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Intelligent Desire

What young people need are compelling visions of who they are, where they, what is worth believing, what is worth admiring, and what is worth choosing. They need an education in desire. . . . → Read More: Intelligent Desire

Comments are closed   Desire, Explore, Metaphor, Narrative Environment, Schools, Transcendence, What is worth admiring?, What is worth believing?, What is worth choosing?

Teaching ignobility

It’s harder for teachers now than it once was to get students to consider what Odysseus turns his back upon and what he opens his heart toward. The classics teacher has always faced the intellectual docility of youth, but the work of revealing and naming the ideals that formed this civilization was once backed . . . → Read More: Teaching ignobility

Comments are closed   Character, Community-Centered, Desire, Family, Governance, Schools, Transcendence, What is worth choosing?   , , ,  

The enchanted cave

Calypso’s island is a familiar place to most people. Many of us reached some island of relative peace and pleasure, compared to other places we’ve experienced. It isn’t what we set out for, but it’s better than it might have been, and who knows if there can be any more? One could settle. . . . → Read More: The enchanted cave, part 1

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Truth and its envious imitators

I think an important question for teachers today is why intellectuals from the mid-twentieth century on have labored so hard to mystify and problematize truth. It’s a real question and I think there are true answers that are worth understanding. The answers are not immediately obvious though to those who have been subjected to years of ideological indoctrination. . . . → Read More: Truth and its envious imitators

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Teaching amid time, change and the invisible world

The most powerful education is not driven by markets or election cycles. Instead, it aims passing on cultural knowledge that has taken centuries to build and that will remain useful even after our business partners change and our transportation systems are re-invented. It’s okay that cultural mores and institutional practices change more slowly than markets. That’s their job. “Don’t hurry,” should be the motto inscribed over every schoolroom door. But also, “Don’t stop. Don’t waste time.” Schools should primarily be caretakers of the slow knowledge we call wisdom. . . . → Read More: Teaching amid time, change and the invisible world

Comments are closed   Ask, Community-Centered, Desire, Essential Questions, Family, Governance, Narrative Environment, Transcendence, What is worth believing?   , ,  

I could not have imagined this

Young people, and not only they, “have studied and practiced a crippled eros that can no longer take wing, and does not contain within it the longing for eternity and the divination of one’s relatedness to being.” This eroticism is sated, sterile, lame, and “is not the divine madness that Socrates praised.” . . . → Read More: I could not have imagined this

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The truth about dragons

The primary mission of dragons is simply to keep people from the truth, particularly those truths that lead most directly and surely to joy. This is mainly because dragons are not themselves happy, having once hoped joy could be theirs as an entitlement rather than as what it always has been and always will be–a complex balance requiring constant care. So now they wander the dark regions, trying to vindicate themselves by blocking the way of others to rather simple moments that unaccountably add up to eternity. . . . → Read More: The truth about dragons

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