Introduction to Classical Education: Its History and Definition
June 16 to July 14
Tutor: Martin Cothran
A five-week summer seminar course designed to assist students in addressing several fundamental questions: What is classical education? Where does classical education fit in the history of education? What has been the fate of classical education in modern America? Why should Christians read the pagan classics? What is the true relationship between Athens and Jerusalem? What are the arguments against classical education and how are they best answered? The course will consist of readings from the great modern works on education, covering the history and definition of classical education and how it can best be revived in our time. This course is open to non-degree students but is eligible for 1.5 credit hours for master’s or certificate students.
Format: Live classes held online
Class Times: Mondays from 6 to 8 p.m. EDT and Tuesdays 4 to 6 p.m. EDT. Students may attend either time.
Who may enroll? Open to public.
Credit: 1.5 credit hours available upon successful application for master’s degree or certificate.
Readings:
For Credit Students: Selection of texts from the book list below, short reading summaries, a paper, and a collaborative discussion forum.
Non-Credit Students: A Defense of Latin and Classical Education and other assigned weekly readings that will be supplied to students.
Book List for Master’s Students:
- The Trivium by Sister Miriam Joseph
- Educational Wastelands by Arthur Bestor (used)
- Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe by Jeffrey Hart (used/Kindle)
- The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton
- Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture by Werner Jaeger (used)–Note that this is a three volume set and the needed volume is volume 1–not 2 or 3.
- From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics by Louis Markos
- A Defense of Classical Education by R. W. Livingstone (Text is available free in several formats including pdf here. There are reprints also for purchase at Amazon.)
If you cannot find a used book on the link listed above, it can still be found by searching the following sites, all of which can search multiple bookstore databases for the book you need:
You may also be able to find the book on Ebay.
The Practice of Classical Pedagogy
July 21 to August 18
Tutor: Martin Cothran
This five-week summer seminar course will offer an overview of teaching through the classics. Participants will be guided through a selection of readings covering the three modes of teaching, their origins in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, and their modern manifestation in Mortimer Adler’s “Three Columns” (didactic teaching, coaching, and Socratic teaching). Students will also learn the best method for teaching reading, mathematics, and penmanship, the classical languages, and the trivium subjects of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, as well as the proper teaching of the humanities and the natural sciences. Participants will gain a basic knowledge of important pedagogical debates such as the content/process debate, the phonics/whole language debate, the competing strategies of reading instruction, and issues in the debate between traditional education and progressivism. Popular contemporary pedagogies will be critically analyzed with specific attention to “whole word” reading and “new math.”
Format: Live classes held online
Class Times: Mondays from 6 to 8 p.m. EDT and Tuesdays 4 to 6 p.m. EDT. Students may attend either time.
Who may enroll? Open to public.
Credit: 1.5 credit hours available upon successful application for master’s degree or certificate.
Assignments:
Selection of texts from the course reading list, short reading summaries, a paper, and collaborative discussion forum.
Non-Credit Students: A Defense of Latin and Classical Education and other assigned weekly readings that will be supplied to students.
Book List for Master’s Students:
- Rhetoric by Aristotle (selections)
- Why Knowledge Matters by E. D. Hirsch, Jr. (Selections)
- The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them by E. D. Hirsch, Jr.
- Why Johnny Can’t Read by Rudolf Flesch
- Why Johnny Can’t Add: The Failure of the New Math, by Morris Kline (free online)
- How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler
- Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning by Jacques Barzun
If you cannot find a used book on the link listed above, it can still be found by searching the following sites, all of which can search multiple bookstore databases for the book you need:
You may also be able to find the book on Ebay.