Word: adler
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...Watching Adler teach is a bit like watching Itzhak Perlman fiddle or Walter Payton run. No passive observer of the learning process, Adler is a full participant. He punches the air with his fists, bounces up and down in his chair, clasps his hands prayerfully to help students approach comprehension. When a difficult point is finally understood, he laughs with delight. During the discussion of goodness, when a student brings up Aristotle's concept of "right desire," Adler roars with pleasure. "What is really good for you is what you really need!" he shouts, waving his arms. Then...
During a break, Adler can be seen mopping his brow. He is short of breath. "The trick is to get them relaxed," he puffs. "They've got to be taken out of the teacher-student relationship. Every good teacher has to be something...
...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...