Powers of the Mind

by Levine, Donald Nathan

• ISBN13: 9780226475530
• ISBN10: 0226475530
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-11-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

It is one thing to lament the financial pressures put on universities, quite another to face up to the poverty of resources for thinking about what universities should do when they purport to offer a liberal education. In Powers of the Mind,former University of Chicago dean Donald N. Levine enriches those resources by proposing fresh ways to think about liberal learning with ideas more suited to our times. He does so by defining basic values of modernity and then considering curricular principles pertinent to them. The principles he favors are powers of the minddisciplines understood as fields of study defined not by subject matter but by their embodiment of distinct intellectual capacities. To illustrate, Levine draws on his own lifetime of teaching and educational leadership, while providing a marvelous summary of exemplary educational thinkers at the University of Chicago who continue to inspire. Out of this vital tradition, Powers of the Mindconstructs a paradigm for liberal arts today, inclusive of all perspectives and applicable to all settings in the modern world.

Author Biography

Donald N. Levine is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Sociology and former Dean of the College at the University of Chicago. He is the author or editor of several books, most recently, Visions of the Sociological Tradition, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
 

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Acknowledgments	xvii
Prologue: Missing Resources in Higher Education	1	(6)
PART I. CRISES OF LIBERAL LEARNING IN THE MODERN WORLD	7	(30)
The Place of Liberal Learning	9	(15)
Sites of Secondary Enculturation	10	(5)
The Modernity Revolutions	15	(4)
Liberal Education Encounters Modernity	19	(5)
The Movement for General Education	24	(13)
Fallout from the Modernity Revolutions	25	(4)
Quest for a New Common Learning	29	(8)
PART II. ENTER CHICAGO	37	(138)
The Making of a Curricular Tradition	39	(36)
Enter Chicago	39	(4)
Forming and Nurturing a Tradition	43	(1)
Themes of the Chicago Tradition	44	(27)
The Chicago Tradition of Liberal Learning	71	(4)
Dewey and Hutchins at Chicago	75	(16)
Dewey as Educator	79	(5)
Hutchins as an Unwitting (?) Deweyan	84	(2)
The Hutchins-Dewey Debate	86	(5)
Richard McKeon: Architecton of Human Powers	91	(23)
Entering the Fray	92	(2)
Changing the Humanities Course	94	(2)
Reconfiguring the Liberal Curriculum	96	(7)
The Return in the 1960s	103	(6)
McKeon as Teacher	109	(5)
Joseph Schwab's Assault on Facile Teaching	114	(32)
Genesis of an Educator	115	(8)
Transforming the Natural Science Curriculum	123	(6)
Transforming Classroom Pedagogy	129	(4)
Transforming Pedagogy through Examinations	133	(1)
Transforming Educational Systems	134	(8)
Pluralistic Thoughtways and Communal Practice	142	(2)
Schwab and the Chicago Tradition	144	(2)
What Is Educational about the Study of Civilizations?	146	(29)
``Civilization'' in Educational Discourse	147	(2)
Civilizational Studies at Chicago	149	(17)
So, What Is Educational about the Study of Civilizations?	166	(9)
PART III. REINVENTING LIBERAL EDUCATION IN OUR TIME	175	(82)
New Goals for the Liberal Curriculum	177	(13)
Contested Principles for the Liberal Curriculum	177	(6)
Choosing a Path	183	(7)
Goals for the Liberal Curriculum I: Powers of Prehension	190	(14)
Audiovisual Powers	190	(4)
Kinesthetic Powers	194	(4)
Understanding Verbal Texts	198	(2)
Understanding Worlds	200	(4)
Goals for the Liberal Curriculum II: Powers of Expression	204	(16)
Forming a Self	205	(4)
Inventing Statements, Problems, and Actions	209	(4)
Integrating Knowledge	213	(4)
Communicating	217	(3)
New Ways of Framing Pedagogy	220	(12)
Modalities of Teaching and Learning	221	(4)
From ``Teaching'' to Teaching Powers	225	(2)
A Repertoire of Teaching Forms	227	(3)
Approaches to Testing	230	(2)
My Experiments in Teaching Powers	232	(25)
Searching for Disciplines	232	(5)
Basic Practice	237	(2)
Disciplines as Ways of Getting into Conversations	239	(9)
Disciplines as Ways of Connecting Conversations	248	(9)
Epilogue: The Fate of Liberal Learning	257	(2)
Appendix: Three Syllabi for Teaching Powers at Chicago	259	(8)
References	267	(16)
Index	283