The Unchanged Truth Can Educate the Changing Future Forever
Description: The Great Books of Perennialism
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Robert Maynard Hutchins and Mortimer Adler are known for advocating educational perennialism and aiding in establishing the Great Books curriculum. Hutchins believed the educational system was the same in every time period and in every land. Students should be taught to think and reason and schools should only thrive to improve their intellect. Schools should do away with any activities that were not intellectually stimulating. Therefore, Hutchins, as Chancellor, dissolved the intercollegiate football program at the University of Chicago; and that university does not participate in collegiate football even today.
In a perennial classroom there is no need for textbooks. The Great Books are the only curriculum; along with logic subjects such as math, hard sciences, and foreign languages. Teachers are not to be concerned about students' interests or experiences. The focal point of perennialism is to improve man's intellect through rational thinking. The seating arrangement would be orderly in rows. Students would be in alphabetical order enabling the teacher to take roll. Those possessing high academic reflections would be recognized and given special treatment. Lectures would be the favored method of teaching. Students would be required to lecture back to the teacher. Demonstrations like science projects would not be used. They were deemed to be a waste of time. Essays and written exams were implemented to express students' ability to clearly think.
Mortimer Adler believed our schools should produce young people who could take their place in the world and make it better. Teaching them to think was essential for that. The next democracy of America, without citizens capable of leading it, would not survive. In Adler's own words, "We are, indeed, a nation at risk, and nothing but radical reform of our schools can save us from impending disaster."
