Now even more affordably priced in its second edition, "Classic and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Education" is ideal for undergraduate and graduate philosophy of education courses. Editor Steven M. Cahn, a highly respected contributor to the field, brings together writings by leading figures in the history of philosophy and…

Students in Greece are required to study classical texts, a task often challenging both for them and for their teachers. In this article, a teacher action researcher describes how he explored ways to enhance student engagement in the required reading. By negotiating the task of indexing, a process where students go through the text collecting…

In the history of language study in Japan, there are two main streams: foreign language study and an inquiry into the mother tongue. For both types of language study, the philological and exegetical interpretation of texts had generally been the central approach for many centuries, particularly in the "koku-gaku" movement--a fierce…

I have taught Plato's "Republic" for several years although seminars on this text can be difficult and pose certain challenges, most especially with first year students new to university: the ancient Greeks seem a long way from the technocratic society we live in today. More importantly, the complexity of our relationship to each other…

Ken Donelson looks back on two classes that taught him that students are willing to share ideas when teachers are honest and reveal their biases and when classroom experiences are based on trust. Additionally, he recalls how important free reading and thematic units became to inciting authentic student responses to literature.

The modern tendency to treat all Greek Golden Age textuality as apolitical and escapist has contributed to the ongoing neglect of the first Western educational text, Hesiod's "Works and days". Most commentators have missed the interplay of utopian and dystopian images in Hesiodic poetry for lack of the appropriate conceptual framework. Once the…

On March 24-25, 2007 FPRI's Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education hosted 44 teachers from 23 states across the country for a weekend of discussion on teaching about the Military in U.S. history. The Institute was held at and co-sponsored by the Cantigny First Division Museum. Sessions included: (1) War and the Military in American…

This historical exploration tracks changes in rules concerning figurative language in nineteenth-century composition-rhetoric textbooks. The century's lessening of millennium-long restriction of the poetic allowed not only creative writing into academia but composition as well, as composition at its beginning was intertwined with creative writing.…

Amy Richlin, a professor of classics at the University of California at Los Angeles, has just translated "Poenulus," a comedy likely written between 224 B.C. and 184 B.C. by the Roman playwright Plautus. To make the comedy comprehensible for modern audiences, Richlin came up with with a bolder and deliberately controversial approach: Seek out…

We describe a physics investigation project inspired by one of the adventures of Odysseus in Homer's "Odyssey." The investigation uses the laws of mechanics, vector algebra and a simple way to construct a fan-and-sail-cart for experimental verification.

In Plato's "Meno," the overarching question is whether virtue can be taught, and as Socrates and Meno explore this subject, they are led to question the nature of teaching and learning in general. This paper is a textual analysis into what Socrates believes to constitute teaching in the "Meno," with the nature of learning also…

Inaugural lecture delivered at Bristol, England, March 1972. (RL)

Educational leaders have, from time to time, claimed that humanities students are going to find direction, confidence, purpose, and a richer life through their studies. Yet, these students are exposed to only a few samples of history or literature -- not nearly enough subject matter to enrich their lives. (CK)