Education and the Free Society

"Liberal education" should be about forming and equipping free persons for virtue and for creatively contributing to the common good. Yet much schooling today, wherever contemporary Western fashions have influence, differs from that ideal. This session explores how educational commitments to freedom and virtue have come to be replaced by collectivist ideas and other forms of ideological indoctrination. It will offer insights into how people of faith can work to provide better ways for children.

 

Recommended Readings

Theories of Education in Early America, 1655-1819, Wilson Smith, ed., 1973 (Bobbs-Merrill)

American Writings on Popular Education: The 19th Century, Rush Welter, ed., 1971 (Macmillan)

Education in a Free Society, Anne Husted Burleigh, ed., 1973 (Liberty Fund)

The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis, 1943 (Harper)

Left Back: A Century of Battles over School Reform, Diane Ravitch, 2001 (Simon and Schuster)

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Course Years:

2023,
2022,
2019

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