Is what it does more in accord
with paideia than with wissenschaftlich «professional» schooling, more modeled on «Athens» or on «Berlin»?
This position evidently belongs with the «Athens» type, but it has been radically modified by the rejection of the assumption that usually goes
with paideia — that of a universal «essence» to human nature or to human experience.
As we have seen, the standards associated
with paideia impose themselves simply because the picture of Christianity as itself a kind of paideia is historically so deeply rooted.
This model does not cohere easily
with the paideia model of excellent theological schooling.
Not exact matches
Clement, furthermore, refers to the «
paideia of God» and the «
paideia of Christ» and closes
with a prayer thanking God for sending us Christ «through whom thou hast educated and sanctified us and honored us.,» In this Clement echoes the frequent use of
paideia by the Septuagint and by Ephesians.
During the social and political turmoil of the centuries following Alexander's death — in which his empire was dismembered, the «members» seemed continuously to war
with one another, and then were largely absorbed into Rome's growing empire — the practice of
paideia continued to be the dominant force shaping the educated classes.
Furthermore, it is compatible
with the various construals of the subject matter of theological schooling (Word of God, Christian experience, Christian tradition —
paideia as «Christian culture» - or various combinations of these).
Even when, as
with the Protestant Reformers, knowledge of God is reserved for the eschaton and theological schooling focuses on faith, schooling remains a practice of
paideia — notably, in Calvin's academy in Geneva.
The very idea of
paideia became privatized and entailed economic, social, and political interests, that is, «public» interests, in one sense of the term, incommensurate
with its religious interests.
Rather, as claimed by Clement of Alexandria and,
with much greater intellectual power, Origen, his pupil and successor as head of the Alexandrian Catechetical school, Christianity is
paideia, divinely given in Jesus Christ and inspired Christian scriptures, focused in a profound conversion of soul, and divinely assisted by the Holy Spirit.
Paideia proved compatible both
with the more social understanding of human personhood that marked medieval life and
with the more individualistic assumptions about personhood that marked much Renaissance culture.
By the third century A.D. the practice of
paideia treated all the classical philosophical traditions — Stoic, Epicurean, Aristotelian, but most of all Platonic —
with religious interests.
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Paideia had to do
with the interior and entirely private life.
Furthermore, Origen insisted that Christian
paideia had to be practiced in conversation
with the pagan
paideia dominant in the church's host culture.
In accord
with the «Athens» type, Wood insists that what makes theological schooling excellent schooling is that it shapes sound theological judgment; through this
paideia we acquire a habitus, albeit a habitus for action that is self - critical in the modern sense of «critique» — a sense that ancient Athens knew nothing of.
However, the inquiry that
paideia calls for begins
with the assumption of the authority of certain texts in regard to both secular and sacred matters.
It may be an arrangement that factors out different aspects of the school's common life to the reign of each model of excellent schooling: the research university model may reign for faculty, for example, or for faculty in certain fields (say, church history, or biblical studies) but not in others (say, practical theology), while
paideia reigns as the model for students, or only for students
with a declared vocation to ordained ministry (so that other students aspiring to graduate school are free to attempt to meet standards set by the research university model); or research university values may be celebrated in relation to the school's official «academic» program, including both classroom expectations and the selection and rewarding of faculty, while the school's extracurricular life is shaped by commitments coming from the model provided by
paideia so that, for example, common worship is made central to their common life and a high premium is placed on the school being a residential community.
Our proposal suggests that theological schooling,
paideia - like, helps capacitate persons
with habitus.
That is quite clearly in accord
with schooling on the model of
paideia.
In this webinar, he introduces the
Paideia Seminar and discusses how it provides teachers
with a consistent and powerful way to teach these speaking and listening standards — while simultaneously enhancing students» ability to successfully read and write about demanding texts.
With this in mind, the National
Paideia Center and New Visions for Public Schools in New York City have partnered to design a Common Core literacy - saturated experience for middle and high school social studies and language arts classes.
The
Paideia seminar — «a collaborative, intellectual dialogue facilitated
with open - ended questions about a text» — is an obvious way to promote the Common Core's speaking and listening standards.
The hallmark of the program is the
Paideia Seminar: a thoughtful, collaborative dialogue facilitated
with open - ended questions about a text.
Thomas MacLaren High School (Colorado Springs)- is the only public «classical «high school in Colorado
with strict attention to the
Paideia education philosophy which comes from the Greeks and the University of Chicago.