Fighting Common Core-The Intercession of St Thomas Aquinas

Mandeville, LA – Concerned parents and teachers across the USA have been locked in a battle with the Federal Government, Bill Gates and the U.N. over “Common Core” for the last few years. At issue is whether the diabolical Dept of Education will succeed in planting yet another subversion to parental control inside public schools (as if they haven’t planted enough already). Thus far parents have presented evidence of Common Core’s ineffectiveness, outrage over the regimentation required to comply (“citizen child, you will obey your Microsoft/UN overlord citizen child!”) and the further distancing of challenging curricula giving way to memorizing formulas to match test questions. Enter the greatest teacher of the Christian era: St Thomas Aquinas.

Aquinas’ method of teaching is the antithesis to Common Core simply because it is NOT a method. Aquinas sought to place a teacher in the state of knowledge the student occupies and inspire the learning process by presenting the subject as yet unexplored. This makes the process one of not predictable (or controllable) results other than the student will have to pursue “true questioning” to robustly explore the subject so the pupil’s mind explores the subject to the fullest. Thomas’s biographer and life long promoter, Josef Pieter summarizes this method in his “Introduction to Thomas Aquinas” from 1962.

“Precisely this characterizes the teacher, it seems to me: he possesses the art of approaching his subject from the point of view of the beginner; he is able to enter into the psychological situation of one encountering a subject for the first time. There is an element in this that goes far beyond the realm of method, of didacticism, of pedagogical skill. To put it another way, in this attitude the methodological skill which can be learned is linked with something else that probably cannot ever be learned, really. A few things are clear about this factor: it is a fruit of love, of loving devotion to the learner, of loving identification of the teacher with the beginner. True learning, when all is as it should be, is more than mere acquisition of material. It is rather a growing into a spiritual reality which the learner cannot yet grasp as a purely intellectual matter. His uncritical, credulous link with the teacher nevertheless permits him to enter and take hold of this reality.”

I have compiled a neatly footnoted, divided into chapters, with table of contents version of this work as a .pdf, available to Founders Pass members here (even though I believe ALL readers will benefit from a study of St Thomas).  Non-members can view Pieper’s original unformatted text here. Calling upon the great figures in Christian history in this fight (and others) makes perfect sense when you consider that the enemy is that diabolical force that has been righteous Man’s enemy since Eden. It is the one opposition tactic He is unprepared for, so certain is He that Americans will stick to the destructive “separation of church & state” mantra He so cleverly has made the iron-clad law of the land. He must be reminded that there is another He who does not lose wars to the the deceitful one unless it serves his purpose, Deo vindice!

TheKingDude

Host of the Mike Church Show on The Veritas Radio Network's CRUSADE Channel & Founder of the Veritas Radio Network. Formerly, of Sirius/XM's Patriot channel 125. The show began in March of 2003 exclusively on Sirius and remains "the longest running radio talk show in satellite radio history".

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