Word: paideia
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...extreme, Adler's The Paideia Proposal offers an impassioned but simplistic reminder of What Education Is For, Proposing that all high school curricula be revamped into a three-column, 12-year approach, Adler advocates attentive teaching of "acquisition of organized knowledge" (history, languages, science, taught by rote); "development of intellectual skills" (reading, speaking, problem-solving, taught by drill); and "enlarged understanding of ideas and values" (works of art and aesthetic appreciation, taught by Socratic discussion...
...primary elements of the Paideia proposal are what Adler calls the three columns. These represent the three types of learning that should go on simultaneously throughout all twelve years as well as the styles of teaching required for each. The first consists of the acquisition of fundamental knowledge: history, literature, languages, mathematics, science and the fine arts. This material should be instilled didactically, through lectures and the like. The second column develops the basic intellectual skills of reading, writing, mathematical computation and scientific investigation: know-how as opposed to know-what. These should be taught just as physical or athletic...
...addition, Adler proposes twelve years of physical education and eight years of manual arts (such as cooking, typing, automobile repair), and at least one year of instruction to help in choosing a career. Paideia thus becomes "the general learning that should be the possession of all human beings...
...Adler, Paideia is a model within reach. He is preparing a manual, to be issued next year, that will help school systems and teachers implement the proposal. One teaching experiment has already been carried out at the Skyline High School in Oakland, Calif. Seventy-five students spent one year studying 50 of Adler's Great Books, using the Socratic method of pedagogy. The results, says Principal Nicholas Caputi, were "stellar," but some 80% of the students were classified as gifted anyway. A fuller test will come in Chicago, where Superintendent Ruth Love plans a pilot school that will give...
Some educators familiar with Paideia suggest that Adler has neglected one crucial question: Who will teach the teachers? Phil Keisling, an editor of the Washington Monthly, believes that "the legions of incompetent teachers is an even more distressing problem than the laxity of curricular standards." Adler acknowledges that further reforms will be necessary to retrain teachers, and he urges that teachers should receive a solid liberal arts education and "the hell with courses in pedagogy and educational philosophy...