Coming soon will be a full educational training program designed for educators or families who would like to begin using Catholic Natural Education as the way and content for forming the hearts and minds of children. This platform has been designed from and continues to be modified from the rich depths of the Catholic Intellectual […]
Why follow the child and not a schedule
Many of us can not resist putting the important things in life on a schedule. And this includes the education of a child. Now the more material something is, meaning that it is more limited to its activity in terms of space and time, the more one can figure out its schemes of recurrence, and […]
Neural Demand Functions and Concentration
David Fleischacker, Ph.D. I take the term “neural demand functions” from Bernard Lonergan’s book on insight (Insight: A Study of Human Understanding). Lonergan was reworking Freud’s psychic censor into a more explanatory framework within intentionality analysis. Neural demands are those neural activities that break into motor-sensory-affective consciousness. Both higher animals and human beings share this […]
Natural Concentration: Sustained wonder
Concentration in a child is amazing to observe. Most of the world thinks that children cannot concentrate on anything but video games. But in reality, concentration is quite natural and necessary for proper human development. And the view that children cannot concentrate is rising to new heights because of the way we are using digital […]
Moving Beyond Nietzsche
Philia de Humanitas Friedrich Nietzsche is quoted by many as the father of relativism. I do not want to get into an argument about whether that is true, since I think that the fatherhood of relativism goes a bit further back in history. My purpose for invoking his name is simply to highlight how traditional […]
Following the imagination of 4-5 year old boys
I have notice a fact for a long time but only recently given it the attention that it deserves. Many boys around the age of 4 or 5, though arguably they start earlier, have a deep inner need to roam and explore a larger world of immediacy. They want to not only find things, but […]
The Invitation to the Soul
Intrinsic to the very essence of each child is an invitation that comes from the universe. It is an invitation that was first planted in the fabric of everything that exists by the sower. That invitation is to become true and good. This is a fact. And it is at the heart of any authentic […]
More on Substance
Philia de Humanitas As I continue to hear more about how young people can no longer objectively distinguish between virtual worlds and reality, or at least do not have a significant apprehension of import of the real world as opposed to the virtual world, I thought I should say a bit more about substance. By […]
Developing New Materials for Discovering Substance
by David Fleischacker One of the areas that children naturally discover is that of substances or unities. A substance–to use an ancient definition–is that to which one predicates properties and experiences. It is that identity or unity to which belong colors and shapes, or that which is involved in activity and change. With the advent […]
Off for August
FYI — I will not be posting blogs during August, 2017.