Modernizing the Classics is a bit of an oxymoron.
And will their physics department reduce their calculus, set theory, and topology requirements in order to draw more students?
Of course, they will not.
And hopefully, Oxford will retain their reputation for excellence in the classics by simply telling students to either hack the program or go to a place with no standards.
Like Harvard.
Honors freshman in high school reading back in my day.
(I must sound ancient to the Millennials here!)
Pursuit of excellence? No... not anymore..
Western Civilization has utterly lost its way....
I often am left wondering if Western Europe has ever fully recovered from the utter decimation of its lineage wiped out during WWI... and WWII.. because it sure seems today that collectively it is a LOT dumber and softer than it was before.
If changes simplifying education keep trends like this going eventually students won’t even be able to read Homer Simpson.
Hyperbole: from Greek hyperbole "exaggeration, extravagance," literally "a throwing beyond," from hyper- "beyond" + bole "a throwing, a casting, the stroke of a missile, bolt, beam,"
To be replaced with what? Heather Has Two Mommies? Peyton Place? Harry Potter Series?...................
There are a lot of people in college who don’t realize that nearly EVERY play, movie, or novel take their basic stories from these classics, other Greek tragedies, and the Bible.
I guess if they dont make you read these all of their “exciting” and new stories will seem very “bright” and better than anything ever written.
They are so tedious.
Dumb s^^ts!
It’s all part of their revolution. I’m a millennial and my PUBLIC high school in a middle class community had Latin courses (that included selections from the Aeneid), western humanities courses, a special course that mixed American history with American music and art, etc. Spoke with a former teacher recently and it’s all been removed in favor of multicultural BS and they are now prohibited from grading students too harshly. Any effort at all, even a name on the paper, gets a minimum of 50%, and the administration comes down hard on them if they hand out final grades lower than a B, especially if “people of color” are involved.
There’s no a lot of schools in the world that offer doctorates in such subjects.
One is plenty.
But there needs to be one.
“Modernizing” the curriculum (all levels all subjects) always involves NOT teaching something.
Maybe an Iliad And Odyssey comic book series would do...
Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.
My sophomore year of the so called advanced class of 36 so called smart kids, read and studied the Iliad.
The instructor was the drama teacher coach. She made it interesting and got some of us to try out for school plays.
I can’t say that in spite of her, studying/reading the Iliad ever helped me in any way.
My mother was a reading teacher and basically told me to read it, get a good grade and move on.
My Dad like many men at that time had gone to school for 8 years and then went to work for the rest of his life. Most of his reading after that was what he wanted to read like:
He loved Zane Grey, Jack London and re read the Old Man and Sea time after time. He read the local newspaper which was a good one. He borrowed my granddad’s condensed Books to read.
He wore out 2 copies of the Old Man and Sea, and he was on his big print copy when he died.
My Mother in spite of being a reading teacher, said to find writers, you enjoy reading and try to read a new book or re
read one a month after college. She said to try new authors, however if they didn’t get you hooked in the first couple of chapters or 30-50 pages, move on to another book. There was nothing wrong with reading 2-3 books during the same time period, just vary the reading. I’m currently reading 3 books.
She followed that regimen until she died at 86. The last four years of her life, she lived in a good retirement with a good library. She became the librarian and got the other ladies to list the books they kept in their room and to loan them to people who wanted to read them. She donated her many books to that library. Once a month, she led a group of readers in their little bus to the local library to check out their books. She was a volunteer reader at libraries and schools for most of her retired life.
My wife, oldest son, and a granddaughter read dozens of books in a month or two. The 3 of them are speed readers with incredible recall. Now, that my wife is retired, she gets about 6 books a week to read at our local library. All 3 of them have electronic readers/kindles and they prefer reading from real books.
Yeah, let’s not teach kids the classics — they might not think “right.”