Shortly before he died at age 75, Roger Scruton, the British philosopher and social critic, reflected on his music education as a child in this way: “Some sixty years ago I was introduced to classical music by teachers who did...

Twice a Week the Winter Thorough by A. E. Housman Twice a week the winter thoroughHere stood I to keep the goal:Football then was fighting sorrowFor the young man’s soul. Now in Maytime to the wicketOut I march with bat...

Music is not just for concert halls and car radios.  Don’t always look for your songs on iTunes.  Like the mysteries of mathematics or the beauty of color, music is written into creation. A Minor Bird, by Robert Frost I...

Some of you don’t like to sing or make music.  You’re quiet during our morning assembly song and in music class you do the minimum required.  That may be because you’re grumpy and don’t feel like participating.  Or it may...

The great composer Georg Frideric Handel once said, “I should be sorry if I only entertained them.  I wish to make them better.”  The purpose of his music was not pleasure; it was virtue—the elevation of the soul. But how...

How should we think of physical education in the light of eternity?  After all, why spend time exercising our bodies, when no matter how fit we are, we’ll all grow old and weak and frail one day.  Shouldn’t we focus...

Do you ever have trouble getting motivated in PE?  Do you think that the running and stretching and jumping and throwing are for the athletes, but not for you?  Or are you an athlete, and think that you need only...

Physical education is not just about training your body.  It is also about forming your character. Remember during the Greek games last semester when Kiertan did the wall sit for 12 straight minutes?  By the end of it, her legs...

This week, we will consider the purpose and importance of physical education. It may be tempting to think of the academic pursuits—math, science, literature, etc.—as the real purpose of school, with “gym class” a fun little add-on.  That is how...

Mortimer Adler observed that “[w]hat binds the authors together in an intellectual community is the great conversation in which they are engaged. In the works that come later in the sequence of years, we find authors listening to what their...