Curriculum Plan
for a New College to
be Founded by the
Reason, Individualism,
Freedom Institute
“The object of education is to prepare the young
to educate themselves throughout their lives.”
Robert Maynard Hutchins
President, The University of Chicago,
1929-1951
2.0 Preparation for Life or Preparation for Work – Is
There a Conflict?
3.2 The Comprehensive Approach
3.2.2 Philosophy as the Integrating Factor
3.5 Organization of the Curriculum
3.6 The Montessori
Method, Socratic Practice, and Rogerian Psychology
To
provide a college education using classic and modern content of great
significance, and revolutionary teaching methods, equipping students to live
happy, productive, successful lives, preparing them for a lifetime advancing
and defending reason, individualism, and freedom.
The
program will develop students’ capacity for rational, objective, independent
thinking, establishing the conceptual framework for the achievement of
excellence in their personal and professional lives.
Why a new college now?
The United States is at a critical juncture in
history. The forces of collectivism and
statism are in disarray, but still powerful and active especially through the
universities where collectivists have been producing potent leaders and easily
influenced followers for decades. For evidence, see such articles as “Liberal
Groupthink Is Anti-Intellectual” by Mark Bauerlain in The Chronicles of Higher Education and James Black in The Freefall of the American University.
We think the time has come
for the advocates of reason, individualism, and freedom to become what David
Bornstein calls ‘social entrepreneurs’ and develop their own young leaders
through a college dedicated to these values.
The creation of the College is based on the following:
1. The fundamental principle of education, and of our
curriculum in particular, is instruction
of the individual in the knowledge and powers that will enable him or her to
succeed in life, personally and professionally.
2.
In order to reclaim our American
heritage from the statist direction in which the country has been headed since
the early 20th century, it is essential that a substantial number of
leaders and thinkers in all walks of life be knowledgeable and convinced of the
values of reason, individualism, and freedom.
3.
Early adulthood is a crucial time in human
development when individuals make critical character choices and determine
their direction in life. The knowledge,
skills, values, models, practical understanding, and contacts obtained through
a college experience are invaluable for shaping the outlook and abilities of
young people. The United States needs
a college that enables them to develop a deep understanding and appreciation of
American core values:
reason, individualism, and freedom.
4. No other college consistently takes the scientific
approach to knowledge which flourished during the Enlightenment period of the
18th and early 19th centuries. This approach is grounded in logic and
embodied in our country’s founding documents: the Declaration of Independence
and the U.S. Constitution.
5. No other college wholly incorporates the development
of objectivity through content and
teaching, using methods crafted to
strongly develop independent, rational judgment.
Students will be
educated in the full array of the most influential and important ideas and
knowledge in our civilization. We will not advocate, we will educate, so that
graduates of the College will be capable of choosing freely what’s best for
their lives.
To
achieve these aims, the College will implement an innovative curriculum
described in the rest of this document, incorporating.
The College will serve students from all over the
U.S. and the world, at first granting the Baccalaureate degree, subsequently
granting the Masters and the Doctor of Philosophy degrees.
Just as the quintessentially influential Voltaire,
was educated by the Jesuits in logic and reasoning, so we hope to usher in a
new age of Enlightenment and a Renaissance of culture by educating our best in
logic, reasoning, and objectivity.
2.1 The History of Higher Education in
the U.S. Sets the Stage
Jefferson,
Madison, Franklin and other prescient thinkers in the new American Republic
believed that higher education was needed to fully prepare individuals to function
in the freedom and responsibility of self-government, as Gary Wills, for
example, describes in Mr.
Jefferson’s University. John
Cardinal Newman, in his now famous 1854 book, The
Idea of a University, detailed how citizens required a full-fledged
liberal arts education in order to ensure that they could reason well and be
informed about the ideas and the history of civilization as necessary
prerequisites to excellent self-government.
Beginning
with Harvard in 1636 and for several hundred years, most colleges established
in the U.S. were the project of religious groups, with religious education and
the spread of the values of their religion as a primary goal. However, up to
the founding of the Republic, a college education was mainly the privilege of
the upper classes. Average citizens did
not have the means or time to spend in college.
Thus, as De Tocqueville reported in his trenchant 1832 book Democracy in America,
when higher education was implemented more widely, the practical and self-responsible
Americans required that their education prepare them for material self-support.
Hence, a college education as preparation for a profession is a long-time
American concern.
The
Scientific and Industrial Revolutions motivated the founding of the first
technological university in the English-speaking world in 1824: Rensselaer’s
Polytechnic Institute. Stephen van Rensselaer’s purpose was “the
application of science to the common purposes of life.” Additionally, rather than mere lectures, RPI
instituted new methods of instruction. Students performed experiments,
explained their rationale, and gave their own lectures rather than merely
listening to lectures and watching demonstrations.
Technical
scientific institutes multiplied rapidly, but remained narrow in focus until
mid-19th century when universities such as Yale and Princeton began
opening their own and integrating technical scientific education with their
classic liberal arts programs.
Additionally, the Morrill Act
of 1862 provided resulted in yet another kind of university. Government funding for state colleges by
granting federally controlled land to the states.
The mission of these institutions, as set forth in the 1862 Act, is to teach agriculture,
military
tactics, the mechanic arts, and home
economics, in addition to classical studies, so that members of the working
classes might obtain a practical college education.
State-funded colleges and universities multiplied rapidly under this federal
arrangement.
A
growing population and increased donations from the wealth of American business
enabled colleges and universities to grow mightily from the turn of the 20th
century. German scholarship and the
German model of research and college education were very influential from the
end of the 19th century.
Unfortunately the German model consisted of highly controlled,
teacher-directed, lecture-oriented methods. The professors were (and are)
encouraged to focus on producing research, not teaching. There is little
consideration for the best teaching methods.
Further,
in the U.S., the growth of technical institutes and the emphasis on education
for specific types of work caused deep concern about the aims of education,
expressed by Harvard’s President Charles Eliot in 1869 and many others
afterwards. In Radical Vision,
Charles Nelson recounts the many thinkers who worried that schools were
being turned into mere training and certification programs which did not
prepare their students for participation in civil society.
The team behind the College of the
United States believes there need not be a breach between preparation for work
and the development of intellectual breadth and depth needed for full
participation in the life of our Republic. Our Curriculum Plan addresses these issues and
shows how integrated intellectual and practical development is essential for work and life.
2.2 The Principle of Thinking in
Principle
Learning
to reason well means being able to think
in principle. Thinking in principle is the beginning of all efficiency and
the source of all wealth in human life.
Let’s
look at the ball for illustration:
almost all cultures have a version of the ball for play, including those
in the New World. The Mayans played a foot game quite similar to basketball,
but with a low-to-the-ground hoop. Did
these people comprehend the principle of
the ball, the motive power of spherical objects? The ancient Britons, Aztecs, and the
Egyptians are believed to have used the motive power of round objects to build
Stonehenge, the Aztec Temples, and the Pyramids, moving large stones on
logs.
But
no New World individual recognized the principle
of the ability of round objects to move swiftly and smoothly in order to do
work. How do we know this? They never invented the wheel. Today, thanks to the
institution of logic and science in our civilization, new inventions are
created every day by the efficient application of principle.
Teach someone to think in principle, and you have
given them the power to move mountains.
Teach someone to think in principle about all aspects of life, and you
have given them the power to change their lives and the world. The power of principle unleashes the true
power of thought.
Our
program is crafted to teach students how to think in principle about the most
abstract subjects and how to apply those principles to the most concrete
situations, intellectual and professional. We have the experience and ability
to realize the twin aims of preparation for life and for work, and to produce
graduates who can carry wisdom and ability for action to positions of
leadership in many fields.
Early
adulthood is one of the most important— and delicate—times of life. Young men and women search for the purpose
and meaning of their lives, for goals and directions, while trying to acquire
the intellectual, social, and personal skills needed to navigate the stormy
waterways of life, no less to rise to positions of professional and cultural
leadership.
They
want their lives to be filled with passion and meaning; most are seeking a
guide, a system, a way of understanding the world around them and themselves,
and of making important choices for their lives.
Biologically,
they are ready to live independently and they have the energy and impetus to do
real, meaningful work, but they still
have so much to learn to live successfully.
And the advanced knowledge and technological needs of our society
require an ever-expanding amount of education and training.
Unfortunately,
rather than empower these ready and energetic individuals, the current,
conventional approach to education infantilizes them, stuffing their brains
like sausages with information deemed important by the experts, not guiding
them in how to use their minds and the information they are learning. It does
not teach them how to, on their own, apply critical thinking in which they exercise
careful judgment to incoming information.
For
truly successful education, educators need to provide the guidance young people
need while nurturing and respecting students’ ability to think independently
.
Let
us seize the opportunity to influence youth for: “Never again does one receive
impressions with quite the same kind of emotional intensity that one does
between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one.
It is so brief a time, so very brief, yet one can build a lifetime on
the exploitation of it.” Louis Auchincloss.
The
Founding Fathers of the U.S. were deeply concerned about the ability of the
citizens to govern themselves. They
believed citizens needed to be sufficiently learned in fundamental ideas and
knowledge, and skilled in thinking to be able to make good decisions and take
right action in the Republic. The Team
founding this College is similarly concerned. We need our people to be able to
govern themselves well and protect our legacy of liberty.
In
all fields of work—science, engineering, business, politics, academia,
art—individuals need proper grounding in thinking skills and in knowledge in
order to know what to do, and how to do it best. After a
century and more of intense scientific study of human development, we have the
knowledge to create much more effective education. We have the opportunity to take the best
ideas, ancient and modern, and forge them into an exceptional system.
Initially,
the College will offer a Baccalaureate degree in Liberal Arts. The curriculum will cover all traditional
subjects of the humanities, science, mathematics, and more, in an original way.
The principle components of the curriculum methodology are:
·
A comprehensive,
required course of study, integrated by philosophy.
·
Reading the
primary source works of intellectual giants, “the best that has been thought
and said,” as embodied in the Great
Books approach to learning, in order to insure students are well-informed
and grounded in the most important ideas influencing world civilization. These
works also tend to fuel personal growth .
·
A special focus
on developing analytic and creative reasoning skills, and applying them
appropriately to each field of knowledge, from science to poetry.
·
Consistent
practice in relating fields of study to each other, and putting them in the
context of human knowledge, in order to encourage excellent retention of
knowledge and fertile, creative thinking.
·
The use of
dramatic narratives to set the historical and ideological context of our
studies, and develop motivation for learning all the domains of knowledge.
·
Practicums
tightly integrated with studies, and the development of leadership skills
well-grounded in ethics and psychological self-knowledge.
The
aim of the College’s curriculum is to educate fully and deeply, theoretically
and practically, intellectually, emotionally, socially, and physically, in
order to aid students in developing into fully functioning, successful
individuals and leaders. The College’s
approach to ethics, freedom, art, and the meaning and purpose of life will
serve the students’ development of personal values, purpose and meaning. We want to develop men and women capable of succeeding
and leading in a multitude of endeavors, while living happy, fulfilled
lives.
The curriculum will be unified, in-depth and
extensive, addressing essential needs for training in thinking and practical
skills, as well as a solid and firm foundation in reality-oriented philosophical
issues, history, economics, literature and science.
Work
in leadership skills will be included in the practical domain of the
program. The curriculum will fully
prepare the student for superior performance in graduate education and the
workplace through excellent critical thinking skills, knowledge, and practical
life tools.
Through
this curriculum, individuals will be grounded in the wisdom of the classics and
up-to-date in scientific developments, while being prepared to remain at the
leading edge of thinking and leadership in the fields of their choice.
3.2 The Comprehensive Approach
The
students will undergo a broad and rigorous education with many required
components:
Within
courses, teacher and student alike will be encouraged to exercise their choice
in exploring fundamental issues and questions as creatively as possible. The Curriculum will:
The
curriculum will include:
°
World
Civilizations,
°
Western
Civilization and the United States,
°
Study of the
economics of civilizations and how economic practices affect life,
°
Study of the
organization of the marketplace.
Three
of the most fundamental needs of the human mind are: identification, analysis, and
integration. The hallmark of a
well-functioning mind is the ability to objectively
identify the facts; objectively analyze facts and ideas; and objectively
integrate what is learned with what one knows, in order to form general
principles.
One
of the primary missions of the College of the United States will be to teach
students how to identify facts, think well, and integrate their learning into
their lives so as to live well and act effectively: theoretically, morally and practically.
Philosophy for Life:
Teaching methods
Traditionally, philosophy is taught in a dry,
analytical manner, organized by its branches: Metaphysics, Epistemology,
Ethics, Politics, and Esthetics. But, in terms of the needs of human life, Ethics
is the cornerstone, the raison d’etre of philosophy. Ethics answers the question: how should I live my life? Philosophy
is the science and Ethics the instruction manual of living.
Young
people not only need to learn thinking skills, but how to think about their basic nature and needs. Thinking in
principle is the powerful and
economical way of dealing with the world, which makes humans able to fly to the
moon and study the workings of the brain – making survival and flourishing
possible.
Thinking
in principle objectively – that is,
with ideas that properly represent the facts – is crucial to real human knowledge.
Therefore, teaching young people to think well and objectively will be a
primary mission of the College.
Philosophy, properly
approached, is the subject that
teaches people to think, and think in principle about all aspects of life. To
this end, the course material of the curriculum will be integrated by a focus
on answering the fundamental philosophical questions of life.
Every
student will be introduced to his career at the college with a course on the
nature and need for philosophy, using Ayn Rand’s book Philosophy: Who Needs It as the initial text.
Consequently, students’ studies of all subjects will be linked by the
fundamental question:
“How should I live?” (Ethics) Every course in the college will bring the
study of the subject matter back to that question.
In
the course of answering that question, students will learn, for example:
°
“What is the nature
of the world in which I live?“ (Metaphysics)
°
“How do I know
what I know about the subject I am studying?”, whether that be mathematics or
dance (Epistemology)
°
“What does this
subject tell me about how I should live with other people?” (Politics).
Finally,
they will relate their learning to the various overarching, emotionally-charged
worldviews presented in art and literature, because these offer a stylized
example, an integrated view of life and existence – a deep sense of how life is
lived in different ways, which cannot be communicated by abstract principles
alone.
However,
this does not mean that theoretical subjects will be studied only for their immediate practical
implications. In the short term, it is difficult to judge the importance of
theoretical developments in mathematics, science or elsewhere – such is the
nature of creativity, of innovation and new thinking which makes that
impossible.
Therefore,
as well as emphasizing the relationship
between knowledge and life, the curriculum will convey the importance of fanciful, playful, open-ended imaginative
thinking as a very powerful and important process for the development of
new, productive ideas and for the enjoyment of life, as discovered through the
research of Arthur Koestler, Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, Robert Sternberg and
others.
Philosophy and Independence
At
no time will the Curriculum promote one ethical view or scientific theory in a
dogmatic manner: the authoritarianism of
dogma is contrary to free, independent thinking and thus deeply undercuts the
basic values of the College. The College
will promote the pursuit of rational values, of a this-earth practical morality
that helps individuals face the challenges of adulthood without the dogmatism possible to religion or cultish ideologies.
By
using a rationally and
practically-oriented philosophical approach to knowledge, students will
build exceptional thinking skills and a strong knowledge base by studying the
traditional subjects in an integrated way and relating their learning to the nature
of life, and life’s purposes.
Finally,
continually relating their learning to the question “How should I live?” will
enhance their ability to deal with ethical choices, and the problems of
leadership.
In
the deepest sense, helping individuals with this process of development is what
real education is about.
In
the 1920’s and 1930’s, many notable educators were concerned about the widespread
ignorance of the best thinking and most influential ideas of Western
Civilization. Robert Hutchins, then
President of the University of Chicago, organized a committee to develop a new
curriculum based on the best material Western Civilization had to offer,
ancient and modern. The committee
consisted of a number of these educators and others with serious knowledge and
thinking on this issue. The Great Books are the
result. Since that time, the list has
been expanded to include significant works of World civilization. St. John’s
College (Annapolis and Sante Fe), Shimer College and Thomas Aquinas College use
these works for their entire curriculum and many other schools, like the
University of Chicago and Columbia University, use them in part.
The
study of the Great Books affords an unparalleled experience of integrated
learning: the writers were chosen for
depth, fundamentality, originality, and historical and cultural
importance. Many of the texts enable the
integrated study of philosophy, history, economics, science and
mathematics. Aristotle’s De Anima, Euclid’s Elements, Cervantes Don
Quixote, De Tocqueville’s Democracy
in America, and Heisenberg’s The
Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory are but a few examples. (Many versions of the list can be found on
the Internet and elsewhere.). Their study gives the student a deep appreciation
of the history of individual thought.
The
Curriculum Committee of the College will organize a selected group of The Great
Books. They will also select works of comparable significance from contemporary
science and Classical Liberalism and the modern freedom movement which are not
usually incorporated in the Great Books lists—or in most college curricula. These latter will include important works
such as Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, Human Action by Ludwig von Mises, and The Law by Frederic Bastiat.
All
the books will be studied in whole or in part, to enable the student the
opportunity to focus in-depth on their meaning and the links between the ideas
of these great thinkers, those of others, and their influence on modern life.
In
the Montessori curriculum for young students, the study of all major subjects
begins with a dramatic story of the subject’s beginning—what is called a Great Lesson. The value
of the Great Lesson is that it alerts and motivates the student to the
importance of the subject with an exciting narrative about its relation to
life.
The
College will apply this teaching method to the adult level by developing
accounts of how information about a subject, as well as historical and
contemporary thinking on it, fit with the full context of human knowledge and
history. The results will be accounts of
the origins of each field of study. These stories will stimulate interest and
integrate understanding about the place of the subject in human life.
The
stories will be used to introduce subjects and to show how questions in one
field of study gave rise to new lines of thought which sometimes create a new
direction or whole new field of study. Each Great Lesson will relate the
subjects to each other and to the important problems of human existence that
great minds try to solve. Presented in this integrated and connected fashion,
students will be encouraged to understand:
·
Who, when, and
where were the major contributors to the field of study?
·
What were the
facts discovered; what were the problems; what were the lines of reasoning?
·
How do this
field, its ideas, and inventions impact life?
·
What bearing do
these facts and ideas have on individuals, groups, and social interaction?
·
What questions
remain unanswered or have newly arisen?
·
Where is current
research going?
·
How do these
ideas relate to current developments in other fields?
Many
courses will be required, thereby ensuring that students receive a thorough
education in subjects determined essential to proper knowledge, success and
leadership, and this education will be broad and rigorous. Since they must study many subjects which
will not that take advantage of their individual strengths, they will be
strengthened in their knowledge and skills across the board. This will serve to best prepare them for life
and leadership.
Within
courses, teacher and student alike will be encouraged to exercise their choice
in exploring fundamental issues and questions as creatively as possible.
The
Curriculum will emphasize the mastery of facts and ideas, their role and power through history, relating them
constantly to the theoretical and the
practical. All work at the College needs
to begin with, and be grounded in history
as encompassing the facts of human existence.
This includes, simultaneously, factual history of culture, art,
science, and philosophy, and the history of ideas as they relate to, affect and
are affected by factual history.
Every
course will attempt to answer these questions:
On what facts are these ideas based?
How do these ideas influence thought, practice
and action in the world?
The pedagogy and epistemology of the curriculum will
largely draw on the wisdom of the educational philosophy of Maria Montessori
and the methods of Collaborative Inquiry, often called Socratic
Practice, the
psychology of Carl Rogers, the epistemology of Ayn Rand, and the Great Books, which embody the wisdom of a
classic liberal arts education. “The aim
of liberal education is to create persons who have the ability and the
disposition to try to reach agreements on matters of fact, theory and actions
through rational discussion.” Andrew Chrucky, “The Aim of Liberal Education.”
The Curriculum will be developed intensively and in
full by a Curriculum Committee of individuals highly knowledgeable in the
requirements of a full college
education. It will then be vetted by a
team of appropriate experts. The
committee will aim for accreditation of its program as soon as possible after
inception, looking especially to the Higher Learning Commission and the American
Academy for Liberal Education.
Requirements
and courses
4 years of Philosophy, with an emphasis on the principles
of logic and reasoning; study of the principles of reasoning will also be
explicitly integrated in the study of every subject.
3 years of Mathematics, including Geometry, Analytic
Geometry, and Calculus, and Statistics; all Mathematics study will be related
to on-going Science studies.
4 years of Laboratory Science, including physics,
chemistry, biology, and psychology.
4 years of Language, including the study of Greek,
Latin, a contemporary foreign language, and English. This will include history,
literature, and scientific theories about language.
4 years of Cultural studies, incorporating
philosophy, archeology, anthropology, history, and economics, literature, art,
and music in an intense, in-depth seminar format
Year
one: Origin of Man—archeology and
the beginning of civilization, comparative anthropology, early
religion/philosophy, art, economics, science and technology
Year two: World Civilizations— comparative history,
religion/philosophy, art, economics, science and technology
Year three:
Western Civilization—comparative history, religion/philosophy, art,
economics, science and technology
Year four:
United States Civilization—history, religion/philosophy, art, economics,
science and technology
4 years of practicum, research and internships in
subject areas of individual student professional interest related to the
general curriculum; foreign travel/study will be encouraged to expand student
cultural knowledge.
4 years of physical education and sports, with a study
of the history and ethical and cultural importance of sports.
In every succeeding course, material from previous
courses will be referenced and integrated into the new material.
The use of the Great Books
in this type of program results in a Liberal Arts degree which is quite an
achievement of study. Students graduating from some Great Books colleges, are
awarded a degree in Liberal Arts, with a Double Major in Philosophy and History
of Mathematics and Science, and a Double Minor in Classical Literature and
Comparative Literature.
The Great
Lessons
The Curriculum Committee in conjunction with faculty
will develop the Great Lessons for the College. These stories will be used to introduce subjects and to show how the subjects
are related to each other, i.e. as a means of integration. Further, in each course, the following
questions will be considered:
How
do we know about the subject matter studied; what are the facts, on what
reasoning are ideas based?
What
questions are unanswered about this topic and where is current research going?
How
did these facts and ideas affect life?
What
bearing do these facts and ideas have on human/my life?
What
bearing do these have on the life of the
individual?
What
bearing do these have on how individuals interact to live as communities?
How
have practical inventions affected the area of human life studied in the
course?
The Great Lessons will be on the following topics:
Philosophy
History of Philosophy, World and Western
Metaphysics
Origin
of the Universe
Creation
stories and art
Scientific theories, physics and
chemistry
Origin of Life
Biology,
Botany, Zoology, Paleontology, Biochemistry, Neuroscience
Epistemology
Origin of the principles of reasoning—how
this affected the
development of the West, versus the
philosophies of other cultures
Origin of Language
Scientific
theories on the development of Language
Grammar,
Rhetoric, and Logic
Ancient and
Foreign Languages
Ethics
Origin of Man including Man’s
Nature and the Needs of Man
Archeology,
Anthropology, Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Medicine Social Psychology,
Politics, Architecture, Art, Medicine, and
Engineering
Politics
and Economics
Origin of the Marketplace— the effect of the
marketplace on history, the spread
and transformation of ideas—all classes will attempt to answer the
question: what role did the
marketplace play in this?
Origin of Government – why is there a need
for government and what systems most advance
human life?
How is the West different, tying it back to
the development of reasoning and a scientific world view
Esthetics
Origin of art, dance, music, literature,
architecture, crafts, craft production
Speaking
and Writing
Speaking and Writing skills are of paramount
importance for the success of any leader, and for many other kinds of
success. Being able to communicate
clearly and effectively makes all the difference. Work on these skills will be
incorporated throughout the curriculum, with some special lessons or seminars
on them.
Writing will be required in every course, with an
emphasis on clarity of thought, definitions of issues, analysis, vocabulary,
grammar, and style. Students will be
taught how to keep a Reading and Writing Journal to facilitate their learning. Teachers will
evaluate papers for their writing skill as well as their reasoning and content.
Practical
Life
Practical experience is essential to implementing abstract ideas, and to living well. In
the Montessori Method for younger students, every part of Montessori education
incorporates lessons, learning, and practice in skills that are important to
everyday life, both personal and professional.
These are called the “Practical Life” part of the curriculum.
At the Adult/College Level, major areas of Practical
Life skill include:
·
Internship in
one’s professional area
·
Practical
financial and economic experience, personal and at work
·
Travel and
living experience in other cultures
·
Skill in presentations,
public speaking
·
Skill in
decision-making
·
Skill in human
interaction, i.e., social and etiquette skills
·
Skill in
emotional awareness, both of self and others
All these skills form the basis for skill in
leadership.
To facilitate the learning of these skills, the
College will require:
·
Summer and
part-time internships and/or research projects in the student’s area of
personal or professional interest.
·
Seminars in
public speaking and debating skills early in the college program, which will
then be integrated as activities in the other courses. For example, every course will require a
speech or debate as part of the student’s work.
·
Student
tutoring, both formal and informal: in
the Montessori classroom, peer-teaching and learning are one of the most
effective means of solidifying the knowledge of students.
·
Student work of
all types for the needs of the college. An
important principle of Montessori Practical Life is responsibility for one’s environment. At the pre-school level, children are
required to be responsible for such tasks as cleaning some part of the
classroom every day or feeding the fish.
At the College level, students should be responsible not only for taking
care of themselves and their personal environment, but for the needs of their
school. Students will be required to
perform all kinds of jobs necessary for the operation of the school, from physical
care to marketing and executive work, depending on their abilities and
interests. This will have the beneficial
side-effect of nurturing real student ownership in the school, giving students
terrific experience, and providing economical labor for the college thereby
lowering costs and fees.
Materials
Used
·
Primary texts
·
Laboratory
equipment for science work, supplies for artistic work and music.
·
Appropriate
computer equipment, software, and Internet access.
·
Books, maps, and
materials for educational trips.
Extra-Curricular
Activities
As a part of self-interest and initiative, the
College will encourage a flourishing of clubs and organizations, as varied as
the students’ desire. Sports offer a
valuable opportunity to learn team-work and an outlook for youthful
energy. The College will organize
opportunities for students to participate on sports teams and students will be
encouraged to participate.
The
Program and teaching of the College will primarily rely on three sources of
wisdom in its educational methods:
·
the ideas and methods of Maria Montessori,
·
the methods of Shared Inquiry (often called Socratic
Practice) as developed by Alexander Meiklejohn, Stringfellow Barr, Scott
Buchanan, and Jacob Klein, and
·
the attitudes and methods of psychologist Carl
Rogers
The Montessori Method
“The Montessori
approach offers a broad vision of education as an aid to life. It is designed
to help children with their task of inner construction as they grow from
childhood to maturity. It succeeds because it draws its principles from the
natural development of the child. Its flexibility provides a matrix within
which each individual child's inner directives freely guide the child toward
wholesome growth.
The
transformation of children from birth to adulthood occurs through a series of
developmental planes. Montessori
practice changes in scope and manner to embrace the person’s changing
characteristics and interests
The
years between 12 and 18 see the children become humanistic explorers, seeking
to understand their place in society and their opportunity to contribute to it.
From 18
to 24, as young adults, they become specialized explorers, seeking a niche from
which to contribute to universal dialogue.”
Association Montessori Internationale
“It is necessary that the human personality should be
prepared for the unforeseen…it should [not] be strictly conditioned by one
rigid specialization, but should develop at the same time the power of adapting
itself quickly and easily….a man must have a strong character and quick wits as
well as courage; he must be strengthened in his principles by moral training
and he must also have practical ability in order to face the difficulties of
life. Adaptability— this is the most
essential quality; for the progress of the world is continually opening new
careers, and at the same time closing or revolutionizing the traditional types
of employment.”
Maria Montessori
“Teaching
is not something that one can do to another; we can only facilitate the natural
process of learning.”
Tim Seldin, A Montessori Curriculum.
The Team
will apply and implement the pedagological principles of the Montessori Method
at the adult level with expert Montessori consultant input. Happily, this method deeply incorporates an
individualistic, rational approach to teaching.
Montessori philosophy and principles as outlined extensively in her
books and elsewhere will be incorporated into the training program for all
teachers.
Extensive research by Kevin Rathunde and Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi, among others, shows the strong relationship between
Montessori educational methods and peak cognitive, social and moral development.
Socratic Practice (Collaborative
Inquiry)
At the
adult level of development, the Montessori Method finds Collaborative Inquiry,
sometimes called Socratic Practice, highly facilitates growth and maturity. The
College will include the discussion guidance methods of Socratic Practice, as
described by Michael Strong in The Habit
of Thought, and others, and effectively used at St. John’s College,
Annapolis and Santa Fe, for over 65 years. Principals of this College project
have also effectively used this method for seven years to teach adolescents the
basics of philosophy at Camp Indecon (www.campindecon.org).
Socratic
Practice is a special method of conducting classes and teaching curriculum,
inspired by the teachings of Socrates of Athens. Socrates developed methods of questioning
which led students to conclusions through sophisticated and complex
reasoning. He emphasized critically
examining assumptions and received truths in light of facts and reasoning, to
arrive at a more precise idea of exactly what is known, and what is truth. Socratic Seminars are the means of study for
the Great Books, originated by educators Alexander Meiklejohn, Scott Buchanan,
Stringfellow Barr, Mark Van Doren, Richard McKeon, and Mortimer Adler in a
committee under the direction of Robert Hutchins of the University of Chicago.
Socratic
Practice will be used extensively in the curriculum, with very few lectures:
most material conveyed in a lecture can be conveyed more easily—and better—in
writing, and the student thereby can study the material in his or her own way
and time. Lectures will be used rarely,
to convey special, new material or thinking, and to give outside experts an
opportunity to convey their discoveries and views, thereby generating deep discussion
among students and faculty on the material.
Readings
will be assigned before class and all classes conducted seminar style. In other words, rather than spending time
conveying information in class, as in
most colleges, the teachers will use class time to help the students develop thinking skills and explore
information and ideas in depth. The
teachers will depend on the texts—the
highly fundamental and informative books and articles used in the curriculum—to
convey most information.
The
teachers will not be called “professors” because they will not profess anything in their classes; they will
called “tutors.” Unlike some uses of
Socratic Practice, especially in law schools, leaders of excellent Great Books
seminars do not ask probing questions and then demolish the answers and
arguments of the students.
Rather,
the excellent teacher carefully considers what questions to ask about the
material, aiming to ask questions which will lead to a better understanding of
the reading and of the larger issues and knowledge behind the reading material.
Often, the questions are crafted to help the student relate the material to
other material he is studying, thereby fostering the integration of his
knowledge.
Further,
the tutors will be specially trained to guide the discussion, with as little
intervention as possible so as not to derail or distract the students from deep
thinking. As at St. John’s, two tutors will
conduct seminars on philosophy, history, and literature, so as to guard against
the tendency to lecture when student discussion lulls or goes in a direction
the tutor doesn’t like (see Charles Nelson’s Radical Visions for a fuller
discussion of this method).
The
tutor does not press to “get through” all his questions in a given seminar; in
fact, he may not “cover’ them in the whole course! Instead, he carefully and sensitively listens
to the path of the discussion between the students. If he thinks they are covering serious and
important ground on the subject matter, or even
on other subject matter that is of significance to their thinking and their
lives, he allows the discussion to continue. This includes allowing periods of silence, in
order to make sure participants have a chance to think and respond, and that
those who may be more reluctant to speak up get a chance. The tutor becomes highly skilled at asking
the right question to move the discussion along when it is stuck or to be quiet
when it is going well.
With the
kinds of questions he asks and the way he seriously
considers thoughtful, sincere or innovative responses to those questions,
the tutor conveys his own excited
interest in the subject and the questions – in the pursuit of truth and
knowledge. On the one hand, the tutor’s
method and attitude allows students to be very comfortable with exploring their
own ideas and thinking, while, on the other hand, the tutor serves as a great
role model of learning for the student.
To
maintain a highly civilized atmosphere, students will be informed that they will
be expected to participate in the
discussion of these questions with seriousness (not that humor is disallowed),
excellent reasoning, courtesy, and respect for other class participants. (At St. John’s, they must address each other
as “Mr.” and “Miss” or “Ms.”.) All these
elements go into the evaluations of the students.
The Art of the Guide
Clearly,
Socratic Practice is a difficult art. It is necessary because true education is
self-development, not merely the acquisition of knowledge and skills. The
teacher must always keep in mind that he is a guide, an advisor, a learning facilitator, a consultant, a repository
of wisdom for his students’ own self-development. In order to do this, he
must attempt to fulfill the following conditions whenever he asks a question or
engages in leading the class. The identification of these conditions
is based on the work of the psychologist Carl Rogers, and is consistent with
the Montessori Method.
Factually-rooted thinking: encouraging the understanding of ideas in close reference to the facts
from which they spring.
Right Reasoning: encouraging the use of the best reasoning possible in discussion, the
best logical skills, and especially modeling
these; discouraging the use of logical skills as tools to merely win an argument,
but rather as means to find truth and right.
Acceptance:
accepting the thoughts and feelings of the student and the student’s
conveyance of them, almost anywhere they may go, as long as the student’s
expression remains civil.
Genuineness: conveying
his own, sincere thoughts and feelings about the subjects at hand, as a person
searching for truth. It is important for
the tutor to be able to put aside his or her own short-term psychological
needs, if and when they should interfere with the goal of guiding the students
towards knowledge, truth, self-awareness and moral learning.
Careful Listening and Understanding:
Regardless of clarity or opaqueness of student statements, attempting to
infer what the student is trying to grasp on both an intellectual and a
personal level, in order to better answer his questions, and nurture his
development.
Outcomes With These Methods
The
results, learning, and cognitive changes that occur with these methods are
remarkable. Michael Strong has
documented the change effected with his high school students by administering a
cognitive skills test at the beginning of the year, and again at various points
during the year. His students regularly
gain significantly over the course of his classes, even students from
high-achievement schools and upper-middle-class backgrounds. However, most dramatically, one inner city student
who scored at the first percentile in cognitive skills at the beginning of the
year scored in the eighty-fifth percentile after four months in Socratic
Seminars.
The College will:
·
Hire faculty with advanced degrees in all necessary subject areas,
·
Have a permanent faculty with a student/teacher ratio of 15/1 to insure
proper individual attention,
·
Utilize guest lecturers of all kinds, from business leaders to renowned
professors of other institutions to independent public intellectuals, as
adjunct faculty,
·
Use tele- and video-conferencing equipment,
as well as Internet resources, to economically tap into the rich resources of
the wider world such as superior science demonstrations on video
·
Train all
faculty in its special methods of education and teaching, and require the
faculty to implement these.
Recruitment
of enthusiastic and highly qualified faculty, sympathetic to our mission is
essential to the college. And in this
recruitment, we must never forget that teaching by example is one of the most powerful methods, especially in
ethics. In the realm of ethics and values,
inconsistency between theory and practice jumps to everyone’s attention.
In
addition to being expert in knowledge, the teacher, first and foremost, must embody the values of the college, both
in his or her guidance of the students and in ethics.
The students will learn as much about reason, independence, individualism, and
the responsibilities of freedom from the faculty as models as they will from the content of the courses.
The
faculty will be chosen for their willingness to thoroughly implement the
vision, methods, and special curriculum of the college in addition to
possessing exceptional knowledge and technical qualifications in their
field. The faculty must be dedicated to these methods.
The college will create and run a special teacher-training and
apprenticeship program for the proper implementation of its values, methods,
and curriculum. We wish to select
individuals capable of being great teachers and create a nurturing and
enjoyable teaching environment for them; this is how excellent teachers are
retained.
The
college, first and foremost, will
promote independent, rational judgment as the foundation of individualism,
freedom, and responsibility. An
authoritarian approach to knowledge is anathema to this: no one can claim to value truth and
independent judgment while openly or
subtly pressuring students to accept a given point of view.
On the
other hand, the faculty will not be skeptics of all truth and value. Ideas must be carefully and thoroughly
examined, always with an attempt to sympathetically understand what the author
was trying to say in his or her historical, personal, and ideological context,
and always in relation to the facts examine. Only by thoroughly understanding
what an author meant can one rationally and independently judge the truth and
value of his or her ideas.
However, a permissiveness in the classroom, which
allows “everybody their opinion,” or which supposes “everything’s relative”
without regard to facts and standards of proof is equally damaging to the development
of thinking and moral character.
If
students are to grow into leaders, they must have confidence in what they know,
what they believe, what they value, and in their goals. Rationally, this can only be instilled by an
authoritative, not an authoritarian or permissive, faculty.
To do
their jobs well, the faculty must be ever vigilant in their attitudes toward
their students. Properly, they may view
themselves as authoritative guides to
the students’ education, not authoritarian repositories of knowledge and
wisdom, or permissive partners in subjective interpretation.
The
principle that truth is possible to know,
however difficult it may be to find, and that truth is needed to live a good
and happy life, will rule our classrooms, in subjects and in methods. (Anyone who denies this contradicts
themselves; they are merely asserting that their denial is a truth—how do they
know that? Only if they have a means of determining truth and it is relevant to
life.)
In the
realm of moral values, the classes will explore the universal truth and
principles applicable to all humans, and the way in which those principles need
to be applied to a vast array of different individuals. Properly implementing this vision without
squelching the independence of the individual students will be the art of our teachers.
Consequently,
faculty members must be well-schooled in the evidence and reasoning for the
ideas and values he or she is teaching.
Clear standards of knowledge and reasoning, of proof and levels of
certainty, must be communicated to the students so as not to fall into the trap
of permissiveness. (These standards
will, indeed, be an explicit part of the curriculum and courses on
reasoning.)
Accordingly, the faculty’s skill will include the
ability to help students learn methods of psychological awareness, as necessary
to mastering excellent reasoning, objectivity, and to arriving at truth. Careful
and accepting reflection on the subtleties of one’s individual tastes,
interests, proclivities, and goals is a necessary step in character formation
and personal goal-setting as well.
Learning
to speak and guide students authoritatively rather than in an authoritarian or
permissive fashion will be a key part of the teacher training and
apprenticeship.
Explicating
and training teachers to use Socratic Practice in relation to the Montessori
Method and the special curriculum of the college will be a primary task of the
administration. To make this successful,
the administration will recognize and partly codify the personal
characteristics necessary to develop such a teacher. Realistically, not every
teacher will be suited to these methods or curriculum, so the artful
recruitment and selection of the right individuals will be an important part of
developing and maintaining an excellent faculty.
All
permanent faculty will be required to attend a training course and apprenticeship
in the methods of the College, as well as participate in continuing education
and discussion of the College’s teaching methods and curriculum. The curriculum content will be reviewed
yearly and modified if deemed absolutely necessary by faculty, administration,
and students; otherwise, the curriculum will be modified every 5 years, if
necessary.
Further,
while all permanent faculty members will have earned degrees appropriate to
their level of instruction from accredited institutions, they will function as Enlightened Generalists as well as
experts in their special, degreed domain.
The
Enlightened Generalist is capable of knowledgeably communicating and discussing
ideas and information on most domains of knowledge offered at the College. The Enlightened Generalist is not expected to
be deeply learned in every subject in the curriculum: in fact, he or she is often learning the
material along with the students, which
adds to his or her ability to convey interest and excitement in the material.
He or she becomes the model of the expert learner. Developing the skill of expert learning
is crucial to a successful life in which one can successfully adapt to changing
global markets and personal circumstances.
A
fundamental skill of the Enlightened Generalist is the capability to draw connections between the ideas and
information of different knowledge domains, thereby greatly increasing the
strength of students’ understanding, reasoning, and integration. The integration
of knowledge, from one subject area
to another, from the theoretical to the practical and from the abstract to the
personal, is a fundamental key to successful functioning in the world.
For
example, an excellent teacher of a seminar on calculus relates the history and
circumstances under which calculus arose, emphasizing its scientific, practical
purpose, as well as its abstract implications for reasoning and knowledge. This enables the student to:
- connect calculus to other domains, thereby
building a stronger web of knowledge, which is more easily remembered;
- grasp
its deep practical importance to
human beings;
- use
calculus in a wider arena of life.
The mental practices of the Enlightened Generalist encourage the kind of
broad, across-domain thinking that is fundamental to creative thinking and an
entrepreneurial approach—not just to business, but to life in general. In a deep sense, this is the approach to life
that the College wishes to encourage in its students, as a linchpin of
continuing life successes.
A practical benefit of using Enlightened Generalists is the relatively
small numbers of teachers necessary:
rather than multiple specialists in every field, teaching a few students
in their domain, each teacher must educate a significant portion of the whole
college population.
Standards
of achievement in knowledge and skills will be an explicit part of every course
in the curriculum, as well as overall standards as to what enables a person to
live an effective life.
Mastery in
knowledge and understanding will be the aim in every course. These standards will be developed by the
Curriculum Committee. In keeping with a
thoroughly scientific, individualized approach, students will be evaluated in
several ways:
·
Self-evaluations
of knowledge and work performed in every course,
·
Extensive
evaluations by the instructors, both individually and as a committee,
·
Portfolios
chosen by students in consultation with faculty, representing their best work,
both to reflect on their own accomplishments and to demonstrate them to
others.
The
portfolios will aid students in going on to graduate school. While the College
itself will not use traditional grades, the Administration will have a system
for assigning grades to students’ work so their transcripts are suitable for
most graduate schools.
Consistent
with its program and mission, admission will depend on a complex system of
information, interviews, and evaluations by the faculty and administration.
Like
many high-achievement liberal arts colleges today, SAT scores will not be
required. A 20 year study at prestigious Bates College found that SAT scores
had no significant relation to performance or success in the college, as
reported by Eric Hoover. The Bates study
found that a higher proportion of people from all backgrounds applied and
successfully completed the program when SAT’s were not required—and that this
correlated with creativity.
The
College of the United States will recruit and admit students without regard to
race, religion, or ethnic background, gender, or sexual orientation, but
instead based on individual evaluations dependent on the student’s interest,
thoughtfulness, attitude toward education, and dedication to the program as
determined through essays, interviews, and recommendations.
Since
the basic educational philosophy of the college consists of a deeply
individualistic approach, the college will admit well-qualified, mature
students as young as 16 years of age.
The Team thinks that many highly motivated and intelligent students lose
precious years in many high school programs and would benefit from an early
start on their college education, as did Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Isaac
Newton, and many other important figures in history.
This
will also enable students who want to go on to technical programs, like
engineering or medicine, to start the College program early and complete the
liberal arts education they need to become leaders in their fields while
entering their graduate program at a reasonable age.
5.3 Outcomes
The
College of the United States will institute measures of its performance and
success with students, as well as extensive follow-up about the careers and
later performance of its graduates.
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Sternberg, Robert J.,
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Strong,
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Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars
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Thompson, Keith. May 23, 2005.
Leaving the Left. San Francisco Chronicle.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/22/INGUNCQHKJ1.DTL
Williams, Walter. April 24, 2004. College Update. Washington
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Wills,
Gary. 2002. Mr.
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Wolfram, Gary. January 15, 2005. Higher and Higher and Higher Education. The Cato Institute.
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http://www.greatbooks.org/programs/gb/index.html The Great Books Foundation
http://www.thegreatideas.org/schools.html
Colleges With Great Books
©Marsha Familaro Enright 2005