Prof's book new map for old tradition
Whitney A. Stewart
Issue date: 9/6/07 Section: News
Classroom discussions do more than just help students learn about history - they also helped Associate Professor of History Richard Gamble pull together the pieces of a new anthology.
"The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What It Means to Be an Educated Human Being," was scheduled for release Sept. 1 from ISI Books.
Gamble said there are anthologies which cover educational thought, but they defend modern education instead of the liberal arts.
He said the book fills an important hole for educators battle-weary of fighting against the modern education philosophies culminating in John Dewey.
"It makes it look like all roads lead to John Dewey," he said. "My road doesn't lead to John Dewey. I wouldn't have put this much blood, sweat and tears into this if I wasn't filling a hole."
Tom St. Antoine, Gamble's long-time friend and former colleague at Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida, hopes the book will revive a lost tradition in education.
"The great tradition in education is about the formation of civic virtue, the formation of character," said St. Antoine, the director of PBA's honors program. "I think [the book] will revive a tradition in education which has lasted many years, but is often ignored in our culture."
Gamble predicts the book will help the educational ventures of Christian college faculty, classical school teachers and home schooling parents teach a tradition reaching back 2,400 years.
Beginning with ancient Greek philosophers and progressing through the 1970s, 658 pages of primary-source documentation include writings by such men as Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Lewis, Babbitt and Eliot.
"This book is not a work of scholarship on my part as a historian," Gamble said. "It's me as a teacher. It's a reflection of the tradition I wanted to be an extension of, so I went back and put some pieces together."
This is Gamble's second book, following "The War for Righteousness," published in 2003, and his publicity schedule for this new book is already packed.
"The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What It Means to Be an Educated Human Being," was scheduled for release Sept. 1 from ISI Books.
Gamble said there are anthologies which cover educational thought, but they defend modern education instead of the liberal arts.
He said the book fills an important hole for educators battle-weary of fighting against the modern education philosophies culminating in John Dewey.
"It makes it look like all roads lead to John Dewey," he said. "My road doesn't lead to John Dewey. I wouldn't have put this much blood, sweat and tears into this if I wasn't filling a hole."
Tom St. Antoine, Gamble's long-time friend and former colleague at Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida, hopes the book will revive a lost tradition in education.
"The great tradition in education is about the formation of civic virtue, the formation of character," said St. Antoine, the director of PBA's honors program. "I think [the book] will revive a tradition in education which has lasted many years, but is often ignored in our culture."
Gamble predicts the book will help the educational ventures of Christian college faculty, classical school teachers and home schooling parents teach a tradition reaching back 2,400 years.
Beginning with ancient Greek philosophers and progressing through the 1970s, 658 pages of primary-source documentation include writings by such men as Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Lewis, Babbitt and Eliot.
"This book is not a work of scholarship on my part as a historian," Gamble said. "It's me as a teacher. It's a reflection of the tradition I wanted to be an extension of, so I went back and put some pieces together."
This is Gamble's second book, following "The War for Righteousness," published in 2003, and his publicity schedule for this new book is already packed.
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