Why One Inner City College is Bringing Back PlatoIntellectual Takeout, Jan 15, 2018, Annie Holmquist
If we’ve learned anything in recent months, it is that the race, gender, or orientation of an author matters far more than the content of his or her book. As a result, many colleges are abandoning the works of literature which have long laid the foundation of western civilization. Being “woke†more often than not means reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me,†or Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,†rather than works by Shakespeare or Aristotle.
But one college appears to be waking up to the fact that avoiding foundational works of western civilization might not be the best idea. As The Wall Street Journal reports, Hostos Community College, located in South Bronx and catering to a minority population, is challenging the status quo. Instead of teaching woke literature that’s social justice compatible, the college is teaching Plato.
According to the WSJ, students were skeptical at first. But as they dug into the material, they began to see how applicable these works actually are to today’s issues: ‘First, you need to know the concept of what freedom means to be hungry for it,’ [student Maria] Diaz says. She adds that these books ‘are for everyone. They were different people in different centuries, but at the end, they’re thinking about the same problems.’
The instructors bringing these works back to the classroom at Hostos agree. They suggest that students cannot become critical thinkers without reading and debating the material these books advance.
More:
http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/why-one-inner-city-college-bringing-back-plato
