Classical Education

In stark contrast to my previous post, the NYTimes has a great article on classical materials for education. A key sentence is this: "Wootton remains every bit as convinced of education's power to transform stunted lives. He has changed his tool of choice, however, from a mirror in which students see only reflections of themselves to a window that opens onto the rest of the world."

Indeed, the watchword of the blob (Bill Bennett's description of the educational establishment) is relevance, but what you so often get in fact is naval gazing. The subject of the piece, Kurt Wootton, understands that education isn't about adjustment, its about making sense of the way the world works. I am reminded of the elementary public school teacher I met who insisted that her school was existentialist. Uh huh. Someone wishes it were, perhaps. Existentialism is a fine frame of mind for college students, but younger people need a firm grounding in how the world works before they can begin to make sense of what it means. The classics which we are familiar with are all about how the world works. We remember Pythagorous for his explanation of who triangles work and tend to ignore his numbers-are-reality explanation of things. Of course part of the reason this is so, is that once most of the workings of the world were established, later generations would refer back to the ancients, rather than re-inventing the wheel. But to forget the foundations and to attempt education is peril, as the ancient learning has it, to attempt to build a house on a foundation of sand.

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.

Render unto all your students the learning of the Greeks, Hebrews, Egyptians, Chinese, Romans, Indians, and Babylonians. For they taught us everything we take for granted today. Such ignorance is like a blindness. Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? I'm on a parable role here. Knowledge of the ancients, whether focusing on the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, or casting your net widely, is the proper foundation of learning.

The Times writes, "Mr. Wootton, a disciple of the progressive educator Theodore Sizer, admits that it "feel strange in some ways" to have fared so well with an administration that emphasizes standardized testing and traditional pedagogy in its education policy. In part, federal officials say, ArtsLit has done well because of qualitative evidence that it has raised students' interest in reading and improved their public-speaking skills. "

As I have argued repeatedly here, standarized testing is a tool by the community to force the school back to the traditional curriculum. If you go back to it on your own, there is no reason to hold you to it with testing. The same is true with students. Students who engage with the subject out of interest need their evaluation to hone their skills, other students need the threat of evaluation to bother to make the effort. Teachers need to distinguish between the two and attempt to convert the second group into the first, but they need to make the distinction first.

The Department of Education of Rhode Island says, "This is an arts program focusing on many classic texts, which we certainly like," and "it has a rigorous evaluation in place. So we'll find out if the methodology works. And if it does, then we'll have a program we can share." What did I tell you? Teach the classics in rigorous fashion and they'll take away the high stakes.