Tag: virtue
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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…
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Breaking Down the Bad of Bloom’s: The False Objectivity of Education as a Modern Social Science
In the first two posts of this series (which I am reviving after a 6 months long hiatus) I proposed replacing Bloom’s Taxonomy of educational objectives with Aristotle’s intellectual virtues. The major flaw in Bloom’s taxonomy, which is a hierarchical categorization of educational goals in the cognitive domain, is that it privileges the bare intellect…
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Educating for Humility: Promoting a Classroom Culture of Excellence in Service to Others
Of the many ills that plague modern society, perhaps one of the most insidious is the wedge we have driven between character and excellence, or ethics and achievement. Contemporary examples abound of “successful” men and women who have earned impressive accolades despite deep recesses in character, and occasionally, because of those recesses. As a result,…
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“Teach Like a Champion” for the Classical Classroom, Part 1: An Introduction
As classical educators look for tools and resources to strengthen their teaching practices, it can often be difficult to know where to turn. While the classical education renewal movement has led to a resurgence in a fresh vision for the purpose of education and even suggestions toward an ideal curriculum, the movement has not always…
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The Problem of Technicism in Conventional Education
Technicism is not simply an over-fascination with technology as a means of stimulating learning out of students, though that problem plagues conventional education as well. Instead, I use the term ‘technicism’ to refer to a broader ideological approach to education that has become captivated by quantitative measurements and the economic evaluation of success. In technicism…
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The Importance of Courage and Curiosity for School Leaders Today
If you were to make a short list of some of the most important traits for school leaders, what would you include? You might start with confidence. Confidence affords leaders the ability to stay calm under pressure and remain focused on a course of action when the going gets tough. Or perhaps humility comes to…
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The Flow of Thought, Part 8: Restoring the School of Philosophers
In my last article, The Flow of Thought, Part 7: Rediscovering Science as the Love of Wisdom, I made a case for the value of re-envisioning natural science as philosophy. While science might never come to mind today when philosophy is discussed, this was not always the case. The association of Solomon with the type…
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The Flow of Thought, Part 6: Becoming Amateur Historians
I’ve never been one for journaling. It’s not for lack of trying or admiration for the idea behind the practice. But keeping a journal and writing down my thoughts about myself or what I experienced that day just never caught on for me. I was almost tempted to say that it would have felt too…
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20 of the Most Memorable Maxims from 2019 Educational Renaissance
The end of the year is a good time to take stock and review how far we’ve come. These last few days I’ve been doing this, both for myself through rereading my bullet journals, but also for Educational Renaissance by rereading all the old articles of 2019 in search of gems of wisdom. Along the…
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The Search for Happiness, Part 2: The Way of Wisdom
In my previous blog, I examined how modern research, particularly through the avenue of positive psychology, confirms some of Aristotle’s insights about human beings and the well-lived life. In particular, I observed that author Shawn Achor’s definition of happiness as “the joy of striving after our potential” isn’t that far afield from Aristotelian virtue theory. …