Norms and Nobility Book Club

Okay. I think I’ve made a decision. I really don’t want to restrict myself to a real-life book club. What I mean is, I can already tell I’m going to want to blog my way through this book. I am slowly feasting on the prologue, and it is as satisfying to read as Poetic Knowledge. Every family I’ve met {in real life or through blogs and articles} that seems to understand the classical model of education–not just its practices, but its principles–tends to reference this book. Couple that with my commitment to read at least one book on educational philosophy and practice each year, and it was a match made in heaven.

So here she is, folks:

Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education
by David V. Hicks

I apologize for the fact that this book is priced more like a college textbook than a nice little paperback. My hunch is that it is a college textbook, since my copy is a beautiful hardback that used to sit on the shelves of the Cubberley Education Library at Stanford University. I got it at least ten dollars cheaper than the list price, by the way.

And apparently the folks at Stanford rarely opened the book because it’s about twenty years old, but in pristine condition.

Anyhow, here is what I’m dreaming up. I’m not yet sure of the pace. I need to go through the book a bit more to find out what would be appropriate. My goal is not to race through a bunch of books this summer but to spend the entire summer marinating in one really good book.

With that said, I will still try to have my in-person book club beginning after the conclusion of Term Three, which means sometime in June. However, I’m going to say now that if I don’t have at least four or five women committed, I’m probably not going to do it. My purpose is to discuss with a variety of perspectives and possible applications. However, if you are local and there are only two of us we will meet at least once.

Whatever the pace of the book club in real life is, that’ll be the pace on the blog. I’ll try to master the use of a Mr. Linky widget so that everyone can link their posts. If you do not have a blog, but wish to participate, let me know and I am more than willing to post your thoughts here on Afterthoughts. I’ll just call you a guest blogger or something. Alternately, you could just participate in the comments, if that is more your style. Or, you could start a blog for the purpose of participating in book clubs like this.

I was going to write more about the actual book, but I will save that for my next post as I’m running out of time. We have a cramped schedule today.