Applying for several positions to teach high school history for the next school year has led me to ask the question of what students should be learning. Anyone can stand up there and read off of a slide and get paid for it. I know that there is a way to make students interested in the content even if they don’t find it interesting. I tend to advocate a kind of perennialism, sometimes called a “Great Books” curriculum. In the college setting as I’m sure many of us know, myself included, this kind of curriculum is frowned upon if not openly attacked. You can teach about Plato, Sophocles, Marx, Shakespeare, and Dostoyevsky in an intellectually honest manner. You can teach the Bible or teach American State Papers (i.e. Declaration, Constitution, Bill of Rights, Federalist no. 10) in an intellectually honest manner. You can teach the driving factors behind Greco-Roman society and Ancient Chinese society in an intellectually honest manner. All of these things to some people may seem contrarian but they reveal what Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins called the Great Conversation, a discussion of various ideas. These are, of course, just my thoughts. I just feel that teaching be it at the secondary level or college level is becoming way too politically charged. — Dermot Griffin
I’ll keep your words in mind. You make a good point. I work for the public school system already and thankfully the school I’m at currently is vocational; respectful students that seem somewhat engaged in the work. The emphasis however is on getting them set with a career after they graduate. — Dermot Griffin
I’ll definitely keep this as advice for the future! What subject(s) did you teach? — Dermot Griffin
I totally agree. There's always a way. This point is more important even than what it sounds! I mean, one cannot stress it enough. This has been my answer to discussions about "education" I participated in.I know that there is a way to make students interested in the content even if they don’t find it interesting — Dermot Griffin
Applying for several positions to teach high school history ... I tend to advocate a kind of perennialism, sometimes called a “Great Books” curriculum. .... These are, of course, just my thoughts. I just feel that teaching be it at the secondary level or college level is becoming way too politically charged. — Dermot Griffin
I suppose it is true, that women need love. Do you think that men and women have the same needs? — chiknsld
I wonder if the era of the Great Conversation has ended and amounts to anachronistic liberalism in our postmodern, tradition hating culture? — Tom Storm
I'm sure the hardest thing to do these days is engage students. Better they watch a TV show and explore its themes and characters with interest than stare hatefully and blankly at a page of Shakespeare before zoning out. — Tom Storm
It is the liberal tradition that has led to the hatred of tradition - "dead white guys". Individualism, autonomy, and equality have led to the idea that no one has greater moral or intellectual authority then I do. — Fooloso4
Anyone can stand up there and read off of a slide and get paid for it. — Dermot Griffin
Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen? — F.N.
:sweat: :up:Students should learn this: How not to fuck up?
If that's not possible, then this: How not to fuck up the fuck up? — Agent Smith
:100:Your aim as a teacher ought be to render yourself unnecessary, by enabling your charges to make their way by themselves. — Banno
Do you see a solution to this, or does it belong to the culture wars and the general malaise in Western culture? — Tom Storm
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