So, the article was behind a paywall, but damn! More of this, please...!

From the #ChronicleOfHigherEd - St. John’s College Is Weird. Maybe Yours Should Be More Like It.

Its #GreatBooks approach is #anachronistic, and spreading

By Beth McMurtrie

"Seeking to understand the unique culture of learning that distinguishes St. John’s College, The Chronicle of Higher Education's Beth McMurtrie traveled to the Annapolis campus in January, where she watched 13 sophomores and two tutors gather around a table in McDowell Hall to discuss Dante's Purgatorio.

"Tutor Emily Langston opened that evening's seminar by reading a passage about Dante seeking freedom, and then asked the room a deceptively simple question: In what sense is he free? And has his understanding of freedom changed?

" 'The students opened their marked-up paperbacks, flipping pages as they considered the questions. There was not a laptop or a cell phone in sight. Then they began an increasingly rare activity on college campuses today. They discussed, for more than two hours, a complicated work and the deeper questions it presents.'

"McMurtrie also spoke with multiple Johnnies and tutors, weaving their reflections throughout the resulting profile while exploring how the college's Great Books-based pedagogy has become a model for other institutions—and how a time-tested classical education can be revolutionary in modern times."

More about #SaintJohns #GreatBooks #Curriculum

St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

"St. John’s College is best known for its reading list and the Great Books curriculum that was adopted in 1937. While the list of books has evolved over the last century, the tradition of all students reading foundational texts of Western civilization remains. The reading list at St. John’s includes classic works in #philosophy, #literature, political science, psychology, #history, religion, economics, math, chemistry, physics, biology, #astronomy, #music, #language, and more.

To see the reading list organized by class year and subject matter, scroll down. Or view a simple list organized alphabetically by author. Learn more about classes at St. John’s and the subjects students study."

https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/undergraduate/great-books-reading-list

#ReadABook #NoSmartphones #Education #FoundationalTexts #ClassicalEducation #NoAI #AnapolisMD

#RayBradbury Reveals the True Meaning of #Fahrenheit451: It’s Not About #Censorship, But People “Being Turned Into Morons by #TV”

in Books | August 10th, 2017 9 Comments

' 'Fahrenheit 451 is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship,' wrote the Los Angeles Weekly’s Amy E. Boyle Johnson in 2007. 'Nor was it a response to Senator #Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands.' Rather, he meant his 1953 novel as 'a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.' "

https://www.openculture.com/2017/08/ray-bradbury-reveals-the-true-meaning-of-fahrenheit-451.html

#Idiocracy #DumbingUsDown #PutDownThePhones #AISucks #ReadABook

Every moment spent #reading a #book is another moment not spent generating data that a #billionaire can sell to a third party for money you will never receive.

The inner world you create when reading is beyond the reach of those who would exploit you. #ReadABook

Call it what it is:

corporate #theft of copyrighted works, entrusted to them to be sold, not scraped and offered circumventing the original.

#leaveAmazon
#DontAskThisBook
#ReadABook
#amazon

https://writerbeware.blog/2025/12/12/kindles-new-gen-ai-powered-ask-this-book-feature-raises-rights-concerns/

#thereisNoAi