"Classical Education" Not All It's Cracked Up To Be?

3/8/2012

1 Comment

 
Hey guys, just came across this lengthy article (more like an essay, really) that picks apart the small but growing "Classical Education" movement, including the Great Books movement. I thought it was pretty interesting, and most of her criticisms are valid, I think, although I don't agree with everything she says. Note that her critiques of "classical education," and especially of the Great Books curriculum, only seems to apply to grade school; she doesn't talk about high school and beyond, so I think that in high school and definitely in college, a Great Books education is still one of the best educations around. Also note that she is a libertarian who explicitly bases her educational philosophy on Ayn Rand's philosophy, although this philosophy in turn is based on Aristotle.

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2007-summer/false-promise-classical-education.asp

-Joey
1 Comment
Adam F.
3/20/2012 12:34:10 pm

Very interesting. I didn’t get the chance to finish the entire essay, but I think I get the general idea. I assume that she would also support the privatization of education. While I am opposed to that idea, I do think that more private schools would be a good thing.

I definitely favor a ‘scientific’ education over a ‘progressive’ education, but I think that a classical education, combined with historically oriented scientific education, is superior to both of those. I do not support Great Books curriculums in grade schools, except perhaps as electives in high school. Without the right combination of academic preparation, genuine motivation, and God-given intelligence, it is difficult to see how most students would benefit from a Great Books curriculum at that level. As we know, these books are extremely difficult to penetrate, and certainly cannot be understood by most high school and college students. Do you think that the average student would benefit from reading Aristotle’s Metaphyics? I really don’t think so. Aristotle himself would have likely agreed (“the books that come after ta phusika”).

Some would say, and I happen to be sympathetic to this view, that a more fruitful approach would be to focus on fewer works and read them in their original languages. The remaining gaps can be learned from an encyclopedia, I suppose.

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