Friday, February 29, 2008

I put in 14 hours on Tuesday.

My boss asked me into his office on Wednesday to speak to me about my hours. He's concerned that my life is suffering because of all the hours I work, and has helped me develope a plan to cut way back on them! As a result, I can go to school next Fall! I am so excited! I never thought my job would allow me to do so! I'm going to go to a local community college. The first class I'm taking is English. I was always good at English. I never had to write a paper, though. So I'm going to audit the class the first time and ask the prof. to help me learn how to write a paper. Then I'll take it again for credit. And Math. I want to take a Math class. It will probably have to be remedial Math 'cause my Math skills ar enot very good. Oh, well.

I don't know what degree I'm going for yet. The particular community college I'm looking at offers an Associates degree in Liberal Arts just for undecided people like me. I can tell you that no matter what major I decide on ultimately, my education will include these topics in addition to the requirements of the discipline: Classical Literature in Translation; The Bible (preferably semester long surveys of each Testament); Christian Thought before 1500; Modern Political Theory; Shakespeare; United States History before 1865; Nineteenth-Century European Intellectual History; Roman History; The Divine Comedy; Intro. to Modern Philosophy; Constitutional Interpretation; History of Economic Thought; Intro. to the History of Science; The English Novel; Music Appreciation; Art Apprecitation.

It's extremely important to me to have a well-rounded education, one that will shape my mind, broaden it, train it to think well.

My views of education have been molded by Dorothy Sayers' essay The Lost Tools of Learning; the Intercollegiate Studies Institute*; Father James V. Schall; and various articles and essays I've found on the web.

*especially ISI's booklets A Student's Guide to the Core Curriculum and A Student's Guide to Liberal Learning. A slightly longer (that is, longer than the booklet) and free version of A Student's Guide to Liberal Learning is available here: link.

5 comments:

p8 said...

That is way cool news, Woodrow. I bet you don't have to audit English the first time out, just dive in. You're so well-read, you already write well. And you can just find out whatever style/editing guide the college requires, to learn the mechanics of footnoting or whatever stuff is needed.

I'm only 5 years older than you, but because I went straight through, I was of the generation that did my entire undergrad on an electric typewrite and grad school on a VERY primitive word-processor (I mean, like having to change out 5" floppy disks in the middle of functions). I couldn't imagine doing class-type research in the internet age!

The Sheepcat said...

Excellent news, Woodrow! I hope it all works out.

Anonymous said...

Interesting blog..

Anonymous said...

Just be aware that survey courses on Scripture rarely present authentic Catholic understanding and are usually hostile to Catholicism.

Charles Woodrow said...

Anonymous: Yes, I am aware of that. Indeed, most surveys on Scripture don;t present any sort of historical Christian approach to the Bible. And, as I've reflected on my past and my educational plans for the future, I've begun to doubt whether I need a Biblical survey, anyway. I went to Christian schools from first grade through graduation, and was a regular Sunday School attender. These classes would probably be a waste of my time. Thanks for the warning me. I thaink that counts as a spiritual work of mercy, no?