Tea at Trianon: The Plight of the Progressive Teacher

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, August 26, 2022

The Plight of the Progressive Teacher

From American Greatness:

If you’re a teacher in a public school who’s seen students withdraw in recent years and go elsewhere, you don’t understand it; especially those students who head for a school with an old-fashioned classical curriculum. It doesn’t make sense, though the trend is clear. New York City schools will have 30,000 fewer students this year than last year, a departure that follows a national exit from public schools. One beneficiary of the exodus is classical education, where enrollments are jumping.
But why? Our teacher can’t say. She has a progressive model of schooling—ed school trained her well—and she knows that all the learning ideals are in her favor. Creativity, individuality, relevance, and social betterment—they’re the hallmarks of child-centered classrooms attuned to current realities. Diversity, equity, and inclusion guide the readings and homework she assigns. She wants students to become critical thinkers and social change agents. Her benevolence is obvious to parents.

So why the departures for a system so different from her own? Why do Great Hearts Academies in Phoenix alone have a waiting list of 8,000 kids? Classical education shouldn’t be that popular; it loses on every progressive scorecard. So much is happening in America today, so many woke advents, and classical schools are stuck on Plato. They force kids to memorize things, too, even as it blocks a student’s creative impulses. They like assessments such as the Classic Learning Test, which includes hard-core Christian fathers such as Origen in its author bank. (Read more.)