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Orientation in Classical Education: Foundations, History & Effective Teaching

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  1. INTRODUCTION TO CLASSICAL EDUCATION

    Lecture 1: A Clear Definition of Classical Education
    5 Topics
    |
    1 Quiz
  2. Lecture 2: Clear Words for Classical Education
    4 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  3. Lecture 3: To What Shall I Compare Classical Education?
    3 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  4. Lecture 4: Various Models of Classical Education
    2 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  5. Lecture 5: The Major Elements of Classical Education
    3 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  6. Lecture 6: Tracing the History of Classical Education (part one)
    4 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  7. Lecture 7: Why Classical Education?
    4 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  8. Lecture 8: Communal Education (Paideia)
    4 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  9. Lecture 9: Implementing Classical Education
    5 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  10. A BRIEF HISTORY OF CLASSICAL EDUCATION
    Lecture 10: Classical and Medieval Ideas of Leisure and Learning
    3 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  11. Lecture 11: The History of American Education
    4 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  12. Lecture 12: Education in the Medieval World
    4 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  13. Lecture 13: The History of Ancient Education
    3 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  14. ESSENTIALS OF EFFECTIVE TEACHING
    Lecture 14: Foundational Principles
    4 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  15. Lecture 15: Aiming at Human Flourishing
    4 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  16. Lecture 16: Meaningful Planning
    4 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  17. Lecture 17: Meaningful Assignments
    4 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  18. Lecture 18: Meaningful Assessments
    4 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  19. Lecture 19: Meaningful and Effective Classrooms
    4 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  20. THE SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS
    Lecture 20: The Seven Liberating Arts
    3 Topics
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    1 Quiz
  21. Lecture 21: The History of the Seven Liberal Arts
    3 Topics
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    1 Quiz
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“Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them…. In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but the Facts!” –Mr. Thomas Gradgrind

In the opening scene of Charles Dickens’s novel Hard Times, the machine-like Mr. Thomas Gradgrind gives a passionate explanation of his philosophy of education. Gradgrind sees students as merely empty depositories to be mechanically filled with “Facts.” This is made strikingly clear both by Dickens’s brilliant use of language and when a new student comes to class one day. She has grown up with horses her whole life and knows horses intimately, but is chastised for not being able to give a textbook-style definition of a horse. Though obviously dramatic, this type of focus on facts and trivia is strikingly similar to the modern culture of standardized testing. Students are asked to mechanically learn certain facts to be assessed and graded by a machine. This sort of assessment does not allow for the nuance to determine if a student is learning to love the right things. Likely, clear corrections will never be provided, so it truly is merely a way to dump facts into the depository in hopes they will stick. The growth of the person is not demonstrated to be valuable. Though, as Robyn Burlew points out, a deeper assessment is often more crude and less objective, it can get closer to testing the things that a classical education seeks to instill in students.

“From the heron flying home at dusk,
from the misty hollows at sunrise,
from the stories told at the row’s end,
they are calling the mind into exile
in the dry circuits of machines.”

— Wendell Berry, Sabbath Poems 1990, II