Last week's reflection post is late because I found my tribe, as they say. I had the absolutely remarkable pleasure of attending CiRCE's Winter Regional Conference in Louisville, Kentucky. Ruben and I rode with another homeschooling mom and her son. We drove nine hours Thursday, arriving in time for the evening reception at Highlands Latin School at their Spring Meadows campus in Kentucky. It was a lovely evening, featuring hors d'oeuvres, bourbon tasting, piano music by Dr. Carol Reynolds, a school tour, and a full curricula display by Memoria Press. Participants were gifted a copy of Cheryl Swope's book, Simply Classical, A Beautiful Education for Any Child, which highly excited me since it has been on my list to read.
Friday and Saturday, the conference held an engaging array of speakers including Andrew Kern, Martin Cothran, Christopher Perrin, Carol Reynolds, and Andrew Pudewa. On Friday, there was also an afternoon breakout session with talks from Matt Bianco, Hank Reynolds, and Brian Phillips. Friday's festivities closed with an evening of Wendell Berry, novelist, poet, essayist, and farmer, reading an original story. Being a third generation farmer myself, this was a highlight for me. I'm currently working my way through one of Berry's novels, Jayber Crow.
While in Kentucky, we stayed at the historic Seelbach Hotel. The weather was fabulous with temperatures in the mid to upper 60's, which is a real treat for Wisconsinites in January.
At the conference, Ruben was fortunate enough to win the complete audio collection of the 2015 National CiRCE Conference in South Carolina so we can continue to glean knowledge of truth, beauty and goodness from CiRCE presenters for some time to come.
Overall, the CiRCE conference afforded a wealth of information and wisdom to contemplate. Many of the talks affirmed my thoughts. It felt like I found my people. I'm still processing and look forward to a chance to discuss what I learned with The Farmer while reviewing my notes. I will most likely be posting a follow-up or reflective articles in the future.
Around the Web
I didn't spend much time on the web last week given our trip to Kentucky, but a fellow homeschooling mom sent me a link to an article that I did read titled Homeschool Graduates in College ~ From the Professors’ Perspective. I love hearing success stories of homeschool graduates and beyond.
We also listened to The Classical Homeschool Podcast #4, The Homeschool as Monastery, while enroute to the conference as the subject matter was linked to Dr. Christopher Perrin's CiRCE Conference talk, The Monastery School: How Classical Education was Preserved and Extended for Almost 1,000 Years (And What We Can Learn from It). Dr. Perrin's talk was fascinating and gave me much to ponder.
Added to My Reading List
While at the CiRCE Winter Regional Conference, I purchased the books pictured below and can't wait to dive in...
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