There is a dire crisis of boredom in our modern history education. The typical history class goes like this: “The Peloponnesian War was fought by the Delian league, led by Athens, against the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta, during the years spanning 341 to 404 BC. The Delian League leveraged the sea might of Athens, while the Spartans assaulted primarily by land. Ultimately the war was won by the Peloponnesian League, marking the end of so-called Athenian empire.”
Snooze.
It’s All About People
Real history is about people, not bland facts. A 50,000 foot view of the American Civil War is grossly inadequate for…
Who better to inquire about education than a famed 16th century nobleman who inscribed excerpts of wisdom on the wooden beams of his library? Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (often called simply “Montaigne”) authored the heavily influential Essays, an outpouring of his natural philosophies, and had much to say on education. The first thing he tells us is to approach education with humility.
“…the greatest and most important difficulty of human science is the education of children.”
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
With a sobering realization of the impact that education has both individually and societally, often along with the sense that…
Read Plato, St. Augustine, Jonathan Swift, Emily Bronte, or any other classic work and you’ll notice the authors’ composition, vocabulary, and coherence in thought far surpass those possessed by the vast majority of educated people today. Even students of our best liberal arts universities don’t emerge from their studies with the ability to write, speak, and reason as well as students from the early 20th century. How did we lose our ability to think and communicate effectively?
The Decline of Speech
Many factors have contributed to our sharp decline in these skills: the adoption of pervasive public education, the takeover of technology in classrooms…
