's response and what we can learn from these kinds of stories. We also discuss maieutic questioning and the role it plays in coaching students well. There are many problems with reading comprehension questions and how they interfere with natural connections between author and reader.

At the heart of questions, we must begin with two questions: "What is a person?" and "What is education?"

Some topics in this episode include:

Sometimes, the question is more important than the answer. What happens to an answer when the right question does not precede it?
What are Socratic questions, and what are common mistakes with Socratic questions?
How questions create a mental posture
How does the relationship between question and answer influence the relationship between student and teacher?
What is a person, and what is education?
What kind of curriculum should I buy for homeschooling?
What is a philosophy of education?
What is the relationship between caring and asking questions?

Resources and Books & Mentioned In This Episode
Plato's Dialogues
Theaetetus
Charlotte Mason Exam Questions
A Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason
The Bible

Favorite Quotes
Medieval Philosophy: Selections from Modern Library Collection a quote from Hugh of St. Victor's Didascalicon

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Credits:

Sound Engineer: Andrew Helsel

Logo Art: Anastasiya CF

Music: Used with permission. cellists: Sara Sant' Ambrogio and Lexine Feng; pianist: Alyona Waldo

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