Narrative Environment « TeacherLore

Why deconstruction is a fool's game

That way of knowing, he knows, can slip into the sophisticated form of ignorance common among lawyers. We can glimpse it in the story told about a lawyer riding through the country with a friend. They pass a herd of Holsteins. “Look at the spotted cows,” the friend comments. The lawyer looks. “Yes, ” he says. “They appear to be. On this side, at least.” . . . → Read More: Why deconstruction is a fool’s game

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

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

On "reading" the great books

In a Marxist reading of Hamlet, the good prince’s spiritual awakening is invisible, and in a Freudian reading, the urgency of his advice to the queen is lost in psychosexual musings. . . . → Read More: On “reading” the great books

The culture of public schools

Rather than our schools acting in the light of the best of our cultural and intellectual heritage, the schools themselves have been transformed into purveyers of pop culture. Pop psychology, cable news journalism, politically correct posturing, junk science and low-grade social activism provide the basis of much of the discourse in the hallways, the classrooms, and the board room. . . . → Read More: The culture of public schools

Could we restore a liberal education?

As we neglect the importance of the soul, our language becomes “more abstract and technical, using words like input when what is really meant is opinion. Language becomes less attuned to the personal longings of the being who loves, dies, and is open to truth about all things.” Without steady replenishment from the ancient writers, who were “all about the soul,” we become a people among whom “poetry, and philosophy will lose ground.” . . . → Read More: Could we restore a liberal education?

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

Losing the story

The longing for a sense of place is a longing for the cosmos at the scale of home. It’s a longing for meaning and connections that prove that we are alive and that we matter. It’s a powerful longing. It leads people to crave drugs, to join gangs, to get pregnant, to prepare speeches and workshops. . . . . . → Read More: Losing the story

Toward a New Story for Schooling

Any community that gathers and preserves its own stories is contributing, in the most fundamental way possible, to the world’s educational value, and students are learning how the world works, how things come into existence and how they pass away. The sense of historical inevitability so common in textbooks–that things turned out as they had to or as they were supposed to–is replaced by an understanding of the freedom of characters to act and react. They learn better how much our destiny is in our hands, which is, after all, why education matters. . . . → Read More: Toward a New Story for Schooling

Robert E. Lee on honesty

If you have any fault to find with any one, tell him, not others, of what you complain; there is no more dangerous experiment than that of undertaking to be one thing before a man’s face and another behind his back. We should live, act, and say nothing to the injury of any one. It is not only best as a matter of principle, but it is the path to peace and honor. . . . → Read More: Robert E. Lee on honesty: a companion text to Machiavelli

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