About
Welcome to Beautiful Education
The essays you will find here are intended to draw a schema of what quality primary school education (for Christians) should look like today. I argue for a model of education that should inspire us to improve current pedagogical practice in our schools.
My claim is that the best form of education for our children is a ‘Socratic, adapted Classical’ education that incorporates elements from ‘Forest School pedagogy’ and ‘Play Pedagogy’. Do not worry if you do not know what these are or how they fit together. Part of my purpose is to explain these models and to show how we can blend them to create something great.
I go the long-way-around to offer my pedagogical model. I go into the philosophical questions that lay the foundations for each of my claims. I address questions like: what is the purpose of education; what role does education play in the upbringing of children and societies; who is the child and what does it mean for them to prosper; what does it mean to be free and happy; what is Socratic education (and what it is not); what special characteristics should ‘Christian Education’ have; what is Classical Education and how well can it serve our modern societies; how can Classical Education learn from other models and improve itself; who are the critics of my model and what can we learn from them. And so on…
This is a blog for people who like ideas, for people who care about educational theory, for those who want to understand Socratic education better, and for those of us who understand that education is very important for creating healthy people and communities. It is also for parents who are questioning whether their kids could be getting something better out of their schooling.
This blog is an invitation to think and enter into dialogue about the best upbringing that we can offer our children. Join me for what I hope will be an enjoyable, thought-provoking and profitable experience.
A Blog is a Conversation
Every one of us is affected by education. What people learn (and how we learn) shapes the way we think, feel and behave - both collectively and privately. If you like: the human person ‘is the result of both nature and nurture’. This is why I have always found educational theory to be interesting and important. I believe that we all should have some understanding of how we are ‘creating ourselves’ through learning.
The reason I have started writing this blog is because I do not want the ‘oh so important’ discussion about education to take place obscured by academic jargon or behind some publisher’s paywall. I want to write in such a way, and in such a format, that everyone can access it and understand it. For this reason also, I do my best to use non-specialist language, or to explain terms when it is useful to employ them. I want to involve you in this conversation. So if something does not make sense, or if you want me to dig deeper into a particular concept that intrigued you, or if you have questions, get in touch!
Fotini Hamplová spent the first 20 years of her life thinking about education. Then she spent ten years studying education from different perspectives. She holds a BA Honours in ‘Education and Society’; an MSc in ‘Ecological Economics’ and a PhD in ‘Socratic Studies’. She has written theses on Radical Environmental Education, the Value of Natural Spaces to wellbeing and learning, and on Socratic Education. She has spent the last ten years raising children and ‘correcting’ all of the views she had developed over the previous years. Fotini is Director of Academics at the Saint Andrew’s Orthodox Church School in Edinburgh, Scotland. She also curates a list of great books for children that you can find here.
Why subscribe?
Subscribe to get notifications each time I post a new essay. Subscribing also lets me know that you are interested in these topics and encourages me to write more!