Dr. Perrin, I throughly enjoyed this article. (And found the full text of Basil the Great to dig into his ideas for myself. Thank you!) I’m a homeschool mother with seven children. I seek to give them a classical education and am constantly being reminded of my own inadequacies for the task at hand. One thing I run into constantly is how many ways I see the world through utilitarian and pragmatic ends - even though I know that is not the aim I “ought” to have. I see it more as peeling off the dragon skins layer by layer to reveal the real man (or woman) inside. And, I can only imagine a teacher in a school setting must have this pressure even more so. This is why I love reading the ancients to help me along the path. Thanks for bringing Basil to the front. We need to be reformed, reshaped and renewed as we seek to educate children and redeem what’s been lost in our culture. It’s good work and I’m thankful for encouragement from other teachers who dip into the past and bring these good ideas forward!
I think the best way to answer your question is to write another article... which I will do. But here is sketch: 1) we have to model wonder and lead students into wonder. When students experience wonder they (for a moment) forget their daily routines and drudge and feel the most human. They experience a combination of astonishment and ignorance at the same time, along with a hunger to know. "What!? That stick is moving? That stick is a bug? Can such a think exist? Why does it exist? How could it evolve this way? Or was it designed?" 2) we have to show them the relationship of wonder and contemplation to true, real innovation. Steve Jobs loved beauty and art (calligraphy was his favorite class) before computing; Mark Zuckerberg loved Greek and Greek philosophy in college; both Jobs and Zuckerberg (and Gates!) all dropped out of college. Yes, they were good at computing, but they were captivated by several other "useless" arts. I recommend two books that establish this relationship: The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner and Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, by David Epstein. It is the human who is trained by the liberal arts who is the most liberated to do... anything. Students can acquire a practical skill--fine, but they will not be free (or nearly as free) to easily do something else. Those who have been liberally trained have learned to learn and can more easily adapt to various vocations, quickly learning as they go. They also bring a deep and broad perspective to any work that makes them innovative and creative... and better. This is Epstein's point, in particular.
Last year, with a group of ninth graders, I did a short Socratic dialogue about why they should do this thing called "school." It took the blink of an eye for any other justifications to collapse into a familiar pattern: get into a good college, in order to get a high-paying job, in order to make plenty of money. "And when will you get around to living a rich, fulfilling life, doing things that are good for their own sake?" Silence. "Maybe after I retire?" I teach at a K12 prep school, and it's pretty deeply ingrained by the time they get to me.
Dr. Perrin, I throughly enjoyed this article. (And found the full text of Basil the Great to dig into his ideas for myself. Thank you!) I’m a homeschool mother with seven children. I seek to give them a classical education and am constantly being reminded of my own inadequacies for the task at hand. One thing I run into constantly is how many ways I see the world through utilitarian and pragmatic ends - even though I know that is not the aim I “ought” to have. I see it more as peeling off the dragon skins layer by layer to reveal the real man (or woman) inside. And, I can only imagine a teacher in a school setting must have this pressure even more so. This is why I love reading the ancients to help me along the path. Thanks for bringing Basil to the front. We need to be reformed, reshaped and renewed as we seek to educate children and redeem what’s been lost in our culture. It’s good work and I’m thankful for encouragement from other teachers who dip into the past and bring these good ideas forward!
Brad, thanks for this comment.
I think the best way to answer your question is to write another article... which I will do. But here is sketch: 1) we have to model wonder and lead students into wonder. When students experience wonder they (for a moment) forget their daily routines and drudge and feel the most human. They experience a combination of astonishment and ignorance at the same time, along with a hunger to know. "What!? That stick is moving? That stick is a bug? Can such a think exist? Why does it exist? How could it evolve this way? Or was it designed?" 2) we have to show them the relationship of wonder and contemplation to true, real innovation. Steve Jobs loved beauty and art (calligraphy was his favorite class) before computing; Mark Zuckerberg loved Greek and Greek philosophy in college; both Jobs and Zuckerberg (and Gates!) all dropped out of college. Yes, they were good at computing, but they were captivated by several other "useless" arts. I recommend two books that establish this relationship: The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner and Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, by David Epstein. It is the human who is trained by the liberal arts who is the most liberated to do... anything. Students can acquire a practical skill--fine, but they will not be free (or nearly as free) to easily do something else. Those who have been liberally trained have learned to learn and can more easily adapt to various vocations, quickly learning as they go. They also bring a deep and broad perspective to any work that makes them innovative and creative... and better. This is Epstein's point, in particular.
Last year, with a group of ninth graders, I did a short Socratic dialogue about why they should do this thing called "school." It took the blink of an eye for any other justifications to collapse into a familiar pattern: get into a good college, in order to get a high-paying job, in order to make plenty of money. "And when will you get around to living a rich, fulfilling life, doing things that are good for their own sake?" Silence. "Maybe after I retire?" I teach at a K12 prep school, and it's pretty deeply ingrained by the time they get to me.