Episode 73: How to Increase Your Child’s Attention Span with Andrew Kern

Summary

What should your child’s classical education look like in the modern world? In this episode, Robert talks with Andrew Kern, founder and president of the CiRCE Institute, co-author of The Lost Tools of Writing, and one of the leading figures in the classical education movement. Here, Andrew identifies why the true purpose of classical education is to cultivate wisdom and virtue through the nourishment of students’ souls. Throughout this packed conversation, expect to learn where government-funded education in America first went wrong, why training your child to fight against distraction is crucial to their spiritual and intellectual development, how to become better at any skill such as writing, how to actually get your child to pay attention, why students still need to practice the lost tools of learning in an AI-driven world, and why the terms “artificial intelligence” and “virtual reality” are not only misleading but, in fact, don’t really mean anything at all.

Resources

• Episode 68: Christian Humanism: Not What You Think! with Scott Postma | Refining Rhetoric
• Reading Between the Lines: A Christian Guide to Literature by Gene Edwards Veith Jr. | Amazon
• Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning by Douglas Wilson | Amazon
• The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers | Amazon
• The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis | Classical Conversations Books
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis | Classical Conversations Books
• Aesop’s Fables Hardcover: The Classic Edition by Aesop and Charles Santore | Amazon
• J. R. R. Tolkien 4-Book Boxed Set: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien | Amazon
• The Republic by Plato | Amazon
• Confessions by Saint Augustine | Amazon
• Poetic Knowledge: The Recovery of Education by James S. Taylor | Amazon
• “Attention and The Enlargement of the Heart and Mind” by Andrew Kern | CiRCE Institute
• Evelyn Waugh | Wikipedia
• George Orwell | Wikipedia
• CiRCE Institute
• Contact CiRCE: info@circeinstitute.org
• Articles | CiRCE Institute
• Podcasts | CiRCE Institute

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