If you want the books behind it
Theory
You feel like you understand every word, but you have no clue what's going on.
the books and theories behind the argument · Hirsch, Rose, Refling Hagen
Read these first, in this order
- 1Cricket in AustraliaSome kids get it from home, and some don't. It's not enough that some teachers are heroic.
- 2Never heard of Hirsch thereWhat is even the point of lots of fancy theories and PhDs when you don't do the absolute simplest thing possible?
- 3Are you allowed to say this?The most condescending thing you can say about ordinary people is surely that world literature "isn't for them".
- 4Still an atheistMatthew in Greek at Easter, Bondestudentar with no background knowledge, Wergeland's "Mennesket", and the plan for the Old Testament. The Bible as literature, for someone who quit the church at sixteen.
- 5Against screens — but what are you for?Only those with high social capital manage to be strict about screens and still fill the house with books.
Everything on this
1 more piece, in the order they belong together
Reading list
books, recordings and places · the sentences are mine, from The List, the catalog and what I've written elsewhere
- E. D. Hirsch: Cultural LiteracybookSitting here reading E. D. Hirsch now — wanted to start with the oldest (Cultural Literacy) even though he's written a lot after that. An incredible amount here that makes sense.
- E. D. Hirsch: Why Knowledge MattersbookBoth that there's gotten to be a real focus on all texts for kids being so incredibly relatable to their own lives — hundreds of easy-to-read books about Per, age 8, who bikes to soccer practice. And also the shift from a class reading a book together and discussing it, to free reading of a book you picked yourself.
- E. D. Hirsch: How to Educate a CitizenbookSo E. D. Hirsch in his latest book has a whole chapter about how French education was apparently the best in the world from '75–'85 and then changed radically — with very measurable results, due to a comission headed by Pierre Bourdieu!
- Jonathan Rose: The Intellectual Life of the British Working ClassesbookQuite dense, incredibly interesting, overwhelming, and somewhat exasperating...
- Ingeborg Refling Hagen: the autobiography, three volumesbookIf you're interested in literature and learning, her biography in three volumes is incredibly inspiring.
- Simon Goldhill: Who Needs Greek?bookAn incredibly erudite and enjoyable set of case studies of fascinating ways in which Greek culture is seen by different time periods and settings. Gave me so much I want to explore.
- André Bjerke: VersekunstenbookHere's a short book by André Bjerke about verse rhythms. I didn't know what an iamb was until a couple of years ago!
- Daniel Mendelsohn: An OdysseybookHe has taught the Odyssey for 36 years, and also wrote a fantastic book that's a kind of meditation on the Odyssey, on teaching, and on his relationship with his father.
- Musikkens verden (1963)bookNorway is huge, most people don't have easy access to concert halls etc, but they can listen to classical music and operas through the radio. This book will help introduce them and reduce the «fear of the opus».
- Athenaze · Lingua Latina per se illustrata · Osweald BerabookA new textbook in Old English (the language of Beowulf etc) that seems totally fantastic — focused on the "comprehensible input" method, like Athenaze and LLPSI, and in the same way those books were how I got into Latin and Greek.
- Tyndale House Greek New Testament, Reader's EditionbookWhere all words of a certain frequency are listed in the back, and all words of lower frequency than that are listed on each page... I'd really like to buy a Havamal or Edda in that format! Does that seriously not exist?
- The Iliad: Østbye vs. RostadbookWe read books 1 and 6 (Østbye's translation) out loud, I got a bit fond of the ornate language after a while, but we all agreed that it'll take a lot to get younger people engaged in the Iliad if this is the best we have to offer them!