SS #2 – What’s Love Got to Do with It? (or, Ordo Amoris)
In this In today’s episode, Mystie and Brandy have a conversation about the connection between love and learning. Is it important that our students love their subjects?
Is it important that WE love the subjects we’re teaching? What do we do if we’re without love? It’s a big topic, and probably one we’ll need to come back to again and again, because it gets to the very heart of what education truly is.
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Ordo Amoris Every Day
Today’s Hosts and Source
Brandy Vencel
loves homeschooling her four children, and she also inexplicably loves her goats and turtle as well
Mystie Winckler
loves homeschooling her five children, and she also loves grammar and copious coffee.
“St Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it. Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought”
C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
Scholé Every Day: What We’re Reading
Medieval Literacy: A Compendium of Medieval Knowledge with the Guidance of C. S. Lewis, James Grote
Brandy has wanted to read this book for a while, it’s more of a reference book but she’s been reading the introduction and is finding it very interesting and helpful.
The Complete Father Brown, G.K. Chesterton
Mystie has mostly read Chesterton’s non-fiction books, but she’s been loving the Father Brown stories and how much insight and truth he packs in without being preachy.
You Can Train What You Love
Instead of only telling our kids that it doesn’t matter that they don’t like school and that they’ll have to do things they don’t like for their whole life, we should encourage them to see the good in what they’re doing. Something like math games to help show the beauty of math.
In The Abolition of Man, Lewis argues that our whole aim should be to have rightly ordered loves, or affections. The task of teaching then, is to train them in ordering their own affections.
What if Mom doesn’t love all the subjects?
If something isn’t your favorite, that you don’t know how to love, it can be helpful to dig into it a little more. Read about it, talk to people who do love it, and event if it doesn’t become your favorite you can still gain an appreciation for it.
We usually think of our emotions as something that has to spring naturally out of us to be authentic or real, when sometimes we have to do the right thing, and then our feelings follow what we do. So we can choose to do the right thing without feeling it, but we don’t want to stay in that place. Hopefully, when we do the right thing our emotions follow and we learn to love it.
Mystie Winckler, Episode 02
Ordo Amoris Takes Time
The task of loving all the subjects seems daunting, but you can pick one that you dislike to start with, and have patience with yourself and your children and you learn together how to order your loves rightly.
“Cease endlessly striving for what you would like to do and learn to love what must be done.”
Goethe
Mentioned in the Episode
- What’s Love Got to Do with It? (Brandy’s talk)
- Cindy Rollins
- Learn to Love What Must be Done (post by Mystie)
- 5 Ways to Revitalize Your Classical Homeschool by Ravi Jain
Be a part of the conversation!
Discuss this podcast with other moms inside Sistership.
Related episodes –
SS #136 – Moral Training, Moral Habits
SS #98: Ordo Amoris – Ordering the Affections
SS #75: Love Chat, Baby, Love Chat (with Karen Glass!)
SS #29: Educating for Virtue (I’m Not the Holy Spirit)
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This was another amazing episode, ladies. It is such a joy to listen to a conversation between two bright women thinking deeply about affections and the formation of souls whilst I prepared dinner. If everyone made time to listen to this episode many misconceptions about stay-at-home homeschooling moms would be shattered with no hope of repair. I’m so thankful for the opportunity to listen in on your conversations – and I’m really thankful for still more book recommendations.
PS – I’m still not receiving notifications when comments are made on this blog. I remember that was an issue previously, so I thought I’d mention it. Because clearly you guys don’t have enough on your plates to juggle and would love another mystery to solve. A la Father Brown, of course.
PPS – I bet I’m going to get follow up comments to this post simply because I wrote that it is an issue. If I do then I’ll come back and report that there isn’t an issue after all.:)
Testing testing…I’m glad you enjoyed the episode, but I’m also totally wondering if you get the notification for this…hmmm…
Fantastic episode, Ladies! I’ve really been enjoying the Schole Sisters podcasts–one of my new favorites.
The reminder of nurturing the need to “care/love/have affection” for our children’s learning is so fantastic–so easy to get lost in the daily grind, but nurturing passion in their education is so important. Mystie’s point on love as “truth” and loving truth really resonated with me. Loved the point that love of things needs to be practiced–true for both learning and relationship.
By the way, Brandy’s first pronunciation of “Goethe” was closer to the actual German pronunciation. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/goethe
Love these podcasts SO much! I swear this is so timely too. I spend quite a bit of time explaining to my sons about “School is your work and some days you will like it and some days you won’t”, and about learning about perseverance and learning to love what must be done in hopes of being able to order our loves towards God. Of course when you are a teenager it is not as easy to love or learn this at times 😉 You are right about trying to offer our dailiness to God and making it holy 🙂 I try to remember to pray my way through the day when I am doing the laundry, cleaning, schooling etc and it does make the tasks lighter. Brandy, I don’t particularly love ironing and tend to forget to try to make things fun–so don’t worry you are not alone 😉 I have been trying to find more fun connections for math and beauty to share with my boys lately too.
Thanks for sharing these ladies! Love the intro music, your lovely voices and the whole kit and kaboodle! Lovely little pick me for an ordinary day.
Yay! If we were keeping score, that would be Brandy – 1, Mystie – 0. Not that we’re keeping score. 😉
And also: I’m so glad you’re enjoying the podcast, Meg! 🙂
Ann-Marie, I love your idea about praying your way through the day. That is a beautiful thing! ♥ and also: so happy you’re enjoying the show! 🙂
I enjoyed listening to this conversation. I often feel like my kids are the only ones who don’t love all their work. I think it is sometimes portrayed in classical circles that the students always love to learn. Which leaves me feeling like my kids are the only ones who would rather watch youtube or play Roblox or go outside…and therefore, that I’m doing something wrong. So it was nice just to hear that sometimes your kids don’t love All The Work.
Also, you guys are a little cray cray about the pencil situation. I say that with all affection. But really. What’s wrong with a cup to hold pencils? Placed on the table. And done. 🙂
I laughed so hard! You’re right. It is pencil insanity! 🙂
And I think you’re in good company. My guess is that people don’t want to *admit* that kids don’t love all of it — but then again, maybe I just have inferior kids? 🙂
This was great- thank you!
Father Brown is amazing. It’s one of the only mystery series that is on the same level as Sherlock Holmes, in my opinion.
My husband speaks German and he pronounces “Goethe” as “GHER-tuh”. Fun fact, German is a bit weird but actually very beautiful when spoken, especially Goethe’s poetry.
GHER-tuh … I was just listening to someone else pronounce a German word that that the OE as ER sound … is that the usual sound? I heard German has more consisten phonetic rules than English, so I’m hoping… 🙂