Through humanities instruction, students can begin to understand their own culture by examining other cultures. From this examination, students may perceive that some values other than, or even contrary to, their own accepted ones offer meaning, purpose, validity, utility, and beauty. A review of the search for meaning through the humanities…

This essay reflects on the ways in which the events of 9-11 offered those in the humanities an opportunity to demonstrate the many and varied gifts the disciplines have to offer a postmodern world that, for all its technological wonder, is still, ultimately, utterly dependent on food for the soul--the sort of nourishment that the liberal arts…

Intended for administrators and policy makers, as well as teachers, this digest examines the current state of humanities instruction and the evolving place of humanities in the high school English classroom. The digest first explores differing definitions of the humanities, and discusses reasons for the decline in emphasis on humanities…

This report of the National Conference on the Humanities includes summaries, with excerpts, of four major addresses--(1) "What the Humanities Programs in Schools Ought to Be" by Harry S. Broudy, (2) "Problems and Advantages of the Culture-Epoch Approach to the Humanities" by John R. Dahl, (3) "Humanities: A Great Ideas Course" by Morris Saxe, and…

The psychological impact of schooling is examined within the context of a new school of British psychoanalytic thought. It is concluded that schooling is maddening, in the sense used by Laing, Cooper, and others. A rationale for a sane humanities program is established consisting of two components: the nuclear and the cortical. The nuclear is the…

Three major rationales characterize the literature dealing with the use of humanities instruction in preparing educational administrators. These rationales focus on (1) the general liberalization of the administrator, (2) the values and purpose-defining skills of the administrator, and (3) the creative and analytical skills of the administrator.…

This directory is an attempt to identify arts and humanities programs and courses in the elementary and secondary school of the San Francisco Bay Area as perceived by teachers and administrators who have developed them. Questionnaires were distributed, and interpretation was left up to the person filling them out as to what constitutes the…

Reviews the efforts of the humanities faculty at Valencia Community College (Florida) to restructure the curriculum to allow more time for material to be covered, and to locate, or write, appropriate texts to teach students to examine primary sources intelligently and to identify and organize facts and ideas. (AYC)

Claims Alan Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind" and E.D. Hirsch's "Cultural Literacy" lead readers to believe that young Americans are extraordinarily stupid and that in their ignorance we can read the decline and fall of the American way of life. Presents support which resists rather than foments such panic. (NH)

Loosely structured like think tanks, humanities research centers are the true intellectual homes of many humanities faculty members and are instrumental in breaking the hardened boundaries of the disciplines. (MSE)

Considers some documentary evidence for the view that the U.S. is on the educational and cultural decline and contends that the principal symptoms of weakness have been with us for decades. Lays the responsibility for many of the problems in the present crisis in humanities education on the humanities faculty. (SED)

Four model curricula are examined as approaches to individualized programs in the humanities. (KM)

The image of the labyrinth from mythology can find modern day parallelisms in architecture, art, music, and literature--all of which contributes to a humanities unit combining the old with the new. (MM)

In order that humanities studies have a more permanent place in American education, author suggests changes in the character of humanities education that must develop. (RK)