Educating Maria by Dr. Matthew Walz

Educating aria

by Dr. Matthew Walz

Ihave long been a devotee of classical education. For over a dozen years I've been teaching at a Catholic university dedicated to liberal education. Previously I taught at a college with an integrated Great Books curriculum. For two decades I've helped conduct seminars introducing teachers to the riches of liberal education. Moreover, both my wife and I experienced the transformative power of liberal education as students ourselves, an experience that has profoundly shaped the way we raise our children. We were blessed by our education, and we have always felt obliged to ensure that our children be blessed similarly.

Then came our seventh child, Maria, who has Down syndrome. Like most parents who have a child with special needs, we were thankful but also shocked at her arrival. Life became busier at first—appointments with specialists, extra medical tests, and so on. When things eventually settled down, we couldn't help deliberating—worrying?—about Maria's future. How different would she be from our other children? Could she be enriched by a classical education? Could she benefit from an education that seems so challenging, so dependent on memory and self-discipline, so deeply oriented toward an intellectual life marked by wonder and contemplation? We feared there were reasons to think not, but experience has proven otherwise—though it has not been without challenges and adjustments to our thinking. Educating Maria has enabled us to recognize more deeply both the potentiality of classical education and Maria's own potentialities as a child with Down syndrome.

Classical education is sometimes maligned as elitist. Yes, in the ancient world liberal education was available chiefly to those with the free time and wealth to engage in such studies. In the Christian age, though, especially with the advent of religious life, liberal studies became more widely available to people from different social classes. And in a more democratic age like ours, especially in a society open to educational innovation and homeschooling, classical education is accessible to almost any and all who desire it, especially when technology makes resources readily available. This reveals what was always true about classical education: It is meant for any and all who are willing and able to engage in it.

Classical education turns out to be very customizable—to local communities, to individual families, and even to individuals with varying cognitive abilities. Indeed, our experience with Maria has helped us see just how "participate-able" classical education is. To be sure, classical education often presents itself—and rightly so—as marked by a determinate order of studies keyed to intellectual maturation, as informed by distinctions among arts and disciplines, and as exemplified in a canon of works containing the great intellectual achievements of the past. Yet all this well-thought-out complexity, all the deep-seated wisdom found in classical education, amounts to a vast treasury with dividends that can be bestowed differently and in varying amounts to those who invest themselves in it. Classical education, therefore, now strikes my wife and me as much more like a common good than a private one, i.e., as a good that is in nowise diminished when shared and that becomes more fully itself when shared diversely by an ever-expanding variety of people, including those with special needs.

Matthew Walz, Ph.D., taught eight years at Thomas Aquinas College, and since 2008 has served as a professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Dallas. Besides Aquinas, his favorite philosophical authors include Aristotle, Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, and Pope John Paul II. Matthew and his wife Teresa have eight children who keep them busy, but also joyful and grateful to God for His manifold gifts.

So far, at least, Maria's participation in classical syndrome incline more strongly toward bodiliness education has been less cognitively focused than that of than other children do. When it comes to maturation our other children. For the latter, classical education was and sociability this has its downsides; in fact, to those illuminating and thought-provoking, even from a young unaccustomed to it, this inclination may be off-putting age. They were intrigued and inquisitive about poems when it manifests itself. This is why the ennobling of they memorized, stories they read, historical figures they Maria in and through her body has proved so crucial, encountered, natural and mathematical wonders they and we imagine this could be true of other children beheld. Maria's participation, by contrast, has been more with Down syndrome. Now, the positive side to Maria's holistic, more communal. She has been ennobled by the inclination toward bodiliness is that she lives in her struggle, and we've seen capacities for self-discipline that body very instinctively and naturally. In so doing, she only the beautiful rigor of classical education undertaken expresses something profoundly true about the human with others seems capable of eliciting from her. Such body—namely that it exists as "the substratum of the ennobling has also taken place in our other children, of communion of persons," as John Paul II asserts. Maria course, and indeed the success of classical education deploys her body to bring people together, closer depends on this: that all students feel thus dignified. In our other children, though, this process has been mediated more by way of the intellect, whereas in Maria it Classical education gives full due to the body's is mediated more by way of her entire self, body and soul. Her essential status in our human constitution dignification has been achieved, in other words, by her being as well as its nobility as the instrument of treated as an embodied person challenged to be her best self, intellectual and spiritual activities. especially in how she carries her body and voices her thoughts in the presence of others with care, politeness, and exactitude. Classical to her and closer to each other. Maria has taught us, education has leavened Maria's embodied nature, powerfully at times, that the deepest potentiality of the thus revealing more splendidly to us the fullness of body lies in the underlying, ever-present opportunity her personhood, which permeates and yet transcends for soul to encounter and affirm soul. her physical and cognitive disabilities. The ennobling that Maria experiences through In subtle but pervasive ways, classical education classical education enables her to tap into this gives full due to the body's essential status in our potentiality more purposefully, and thus to align human constitution as well as its nobility as the her body in a more dignified manner with the instrument of intellectual and spiritual activities. affectionate—and often humorous—intentions of her

We see this in the attention given to gymnastike, the blossoming soul. By presuming the body's essential disciplined training of the body that is the initial character and its indispensability as an instrument of intimation of our rational physicality. We see it too higher activities, classical education contains within in the attention given to intentional use of the senses, itself a key anthropological truth: Our bodies are made regular encounters with nature's splendors, the for the sake of each other, made to tie us together mathematical imagination, and vicarious experiences physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually, of individuals acting freely and unpredictably in made to draw us toward communion with one another great stories, both fictional and historical. Indeed, in in truth and goodness. opposition to most modern educational theories and My wife and I still have much to learn about Maria trends, classical education strives deliberately not to and the importance of her participation in classical put asunder the spirit and flesh that God mysteriously education. What we've learned thus far, though, are joins together in every human person. essential truths about the bodily personhood of human In our minds, though, Maria's experience with beings. Indeed, in light of the technocratic and even classical education has revealed something deeper Manichaean attitudes toward the body in which our about our embodied personhood, an aspect of it upon culture is steeped, such truths ought perhaps to be which all others may ultimately be predicated. At least highlighted and explicated as we continue to reap the as my wife and I have witnessed it, children with Down fruits of the tradition of classical education. 22 Educating Maria

Scissors Books

Ages 3-5,

chronological age or skill level

$6.00 ea.

Help your child develop hand strength, ne-motor skills, and independence with one or both books in this set. In My Very First Scissors Book, the child learns to open and close his scissors to cut along thick lines which fade, grow wavy, and create shapes as the pages progress. In My Very Own Scissors Book, the activities coordinate with alphabet lessons in Simply Classical Curriculum Level C (p. 7) or may serve as a useful precursor to Simply Classical Crafts. Both books feature perforated pages and large "cutting boxes" to promote the child's success.

Simply Classical Enrichment: Level 3

chronological age or skill level $19.95

is guide helps you teach American history, poetry, music, art, and science through the Simply Classical Level 3 American History Read-Aloud set, maps, classical music selections, and art cards. Everything is scheduled for you weekly with thoughtful discussion questions, science activities, and topics for art and music appreciation that will enrich your year and expand your child's cultural, scienti c, and general knowledge.

chronological age or skill level

$9.95 ea.

(Book One or Book Two)

Simply Classical Crafts

e creative arts are an essential part of primary school education. ese activities reinforce number and letter recognition, strengthen ne-motor skills, and foster creativity and con dence. Book One contains letter crafts from Memoria Press' Jr. K Book of Crafts. Book Two contains story crafts from Memoria Press' Jr. K Book of Crafts. While the crafts in these books have been carefully chosen to promote skill growth and coordination, the most important component is delight. Enjoy each of your creations and the time spent together making them!

Language Arts

Ages 6-9, chronological age or skill level

Student $19.95 ea. Teacher $10.00

(Book 2 only)

Simply Classical Writing: Books 1 & 2

(choose from Read-Aloud or Bible Story editions) "What should I write? I don't know what to say." e so-called progressive approach leaves beginning writers ill-prepared for the art of writing. is series combines classical copybook, grammar rules, and composition into one carefully sequenced series of explicit instruction, so students can practice early writing skills with con dence. Ages 6-9, chronological age or skill level

$14.95 ea.

Simply Classical Spelling: Books 1 & 2

is series gives your struggling writer an incremental, multi-sensory approach with an oral/aural emphasis. Each week includes targeted Word Study exercises to promote linguistic awareness, cognitive exibility, and improved spelling skills. ✓ Improve auditory discrimination ✓ Increase cognitive exibility ✓ Strengthen listening skills ✓ Build spelling con dence

Simply Classical StoryTime Treasures

(Student, Teacher, Little Bear, Little Bear's Visit, Caps for Sale, & Blueberrries for Sal)

Simply Classical More StoryTime Treasures

(Student, Teacher, Billy and Blaze, The Story About Ping, Keep the Lights Burning Abbie, & Stone Soup) Ages 6-9, chronological age or skill level

$40 each set

Blossoming readers need more than practice; they need to discover the riches of a good story. With simpli ed exercises in word study, composition, and oration, these delightful guides provide a joyful introduction to children's literature. Teach essential language arts skills as your students encounter stories of tenderness, bravery, and kindness. Created especially for struggling learners or students with special needs, these adaptations of the Memoria Press originals are each subtitled "A Guide to Reading Deeply and Writing Skillfully with a Collection of Four Stories." e Teacher Guides provide sample answers modeled in complete, well-formed sentences.

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Teacher Training & Consultation

Cheryl Swope Tanya Charlton Ethan Gotcher Michelle Tefertiller

Memoria Press works with schools all over the country to assist in understanding the vision of classical education and to help implement a cohesive classical curriculum. Cheryl Swope has joined forces with the Classical Latin School Association training team to help your school start or improve education for your struggling students and students with special needs.

SimplyClassical.com

ISBN 9781547700325