We're back from eastern Washington and will post on some of our latest adventures - but I am thoroughly enjoying Gilbert Highet's writings (Art of Teaching, Classical Tradition...)and his zest for bringing the lessons of past to life.
He rallied his students at Columbia with this quote, "These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves." He really lived out this principle. When called to serve in the British armed forces at the beginning of World War II, he served in British intelligence, poineering the preparation of psychological profiles of Nazi leaders such as Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, and Himmler, based on his psychoanalysis of Roman Emperors.
How easy it is for us novice teachers of classics to want to play it safe - and treat past works as lifeless paper - but if we and our students are to apply lessons of the past to the present, we can't be afraid to work with it, analyze, criticize, and synthesize.
Today at lunch, we listened to Rufus Fear's lecture on Caesar (Teaching Company - Famous Romans), and when we heard how Caesar used Crassus' money to strengthen his successful campaign as praetor, and the tensions growing between the thoughtful moral leader Cato and potential tyrants Caesar and Pompey, the analogies between our current political system seemed closer than ever. Often we assign students biographies of famous or favorite people, but it also might be instructive to study the corrupt and the fatally flawed. There are plenty of lessons to be learned here, too - and the same temptations exist today.
Gilbert Highet Quotes
Highet: Living Legacies
No comments:
Post a Comment