Tag: history of education

The Life of the Mind, Part 1: From Proverbs to Einstein

It seems to me that we have lost sight of the significance of the human mind. Here I mean more than one’s brain, but not less than it. Humans cannot be reduced to physical neurology, but neither can they be understood apart from it. We are mind-body unities, created as embodied souls, or ensouled bodies, infused with a rich, albeit mysterious, integration of physical and spiritual realities.  Nevertheless, when I say we have lost sight of the significance of the human mind, I am not referring to the significance we ascribe to our brains. We require young children to wear

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Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 1: Traditions and Divisions

The previous two articles have paved the way both for our discussion of Aristotle’s intellectual virtue of techne, artistry or craftsmanship, as well as the intellectual virtue of phronesis, practical wisdom or prudence. In a strict sense, the analogy between artistry and morality is aside from our central argument, which consists in working out the implications of each of Aristotle’s five intellectual virtues as educational goals for school, curriculum, classroom, and pedagogy. The moral virtues are therefore outside the purview of our main purpose, even if they are organically connected to phronesis or practical wisdom. In addition, the moral virtues’

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Practicing in the Dark or the Day: Well-worn Paths or Bushwalking, Artistry and Moral Virtue Continued

In my last article we explored the analogy between Aristotle’s intellectual virtue of artistry or craftsmanship (Greek: techne) and moral virtue, taking our cue from the Nicomachean Ethics book II. Along the way we discovered the foundation for these two types of excellence in habit development or the neural networks of the brain. Excellence, according to Aristotle, comes by the type of practice or exercise that works along the lines of nature. The modern Copernican revolution of neurobiology confirms this thesis by revealing the role of myelin, a white fatty substance that is wrapped around neural circuits that fire together.

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Human Development, Part 1: What Do You Have in Mind?

A sound pedagogy requires a good understanding of anthropology (the study of human beings including our nature, our biology, our behavior and our social patterns) and of epistemology (the study of the nature of knowledge and how humans experience and acquire knowledge). One way these key areas of study (anthropology and epistemology) converge pertains to the development of children. We have a general understanding of the child as a small and vulnerable human being that undergoes tremendous transformations from birth to adulthood. Considerable philosophical, psychological and scientific work has been done to help us gain a clear understanding of the

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scientist performing experiment in laboratory

The Problem of Scientism in Conventional Education

Scientism is precisely not a focus on the importance of learning all that we can about the natural world in school. This we applaud, and classical education has a lot to tell us about how we can teach our knowledge about nature, our scientia nātūrālis as the medievals would call it, better than we currently do. Instead, scientism is the trend in the social sciences, like the field of education, to conform to the pattern of the wildly successful hard sciences by proving themselves through data and pure reason alone. If we can prove it through an experiment and logic

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STEM careers scientist in a lab lost in flow of thought

The Flow of Thought, Part 4: The Seven Liberal Arts as Mental Games

There’s a lot of talk these days about the war between STEM and the liberal arts (which we are meant to understand as the humanities generally). Often this gets posed as a trade-off between a utilitarian education—training our future engineers, scientists and programmers—vs. a soft education in human skills and cultural awareness. Given the hype for STEM, defending the value of the humanities (as Martin Luther did, for one) is an important move in the broader education dialogue. And it’s one that’s not very hard to make, when there are articles like this one on how Google was planning to

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baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in stained glass

John the Baptist as Teacher – Jesus as Learner

I’ve been exploring the life of Jesus from the vantage point of his teaching ministry in order to gain insight into methods that would inform our own pedagogy. Interestingly, this exploration took me to Jesus as learner, especially during his formative pre-ministry years as a disciple of John the Baptist. In considering John the Baptist as teacher and Jesus as learner, there are some interesting ideas worthy of consideration as philosophers of education. John the Baptist as Teacher John the Baptist lived an austere lifestyle. He adhered to asceticism, wearing garments made of camel hair and restricting his diet to

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bronze statue of Aristotle with pen

Aristotle and the Growth Mindset

Whether you’ve been involved in the world of education, sports, self-help or business, it’s likely that you’ve heard of Carol Dweck’s growth mindset. A Stanford University psychologist, Carol Dweck popularized her findings about how much success in any endeavor depends on a person’s mindset. In her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, she explains that people who believe their talents and abilities are fixed tend to lose motivation when they experience challenges or setbacks, because they fear that failure will brand them as untalented or unintelligent. On the other hand, people who believe in the development of their intellect

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Plato and Aristotle in the Lyceum

Welcome to Educational Renaissance

Welcome to Educational Renaissance! Here you will find thoughtful engagement with educational ideas. Jason and I have devoted ourselves to the craft of teaching, accumulating hours in the classroom (sometimes together), providing oversight and mentoring as administrators, and exploring important ideas as speakers. We believe educational renewal can occur as we thoughtfully understand the great thoughts of past educators and engage with the educational ideas of today. Thanks for joining us, and we hope you find our contributions helpful as you work on your own teaching as a craft. Thought breeds thought; children familiar with great thoughts take as naturally

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