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Alternative Schooling Styles : Great Books

Conversations with Great Minds

This style is very similar to the other classical styles. It is a liberal arts education that shares the same goals and much of the same curriculum. However, it emphasizes more reading of, writing about, and discussion of the great books. Students spend more time with the ideas of the best poets, authors, leaders, theologians, and historians.

Latin, Greek and other foreign languages are encouraged but not required. Some use the trivium method to design their curriculum, some do not. (A short explanation of the trivium method is in the Classical Christian style chapter.)

This style is teacher-directed and can be used in private or home schools. There are many lists of "great books" or "best books" available in book form and on the web.

When choosing or designing a curriculum, be careful not to exclude Christian studies or be overly critical of Christianity in general. Doing so will obscure the motivations and assumptions of the important people of Western Civilization and hinder the student's ability to see the "big picture" -- one of the goals of a classical education.

Resources and Curricula

  • Invitation to the Classics, Edited by Louise Cowan and OS Guinness, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1998
  • Classical Curriculum by Escondido Tutorial Service -- www.gbt.org/guide.html
  • Preparing your Child for a Great Books Education by Fritz Hinrichs -- http://www.gbt.org/preparing.html

    Quotes
    " ... in reading the literature of ancient Greece and Rome, you are engaging the same texts that influenced virtually every educated person in our history. So if you want to understand the mind of Descartes or Abraham Lincoln or William Faulkner or even Clint Eastwood -- and if you want to understand yourself -- you need to understand the classics." -- Mark C. Henrie, A Student’s Guide to the Core Curriculum, ISI Guides to the Major Disciplines

    “If the world becomes pagan and perishes, the last man left alive would do well to quote the Iliad and die." -- G.K. Chesterton, English author, poet & philosopher

    "A Great Books education for the most part does do students a lot of good. Most of them learn to read more carefully, to become more precise in their manner of expression. They are able to spot the assumptions that undergird the thought of many great thinkers. They develop a respect for the ancients and acquire some sense of the way that thought has developed over the centuries. They become somewhat critical of modern society and develop a more refined aesthetic sense. In short, they discover the joy of the challenging the intellect. I consider it no small accomplishment that they become delightful conversationalists and learn the incredible pleasure of friendship based on intellectual interests." -- Dr. Janet E. Smith, professor and author

    “Let us not forget that the adoption of the test 'what is it good for' would abolish the rose and exalt the triumph of the cabbage." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, American author, poet & philosopher

    “There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin." -- Alexis De Tocqueville, French social philosopher and author of Democracy in America

    “What we become depends on what we read after all the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is the collection of books." -- Thomas Carlyle, author and social critic

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