Luther the liberator

Saw Luther tonight, and was struck by how modern, progressive teachers are in the role of the Catholic Church denying students direct access to knowledge because it will bore them, or some other variation of "they can't handle it", while Luther represents the faith that they can.

My own hostility to progressivism is rooted to the simple fact that I don't worry about the students who are unprepared for school and so find academics difficult. Everyone else is worried about them. As a contrarian, I see the bright and talented students whose school has been dumbed down, and so are performing much worse than they should. Too few teachers are concerned with excellence and the place of our bright and talented students, and the fact that given high standards, the students who lie in between these extremes are capable of the high standards. That, and it will prepare them for college.

One of the things that so disturbs me about progressivism is the sense that students who aren't prepared for school are incapable of making use of the liberal arts. Like the Cardinals from the movie they had no faith in, or feared, the liberating power of knowledge. Rather than making the effort to sell the artes liberales and then teach it, they feed their students pablum. At one point one of the cardinals argues that the scripture was too difficult for most priests, and my own view of teachers is that they are very probabaly not prepared to handle the liberal arts either. So what that leaves us with is high stakes testing to compel a liberal arts curriculum by an obstructionist teaching profession who would rather not teach much of anything.