Spring is the perfect time to turn over a new leaf. March has arrived and we are armed and ready with brand new spring Mother Culture Habit Tracker and a whole collection of coordinating reading trackers for your students, plus blank habit trackers so you can track a lot more than your reading. Here’s a sampling:
Get Your Mother Culture Habit Tracker Now!
What are we tracking?
I like to remind you each time: What exactly are we tracking with these Mother Culture Habit Trackers? Since we can’t track nebulous things like “personal growth” or “feeding the soul with ideas,” we choose instead to track habits that lead to these sorts of ends. We define Mother Culture here according to the original article in The Parents’ Review: 30 minutes per day of reading. Maintain a stack of books (at least one of each) in three categories: stiff, moderately easy, and novel. When it’s time to read, pick up the book you feel fit for.
It’s that simple!
Need book ideas? Here is a recommendation for each category to get you started:
Stiff Book:
Romans Roads Press was kind enough to send me a review copy of Brent Pinkall’s book Redeeming the Six Arts before we interviewed him for Scholé Sisters and wow is all I can say! I am in love with this book. The history of education in ancient China was absolutely fascinating and I marveled again and again at how familiar the Eastern tradition seemed. East and West have far more in common than our current classical philosophy has with secular modernism!
Moderately Easy Book:
Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit is a fairly easy read but it can pack a powerful punch for those of us who think of our own character as a collection of habits that we ought to continually improve. We often end up at the question of how to habit train ourselves, and this book gives some super helpful insights into what works.
Novel:
I just finished reading Stephen Lawhead’s Byzantium aloud to my teenagers and it was excellent. It was truly an epic adventure with heroes captured by pirates, sold into slavery, and losing their faith (only to find it again). I was deeply moved by the whole tale.
Spring it on, friends!
4 Comments
I LOVE Byzantium. Stephen Lawhead is one of my favorite authors. My son and I are studying the Middle Ages so I listened to it on my own. I should read it to him. I think he would enjoy it, too.
I also love Lawhead’s Song of Albion trilogy, and his Pendragon Cycle. Actually he hasn’t written anything I dislike, but those are my favorites.
Thank you! I was wondering what else I should read by him, so I am so happy to have your recommendations!
I LOVED Byzantium – I’ve read it at least 4 times in my life, after finding it on my dad’s shelf in early high school. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
It’s so good! I wish I could have had your kind of history with it — it’s a remarkable book for a teen to read.