Getting ready for Aquinas Learning

In March I attended a little talk on a program that was sort of the Catholic answer to Classical Conversations.  I'm this weird mix of unschooling and classical, always trying to incorporate these two in our approach to learning.  I loved the idea of having a classical scaffold (I heard someone use that phrase recently and I love the idea of it) to hang the rest of our learning on.  Aquinas Learning provides a day of structured learning in this rich, concentrated format that gives you lots of freedom to pursue learning your own way the rest of the week.  I think that the Paideia approach to learning, which is the classical model that Aquinas Learning follows, is much easier to mesh with unschooling ideas, than the neo-classical approach espoused by The Well Trained Mind and Classical Conversations.

Anyway, since attending that little talk, so many things have taken place.  I didn't want to be a director and deal with business/finance aspects of setting up an Aquinas Learning Center, but I was so in love with the idea, I knew I wanted to be heavily involved.  Well, God sent a beautiful young couple who are just starting out on their homeschooling journal.  The husband is a business man and lover of philosophy and they are an orthodox Catholic couple.  The woman is lovely.  So he became the official director and I'm the coordinator.  After searching for a place to hold our Aquinas Learning day, the director stumbled onto a Presbyterian church, pretty centrally located, which was willing to lease us space.  We were disappointed in the fact we couldn't find a Catholic church, but we see this as temporary.  The pastor at the church is a wonderful, warm man, so we are actually pretty happy with the space and the generosity of the church.

So I've been really busy exchanging e-mails, finding mentors, cleaning classrooms and pondering all the little details that go into setting up something like this.  I'm excited to go to the mentor training this coming Saturday.

One great thing has been that I've been digging through all my old junk.  An accumulation of 15 years that could be used as resources for the ALC.  (Mike, the director, has named our particular Aquinas Learning Center, Adler Academy, after Mortimer Adler, whom he admires very much.)

I am very happy to make use of all this accumulation.  Justifies my curriculum junkie habits!