“When one teaches art history or physics or French at the college level, one is trying to give students access to a distinct domain of aesthetic, scientific, or literary value. We aren’t selling them something they already want; instead, we are trying to help them learn to want something, or to strengthen and deepen a pre-existing but weak desire.”
Agreed, on the whole. Yet physics doesn't quite fit. If you have to launch a satellite or reckon the force needed to push a wheelbarrow up an inclined plane, the calculations that Newton developed or learned from his predecessors work pretty well today. On the other hand, how many revolutions have literary reputations been through since his day: Shakespeare, Milton, Virgil?
“When one teaches art history or physics or French at the college level, one is trying to give students access to a distinct domain of aesthetic, scientific, or literary value. We aren’t selling them something they already want; instead, we are trying to help them learn to want something, or to strengthen and deepen a pre-existing but weak desire.”
ReplyDeleteAgreed, on the whole. Yet physics doesn't quite fit. If you have to launch a satellite or reckon the force needed to push a wheelbarrow up an inclined plane, the calculations that Newton developed or learned from his predecessors work pretty well today. On the other hand, how many revolutions have literary reputations been through since his day: Shakespeare, Milton, Virgil?