Books and Letters

07/13/2026

The great books of the Western world are not simply artifacts for a museum collection. They are a long, sustained conversation, the written record of the poets and philosophers throughout the West who have discussed and debated, for nearly three millennia, the perennial questions that relate to the human condition.

The road to education lay through great books—the masterpieces of the Western tradition.

06/20/2026

Ivan Illich wrote a profound little book on this point called, Deschooling Society. Everyone should read it. https://amzn.to/4vnQFV6

🎓 EDUCATION OR CONFORMITY? 🎓

📖 Ivan Illich asks a provocative question:

👉 Can educational institutions unintentionally train people to conform rather than encourage independent thought?

📚 What he's really examining isn't learning itself.

It's institutionalization.

Illich argued that societies can become so dependent on formal systems of education that credentials, routines, and obedience begin to overshadow curiosity, creativity, and genuine understanding.

🤔 The deeper question is:

Should education primarily prepare people to fit into existing systems—or empower them to question and improve those systems?

History repeatedly shows that schools can be engines of opportunity, social mobility, and knowledge.

But philosophy asks whether they can also reinforce existing hierarchies and expectations.

Perhaps the challenge is remembering that education is more than the transfer of information.

Its purpose is not only to produce workers…

…but to cultivate thoughtful, capable, and independent human beings.

Because a healthy society does not fear curious minds.

It depends on them.

06/19/2026

As we’ve traveled Europe this month, especially in places like Florence and Basel, where one is surrounded by architecture and artifacts that are centuries, and in some cases millennia, older than our own United States of America, I’m struck by two important thoughts...

Birthplace of the Italian Renaissance

06/02/2026

A few quick shots of today’s adventures….

05/31/2026

05/31/2026

The backbone of this course is my brand new book, Becoming Classically Educated: Humane Letters on Education, Culture & the Great Conversation.

Every student in the cohort will work through this book with me, week by week, examined as a series of provocations toward, and pathways into, the Great Tradition. Most of what you read will be the essays themselves. Some weeks I will supply you with a supplementary text from one of the greats (i.e., Augustine, Lewis, Pieper, Sertillanges, etc.) to deepen the conversation. But the spine of the course is my book, and you will be the first to explore it—with the author as your guide.

Learn more in my bio.link

05/29/2026

The backbone of this course is my new book, Becoming Classically Educated: Humane Letters on Education, Culture & the Great Conversation.

Becoming Classically Educated is a collection of essays I have spent years writing, edited into a single volume by Roman Roads Press for release next month. It is the most personal argument I have ever made for what classical Christian education actually is, why it matters now, and how an ordinary adult can begin to inhabit the tradition.

See bio.link for more details

05/29/2026

The backbone of this course is my new book, Becoming Classically Educated: Humane Letters on Education, Culture & the Great Conversation.

Becoming Classically Educated is a collection of essays I have spent years writing, edited into a single volume by Roman Roads Press for release next month. It is the most personal argument I have ever made for what classical Christian education actually is, why it matters now, and how an ordinary adult can begin to inhabit the tradition.

https://open.substack.com/pub/scottpostma/p/the-course-the-structure-and-the?r=332w5&utm_medium=ios

https://scottpostma.substack.com/p/the-course-the-structure-and-the?selection=eecec9b0-fcd6-498f-b3d5-9c78db54bc6a&r=332w5&utm_medium=ios