Ignition for Education

The previous sections covered the Creation Paradigm, how education based on it can grow the student into both a creator and a self-creator, and why this has to be done, and can only be done, in a liberal democratic society. In the United States, however, politics and the civic conversation tend not to focus on…

The foregoing section gave the first reason why the Creation Paradigm is best realized, and why education is best practiced, in a liberal democracy. Liberal democracies prioritize the individual, rather than forcing conformity to religious or political orthodoxy, or to authority beyond that of laws that are necessary to protect all of the citizens. Massive…

The Creation Paradigm holds not just that morally good acts are creative and evil acts destructive but also that the good for an individual is to become creative—artistic perhaps, productive for sure, intellectually developed to the extent that their abilities will allow, original, and, above all, virtuous. It holds that engendering creativity (especially self-creativity) in…

The previous chapter laid out a context—a scheme of morality; a basis for evaluating any action or set of actions. In the context of the Creation Paradigm, then, what set of actions constitutes ideal teaching? It is actions that make the student and help her to become a maker, including a maker of herself. It…

The philosophical concept of “the good,” formulated at the birth of philosophy in classical Greece, refers to moral goodness but also to both self-interest and self-realization. It discusses what is right for the object of discussion, be that object a person or a community. At the level of the community, there, of course, a still…

Often, teachers have little time to think deeply about our work. We rush from lesson plan to lesson, to grading, to meetings, to curriculum plans and standards, to lunch supervisions, to extra-curricular activities, to parent-teacher conferences. When we get to rest, we want to…well, rest, not reconsider. But constant reconsideration, leading to constant improvement, is…