If you surveyed one hundred “educators” to define education, after the initial shock, and painfully long pause of silence you would probably be given the most recent acceptable version of educationese. Some would offer a definition by way of describing outcomes, assessments, goals, objectives, torrential techniques, maddening methodologies, and pet pedagogies but, that is not [...]
Yes, it is cultures in the title, and I am proposing that a true Liberal Arts education can help us save our cultures. By cultures I am referring to the most impressive and insightful book by John W. O'Malley, The Four Cultures of the West. Couple that book with a most extraordinary article by David [...]
(This is the first part in a three part essay. See essays two and three. The American Historical Association, which once was a guild of pretentious professionals and is now a massive organization dedicated to political correctness, has had only one serious presidential election in its century and a quarter of existence. In 1945 young [...]
Several years ago (January 2004), I had the privilege of meeting Hank Edmondson at a Liberty Fund colloquium in Arizona on the thought of C.S. Lewis. Hank and I found we were kindred spirits, immediately. We’ve seen each other several times since, and we’ve maintained a correspondence since then, sometime purely out of friendship and [...]
‘Tis the season for commencements: collegiate, high school, elementary school, even kindergarten. Some are silly, some cute, some respectful, some tedious, some beautiful. On Saturday, I was blessed to attend one which, more than anything, was deeply joyful. The school was St. Augustine’s Academy in Ventura, California, which combined high school graduation with eighth grade [...]
“Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” Readers of The Imaginative Conservative must frequently be tempted to throw up their hands in despair over the state of education today. How can [...]
I really enjoyed reading the excellent essay by Brittany Baldwin on Hillsdale College and the incomparable job that it does “educating for liberty.” Through my participation in teacher seminars at the Hillsdale College Center for Teacher Excellence directed by the brilliant Dr. David Bobb, I became acquainted with the love of permanent things through rigorous [...]
An essay written by John von Heyking, entitled “Top 5 Books on Liberal Education Published in the Last 35 years” is a good read and moves one to think about the texts that he names. But are there any others? I have read and am familiar with 4 of the 5 named books: I am looking [...]
Readers of The Imaginative Conservative might be interested in a few pieces floating around the internet this morning. Jim Otteson offers—rather naturally—an excellent critique of the new college rankings as decreed by Forbes. His article can be found at Pileus. The New York Times has a fascinating piece on Danish "austerity" measures. The Danish government has [...]
Dorothy Sayers As I had mentioned in a previous essay, I’m heading to Indianapolis this weekend for a conference on the meaning of liberty and education. One of the finest books I’ve come across in preparation for this colloquium is Liberty Funds on 1973 book, Education in a Free Society. The book concludes [...]
As I prepare for a forthcoming Liberty Fund colloquium, celebrating the venerable institution’s 50th anniversary, I’ve had the honor of reading an article on higher education by Russell Kirk–a piece I had never come across before. Entitled “The Revitalized College: A Model,” Kirk outlined his ideal college. As he always does, beginning with first principles, [...]
Russell Kirk Having spent the last eighteen years working with educators I am often surprised that there is little awareness of the Progressive roots of modern public education. In this essay Dr. Kirk makes the point that educationists, drawing from progressive theories and the psychology of Freud, created a system which they felt [...]