Classical Academic Press has added another jewel to its collection of books, and Mortimer Adler: The Paideia Way of Classical Education, written by Dr. Robert Woods, is of that quality one expects to find in this delightful series.
The book’s greatest feature besides being an accurate portrayal of Adler and his work is that it is both rich and concise. To say Adler’s publishing career was prolific and his contribution to educational reform was immense would be understatements. Yet, in this brilliant primer on Mortimer Adler and his Paideia approach to education, Woods coalesces the salient attributes of the educator and his reform proposals in a way even the most unfamiliar with Adler would benefit greatly.
Woods opens with a brief biography of Adler before describing his life-long project as making “a persuasive case for liberal education through reading, studying, and discussing the great books. As public philosophers (Adler worked closely with Robert Maynard Hutchins), both were intellectuals committed to a vision of teaching and learning that robustly engages the masterpieces of the past with a democratic impulse to cast a wide net for education for kindergarten through grade twelve and adult learning.” In other words, Adler’s was a noble pursuit of educational reform that was meant to provide “the same quality of schooling for all.”
Next, Woods offers an enumeration of the standard of education for which Adler argued, one he called the Paideia approach. Adler’s approach to the classroom essentially consisted of a three-column structure.
The first column is formal didactic instruction. In this column, students received a short engaging lecture that would improve the mind “by the acquisition of organized knowledge.”
The second column is academic coaching or skill development. In this column, students are taught the basic skills of listening, speaking, observing, reading, writing, estimating, measuring, and calculating. Practically speaking, they observe and imitate the teacher and then receive critical feedback in the “know-how of the skill” they are learning. This is not, however, the stage in which students develop “the deeper abiding understanding of the skill” they are learning. That will come once students can practice the skill successfully. As Woods notes, “Knowing how to do something and understanding what one is doing are very different even though they are of course intricately connected.”
Adler calls the third column, The Socratic Seminar. This method of teaching is valuable, according to Adler, because “the interrogative or discussion method of teaching … stimulates the imagination and the intellect by awakening the creative and inquisitive powers. In no other way can children’s understanding of what they know be improved, and their appreciation of cultural objects be enhanced.”
Finally, Woods’ own optimism for Adler’s ideas, combined with his clear classic writing style, made the book a joy to read. He not only outlines the big ideas of Adler’s Paideia trilogy with concision and cogency, Woods’ own passion for the import of Adler’s approach to classical education is apparent and persuasive as captured in his paraphrase of Adler when he writes, “If Americans do not read, cannot write, and forget how to converse in a manner informed by truth, then the civitas is lost.”
Anyone interested in understanding the importance of the liberal arts tradition or more about Adler’s unique approach to classical education would benefit greatly by reading this book. Most importantly, I hope teachers and parents of homeschoolers will read it.