My husband and I really enjoyed seeing Andrew Pudewa from the Institute of Excellence in Writing and Andrew Kern from the CiRCE Institute today. I love that we live in a place that has the option to go to these various conventions and programs.

 

Here are some notes from today. I hope they help. I’m so inspired and uplifted and would love to pass some of that on to you too.

Notes from Andrew Kern’s Lectures:

*Small improvements are the way to move on your path.

*Husband means to nurture and bless what is in your care.

*Israel means to wrestle with God. We gather strength from what we wrestle with.

*If you want to understand language better, read Tolkien.

*All of your life is determined by the questions you ask.

*The quality of teaching is determined by the questions you ask.

*Children learn by the questions they absorb.

*Training depends on the questions you ask.

*Everything begins with a question.

 

*Engage the will to seek answers to questions:

 

1 Attentive Perception {the father of learning}

Pay attention

When you give something your attention it shows that you care. It’s fidelity.

It is being faithful to what it is. It is the 1st act of love.

 

2 Recollection {re-collection} {the mother of learning}

Go back and recall it

Memory

Memory makes you smarter and its been removed from public/private curriculum.

We are making fools of ourselves by not using memory.

 

*A child is a soul that contemplates as it receives.

*Recollection is faithfulness

 

3 Contemplation

Recalling and comparing

Comparing is a gift from God.

It is: acceptance, adoration, a gazing

 

4 Conceptualization

The fruit of contemplation

Our souls are then changes

Formation transforms us from within.

When truth enters our souls we are transformed.

 

5 Represent {re-present}

When truth is formed this can happen.

 

*Train these five faculties to become good at anything.

*We love memory. We feed on these things. This is what learning is.

*Blessed learning begets enchantment.

Reading Great Books {Notes}

*A great book has a form/analogies that embody truth.

*Every culture has great folktales and myths.

*Avoid the formless and the void.

~Creation is making forms and filling them. Avoid informal, non-imaginative, and relevant books.

*Read aloud, narrations, copy, memorize, and discuss.

*Read attentively

*By reading great books you are ordering the mind to think.

 

*Image from Google Images