The Blackboard

Optionality and the Intellectual Life: In Gratitude for the Real World...

Something about Taleb’s emphasis on practical wisdom unleashes in his readers a sense of humility, a renewed trust in reason, and a spiritual hunger courageous enough to move beyond the cynicism and skepticism typically bred in schools.

The Classroom as Sanctified Space: Human Formation away from the Screen

For the sake of human formation and flourishing, it is essential to carve out sanctified spaces of peace and refuge away from the mesmerizing pull of screens.

Liberal Learning for All: A Review of Rescuing Socrates

Montás deserves great credit for illuminating the perverse priorities of American higher education throughout Rescuing Socrates. It must be admitted, however, that the book suffers from occasional missteps. A fuller engagement with the history of the liberal arts than Montás musters would have enriched the book.

Craft and Theology: The Reason

The frictionless existence we were promised, one that freed us from slavish obedience to place and tradition and family bonds, turns out to be one in which we amorphously float about in a gelid atmosphere longing for the halcyon days of family farms and quaint communities.

Online Learning Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be

There is certainly a place for online learning in undergraduate education, but we should not undercut traditional higher education for the sake of innovation or profit margin.

The Classroom as a Welcoming Space

If we have all the knowledge in the world but have not love, the apostle Paul says, then we’re as annoying as a banging cymbal. It’s no wonder students wouldn’t want to listen to us.

Wendell Berry and Zoom

While the futurists and transhumanists and purveyors of educational technologies would have us voluntarily cut off our arms so we can enjoy their fancy new prostheses, our priority should be to avoid dismembering ourselves.

Devotion to Whole Education: Booker T. Washington

I think, I know, that Washington exemplified a whole-hearted devotion to his students. He was concerned, as I am, to educate the whole person of the student, not merely to train children to someday earn a good salary or support themselves.

Education and the Quest for Association

Plato remarked in the Republic that if one wanted to know the health of a city, we could simply look at the souls of...

The Battle Rages On: Eric Adler’s Battle of the Classics: How...

We all want students to think critically and to reflect on what they have encountered in the course of their education. In order to do that, however, they must have something to reflect upon.