Word: adler
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Under Adler's spell, the great ideas take on palpable form. To make them concrete, he talks about triangles and squares, black swans and schnauzers, vanilla ice cream and boxes of ball bearings...
...first day, Adler is somewhat unsatisfied. Only half a dozen students have regularly been involved in the discussion. Overnight he devises a trick to pull the others in. His solution is ROBERT BURGESS a familiar piece of pedagogical gear: a blackboard diagram. The way Adler uses it, however, would make less self-confident teachers quail. For his goal, it turns out, is not to illustrate a point but to start an argument. To do so, Adler returns to Garrick's first question, but adds a new twist. The blackboard diagram contains conflicting statements about the nature of beauty. Position...
...they are Thomas and Sandy. All right, Thomas, defend yourself." Thomas is Thomas Keating, a tall sophomore who sat through the sessions on truth and goodness without saying much. Now, under Adler's coaxing, he offers an admirable defense. He begins by quoting Thomas Aquinas. "The beautiful," he says haltingly, "is that which gives pleasure upon being seen." Exclaims Adler...
...That's right! But ice cream gives me pleasure, a very soft pillow when I'm tired gives me pleasure, a cold shower on a hot day gives me pleasure. Is it the same kind of pleasure?" Soon Adler gets Thomas to agree that beauty pleases the mind as well as the senses. But how does the mind judge beauty? "It's all subjective...
...Adler gives the other side a chance. "How many of you ever got an A-plus on a composition?" Hands thrash the air. "Do you think your teachers were right?" After considerable debate, the consensus turns out affirmative. Sandy decides to desert the ranks of Position A. "Now, Thomas," says Adler, "you stand alone. But you can still defend yourself. You can say they're talking rot." The discussion goes back to grades. Thomas admits to having received a C. Then Garrick plunges into the fray. He wants to know if Thomas thinks his teacher was "totally subjective...