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THE GREAT IDEAS ONLINE A Syntopical Approach to the Great Books
My answer can be summed up in three words: *Read and Discuss*. Reading Great Books alone will not do. Solitary reading is as undesirable as solitary drinking. To enrich one's understanding of what one has read, one must discuss it with others who have read the same book, with or without the guidance of someone who is a better reader than most of us are. Nor will discussion itself serve this purpose, without any control by or reference to topics or themes developed in the great conversation to be found in the Great Books. Without that control, discussion usually denigrates into superficial chatter, after-dinner chitchat, or what is worse, a bull-session that is nothing but an exchange of opinions with everyone speaking in turn without anybody listening to what anyone else has said. The regulative maxim for the autodidact is *read and discuss* with emphasis on the word "and" to signify that the two activities must be done in planned conjunction with each other, not each in absence or deprivation of the other. --Mortimer Adler DIFFICULT GIFTS: USING GREAT BOOKS SEMINARS TO EXPLORE SOCIAL AND MORAL ISSUES IN OUR COMMUNITY by John Sheehan Director, Board of Education Douglas County (Colorado) School District Re 1 In Douglas County, we are about to embark on a new project, which will test Dr. Adler's Great Books seminars as a tool for dialogue among students and adults. MOTIVATIONS -- why are we doing this? Some horrific events now hang like dark clouds over communities across our country. To the degree that these events force us to face difficult questions as parents, students and community members, these events are "difficult gifts." I believe that it is time to step beyond the immediate, almost "knee-jerk" responses to these disturbing events, and to take a broader perspective -- one in which we look more deeply at our society and ourselves. It is the responsibility of the entire community -- schools, business, organizations and families -- to deal with these questions. Even as the tragic events of Columbine were unfolding just a few miles from my home, I was preparing for my first (non-electronic) experience in Great Books seminars. Several months earlier, I had enrolled in the Great Books Week held annually at Colby College in Maine -- six days of seminars with adults who have come together to learn from each other and from great books. Colby's Great Books Week is a 40-year old legacy of the Great Books movement started by Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins. At a time when my soul still weighed heavy with the tragedy of Columbine, I found my spirits lifted by the powerful experience of getting to know 200 other adults who were still genuinely engaged in their own education. It strengthened my commitment to help our students discover the joys that can be found in such a community of learners. At Colby, I hooked up with Gary Schoepfel of the Great Books Foundation. Gary and I outlined the basic components of a proposal to bring students and adults together in Great Books seminars. I came back from Maine in mid-August all fired up and ready to pitch our idea to anyone and everyone who was willing to listen. The response to our proposal was overwhelmingly positive, and, as the century came to a close, we secured funding to pilot our adult-student seminars in Douglas County, Colorado. OBJECTIVES -- what are our expectations for this project? We want to promote a disciplined dialogue between students and adults about the moral and ethical dilemmas that permeate our modern culture. This dialogue should: Demonstrate for both students and adults how great literature sheds light on our contemporary issues Get adults and students to think more clearly about social and moral issues Sharpen thinking skills of the students and adults Provide an even playing field for discussion among adults and students in which each learns from the other The Center for the Study of the Great Ideas focuses its resources on adult education. This is a strategy that will ultimately lead to reform of our schools. After all, if we as adults have no interest in learning about and discussing the great ideas, what makes us think that we can raise our children in the liberal arts tradition? Education reform has long been stuck in this chicken-and-egg problem. How do we make liberal arts and life-long learning the central focus of public education unless we have an educated public that really wants to make it happen? The answer, as Max Weismann and Mortimer Adler know, is that you have to promote the liberal arts among adults, as well as students. That is what this project is really all about. Sometimes it is easier for adults to see the value of a liberal arts education for their children than it is for themselves. Our project will demonstrate, for both students and adults, the power of discussing great ideas in great books. Since this is a pilot project at this point, our immediate goal is to identify how (and if) such Great Books discussions can be continued in the community at large and in our schools. A WEEK OF GREAT BOOKS -- Seminars and Training According to Mortimer Adler, who (along with Robert Hutchins) established the Great Books Foundation in 1947, Great Books seminars "are conversations, conducted in an orderly mannerŠ]." But they are not ordinary discussions. They are opportunities for shared inquiry into difficult and often open-ended issues. To be successful, a Great Books seminar has to have three basic ingredients: 1. A "good", and preferably a "great" book, addressing ideas and issues of permanent and fundamental importance, which serves as the sole basis of discussion, 2. A leader trained to guide a group in its struggle with these ideas and issues, 3. Participants who have read the material to be discussed, and who come prepared to learn and to probe openly about the ideas and issues raised in the assigned reading The climax of this project is a "Great Books Week" in Douglas County, to be held during the first week of April 2000. During that week, we will conduct three evenings of seminars. Each evening will focus on a specific reading selected as part of a broader theme that will carry through all three evenings. With the ability to run three parallel seminar groups of about 14 to 16 in number, we can accommodate up to 48 participants. Half will be drawn from adults in our community and half will be drawn from our high school student population. The key to success will be to identify participants who are willing to do the work, and who represent the broadest possible range of perspectives. I have spent the last month canvassing various groups in our school district for their thoughts on a theme. What has emerged is a theme I call "The Disappearance of Childhood." What has happened to childhood today? Neil Postman, in his book of the same name, argues that childhood is an endangered species. Is that good or bad? If it is bad, what can we do about it in our own communities? What messages do our children get from the community in which they are raised? These are the types of questions we hope to grapple with over the course of the seminars. With this theme in mind, we will be drawing on the talent and resources of the Great Books Foundation to research and select appropriate readings. The Foundation will also provide its experienced leaders to conduct the seminars. We are planning other related events, including seminar training and demonstrations at local high schools and libraries. THE BOTTOM LINE -- Students and adults talking and learning together What we are proposing here has rarely been tried -- the mixing of high school students and adults in a single setting to discuss issues of importance to each other in the context of great writing. Its advantages are tremendous: Students can witness firsthand how adults struggle to understand tough issues. Students and adults can talk to each other openly about these issues in a "safe" setting, where the rules of conduct are clearly spelled out. Students and adults are on an equal footing, since the only authority to which participants can turn is the assigned reading. Students and adults are -- as is so rarely the case today -- free of "experts". They can succeed or fail entirely on their own as they struggle for greater understanding. Students and adults have an opportunity to experience the true sense of community that can only be found in a group single-mindedly focused on achieving greater understanding. If we are successful, we anticipate working with local schools and libraries to set up Great Books discussion groups. Douglas County schools have a unique program of education for parents we call our "Parent University." The success of this program could lead to the establishment of an ongoing student-adult seminar program offered by our Parent University to students in our district for academic credit. This project captures a vision described by Robert Hutchins back in 1951. He wrote, in his introductory volume to the Great Books of the Western World: "Imagine the younger generation studying great books and learning the liberal arts. Imagine an adult population continuing to turn to the same sources of strength, inspiration, and communication. We could talk to one another then."
This commentary [Issue 64] is simply superb. To me it expresses the great, continuing and increasing anxiety I have over the decline I have witnessed in our society since WW II, and especially in the last 20 years. As I neared the end of the essay I found myself thinking that these problems and failures result from causes, and general causes were noted. Finally, the general solutions were expressed; but, I thought, perhaps in a subsequent commentary, one might point out great, specific, serious and damaging actions recently and even now being taken by the PERSONS who are indulging in excessive wealth and wealth-getting, in excessive power and power-getting, and in corruption of our excellent social system. Nearly all of these actions are by persons hidden behind corporate masks, and we seem duped into speaking of these business activities of these persons as though the business were real, were 'legal persons'... whatever that might be, other than disguise. Examples that come to mind include Regan's statement that "Greed is Good", in the face of Aquinas' highlighting greed as the greatest evil. And, the subsequent growth of monopoly of everything including the hoarding of the wealth that is produced by and taken from very-hard-working people; and, the recent grasp of control of most of the popular media by perhaps four or so greedy persons, so that newspapers and TV now have little or no reporting of news; and, the betrayal of the People by elected 'officials' signing away our sovereignty to NAFTA, WTO, etc.; and, the ludicrous, lugubrious pollution of our nearly-innumerable Laws with countless contradictory, unduly restrictive and unjustified additional regulation which usually hide unrelated special privileges secretly introduced into bills and passed with no review or scrutiny. Everybody knows this; and feels powerless. When the laws have been compromised, what then is the responsibility of the citizen person from whom the authority to make a law was derived in the first place? Could we address this point? Bad laws are no laws at all, it has been said. This circumstance was discussed in the Middle Ages, when nations dissolved and each city had to become a state; and that situation sometimes succeeded by near anarchy. Remind us from whence law comes, and to whom it returns when it is perverted. And finally, what responsibilities an individual must re-assumes as a human being, in the instance that we increasingly seem to be headed for? Terrence O'Neill
ANNOUNCEMENT At the January 7 meeting of the Chicago Area Great Books Network, it was suggested that the Network have a webpage at which to post notice of the individual member organization's Great Books events. Taken together, the offerings of the Basic Program, the Great Books Foundation, the Chicago Area Great Books Council, Shimer College, Court Theater and others represent a healthy menu of Great books activities throughout the area during the year. The Great Books Foundation has offered to host such a page at our website www.greatbooks.org . The Chicago Network page will take the form of a Chicago Area Calendar of Events similar to the National Calendar of Events that we already post. (Last year's calendar is still posted; the year 2000 version should be up by Monday at http://www.greatbooks.org/adult/calendar.html. The year 2000 version will have hyperlinks to many of the listed events.) The calendar will feature five columns of information about each event: the sponsoring organization; the date; the location; the name and phone number of someone to call for information; and the name of the event. Whenever possible, the event will be hyperlinked to the website of the sponsoring organization where the viewer can obtain more information about the event. For instance, on February 4, the Basic Program is hosting its monthly First Friday lecture at the Chicago Cultural Center. The title of the lecture is "Honest Iago & Company." For more information someone would call Judy Germick of the BP at (773) 834-0157. This event listing would be hyperlinked to the BP website page listing all of the First Friday lectures, with specific times and addresses. The Great Books Network would like to post as many Great Books events from as many organizations as possible, and we invite you to submit listings to us. For your event to be listed you must provide us two things: 1) Your consent (an e-mail will do) to link our website to yours. However, even if you do not have a website, we can include listings of your events. 2) Data on the events that you wish to be listed. To be listed, you need to provide the five columns of information as described above. This could be in the form of a catalogue, a brochure, an email, or your website URL where we can find the information. We just need to be able to verify dates, places and contact info. This calendar will give priority to events hosted by members of the Great Books Network. As space permits we will also consider listing other cultural events of interest to people interested in the Great Books or classic literature. For instance Goodman Theater's production of The Odyssey last fall is the kind of event that would not be out of place on this calendar. If you know of such events, please pass word along to me. I would also appreciate any suggestions you may have for this webpage. I would like to get this calendar up and running starting with events scheduled in March 2000, if not sooner. Please submit your consent and information to me as soon as possible. Feel free to phone or e-mail me at the numbers below.
Mark Cwik
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The Great Ideas Online is published free of charge to its members by the Center.
Revised 30 January 2000 |