Craig,
I've been in this forum for several years but I sense that it has been around far longer.
That was just my set-up to tell you that your post was by far the best post on this forum during my tenure. At this time it would not be unexpected if I said, "I couldn't agree with you more." But that implies I am thinking the same thoughts as you. That is not true. You have taken the direction of my thinking and gone far beyond me. Thanks for the Pole Star.
I do have to ask, have you read about the Trivium?
Ron

Red Ice Creations

Thank you for pointing this out, Craig. Another great interview(s)!

Also very interesting was your discovery of your ancestor-teacher. I am wondering, since you mentioned your career in education, what your profession is now. The story you relate about your ancestor reminds me of the great classicist Gilbert Highet, who emigrated to the States and became a faculty member at Columbia University. Some of his books include the Classical Tradition, on Greek and Roman influence on Western literature, the Art of Teaching and Man's Unconquerable Mind. I thought you might be interested in his work. From Wikipedia:

Like others teaching at Columbia at this time – Lionel Trilling, Mark Van Doren, Eric Bentley, Ernest Nagel – Gilbert Highet conceived of his work as the fostering of a tradition. "These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but 'minds' alive on the shelves," Highet wrote. He believed that "The chief aim of education is to show you, after you make a livelihood, how to enjoy living; and you can live longest and best and most rewardingly by attaining and preserving the happiness of learning."

As a scholar in an era in which democracy, communism, and fascism vied for supremacy, he believed it was the duty of the intellectual to support freedom and defend pluralism. "The aim of those who try to control thought is always the same," he wrote. "They find one single explanation of the world, one system of thought and action that will (they believe) cover everything; and then they try to impose that on all thinking people."

Thanks again for coming to the forum to actually speak on the topic of education and its importance to critical thinking and independence.

Thank you very much.
Ron

You're welcome!

I took off my goat costume and changed back into my angel suit for you.