Dr. Paul Spears over at Middlebrow has an interesting article on education. Most surprising is the connection between Will Smith and Plato, seemingly strange bedfellows.
“Smith describes his academic experience in high school in rather negative terms. He states, “Things that have been most valuable to me I did not learn in school.” He is describing his high school experience which consisted mainly of memorizing facts and figures so you could pass a test. He stated, “[T]he date of the Boston Tea Party does not matter.” He believes that students should be evaluated on their comprehension of the material and how they can apply it to life. Because of his position on education his children are “home-schooled”. Not that he teaches them. He can afford to bring tutors in to teach his children.
Not only does he have them tutored in the basics—he has his elementary aged kids reading Plato and Aristotle. Smith realizes how important the ideas of Plato and Aristotle are in understanding our society. He states that you cannot be an American without reading Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics.” Read the full article here.
Of course the date of the Boston Tea Party doesn’t matter…although knowing WHAT it was, WHY it happened, and WHICH war it was a precursor to might be important…all of those guesses become a little easier when one remembers that it happened before the Revolutionary War (see, I don’t know the exact date either, but I could Google it in a second…I love modernity)
Thursday, December 16, 1773…but you’re right…the date doesn’t matter (I must confess…I did Google it to make sure I was right).
As a history major, I must confess that I’m sort of biased. But I think that simply understanding ‘unimportant’ things like our history or philosophy give us a greater understanding of what mankind really is, why we are that way, and where we’re headed. You know, that useless stuff.
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