Humanities 101 – Fall 2013
How Do We Best Educate Citizens?
A new course made possible by funding from the
National Endowment for the Humanities
How do we best educate citizens of a democracy? The question has challenged philosophers from ancient Greece to the present and continues to affect students, lawmakers, and educators. This course will engage students in their own learning by asking them to critique the concept of education and its assumptions about citizenship. In addition to writing argumentative essays and online journal reflections on their educational experiences, each student will create a short documentary film on questions raised in the course.
Sign up for this course if you want to…
- Address the questions: Why do we teach and learn? What do we teach and learn? How do we teach and learn?
- Study historical views on the best ways of educating citizens as well as challenges to these views from contemporary thinkers
- Evaluate, critique, and discuss your own education and learning as you begin your college studies
- Learn how to interview people to create a short documentary film on education in a democracy
Works to be studied in the course may include:
- Plato’s Apology and Republic; Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- Barthes’ “The Death of the Author”; Nussbaum’s “Citizens of the World”
- Films such as Lucas’ THX 1138 and Greenfield-Sanders' The Black List.
To sign up during registration, request Humanities 101 with Dr. Dinkins or Dr. Sexeny, with the course title “How Do we Best Educate Citizens?”
For more information, see page 7 of the Summer 2012 issue of Wofford Today, and please feel free to contact Dr. Dinkins or Dr. Sexeny.