The humanities show us of the folly of “going it alone,” in this project we call life. They also offer us a treasure-trove of resources, resources spanning millennia, for this endeavor. And they bring us together, in dialogue, with our imperfect predecessors to parse out their wisdom and ignorance; their goodness and cruelty; their achievements and failures.
Having been a teacher and a parent, I agree emphatically with Fromm. To be prepared to deal with the current realities, students need to find ways to find what's real and not to jump to unsubstantiated conclusions. The necessary combination of facts and investigative thinking reveals acceptance of others and potential unity, not the divisive and dangerous culture we seem to see currently.
Lovely piece. I think Fromm's critique stands, however we have to decide what we want school to do: train people or teach them to think. You can't do both at the same time. Ideally, school would do both, but from what we're seeing - not well.
Having been a teacher and a parent, I agree emphatically with Fromm. To be prepared to deal with the current realities, students need to find ways to find what's real and not to jump to unsubstantiated conclusions. The necessary combination of facts and investigative thinking reveals acceptance of others and potential unity, not the divisive and dangerous culture we seem to see currently.
Beautifully put! Our experience as parents deserves to be part of our intellectual discourse.
Lovely piece. I think Fromm's critique stands, however we have to decide what we want school to do: train people or teach them to think. You can't do both at the same time. Ideally, school would do both, but from what we're seeing - not well.