Word: core
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...always interpreting, always interrupting and redefining the status quo, always looking, never content with what is found. An answer simply yields the next question. This is in fact true of all learning, of the natural and social sciences as well as the humanities, and thus of the very core of what universities are about...
...Bain and Suffering,” Sahil K. Mahtani (column, Oct. 5) takes me to task for recommending a conservative great books core curriculum for college students, including those at Harvard. I don’t know where Mahtani got that idea. Certainly not from my Wall Street Journal article, “Our Compassless Colleges”, where he purports to find...
...curriculum I propose, in contrast to the virtually content-less core curricula at most of our leading universities, including Harvard’s new one and old one, involves 16 semester courses. Only three of the 16 courses—one dealing with American literature, one dealing with English literature, and one dealing with political philosophy—revolve around the reading of classic works...
...core along these lines neither adopts the great books approach that Mahtani derides nor the general distribution approach that he embraces but rather provides a common-sense synthesis of the two. It presupposes only that knowledge is cumulative and that progress in education depends on mastering the basics...
...Such a core, through its structure and content, cultivates, among other things, the virtues of accurate reading and informed argument. These virtues transcend partisan differences and will serve students well not only inside and out of the classroom but in life beyond the campus...