Schools And Learning: Classical (Pre-Industrial Revolution) Vs. Henry Ford

Our education methods are borrowed from Henry Ford's schools, designed to create factory workers. By contrast, "classical" schools (modeled on ancient approaches) focus on the genius of each individual student. Even if we have been limited by the factory-worker school system, we can rediscover our own genius by opening ourselves to broader fields of knowing - many areas of interest, many fields of investigation, and many disciplines.

Transcript

Hi,

My name is Chris Largent and I run a classical academy on the East Coast of the United States.

The reason I mention that is any classical academy,

Real classical academy or classical school is nearly the opposite of the school system in which most of us were raised.

Why is that true?

Our school system was designed,

As John Taylor Gatto points out in his seminal book Dumbing Us Down,

By Henry Ford.

Ford created the system to get more factory workers.

To do that,

He wanted the huge American consciousness he ran into to get smaller and smaller,

More and more focused on a single task,

Single discipline and so on.

And something that seems unrelated to the others,

Just focus on that,

Everybody else does their thing and to take orders from authority figures.

Now in a classical academy,

And by the way,

I ran into a classical elementary school in the 50s when I was growing up and they had opposite assumptions from Henry Ford's schools.

In a classical academy,

The assumption is that the individual is a genius and the individual discovers that by opening up to more and more and more awareness,

Awareness of all kinds of discipline,

Skills,

Areas of expertise,

Whatever,

A larger and larger and larger perspective.

And when that happens,

Especially through dialogue and discussion,

The individual genius of each person starts to come out and how that genius contributes to the whole community gets very clear.

I'm mentioning that because even those of us who went through the school system and were programmed to think that if we just focus on one thing,

That's real intelligence and that's all we've got.

If we open up right now,

Any way we can to more and more and more subjects and areas of interests and opportunities for learning,

What we will discover is the natural genius that classical academies took for granted.

Thanks for listening.

Reviews

Great talk. Elevating thinking.

Thank 🙏 you
Jesse

Excellent!

Thank you. Although I was considered a good student, I felt harmed by the school system. I appreciate looking at different possibilities for how to educate myself and others.

Excellent reinforcement and positive support as today I am struggling with a particular challenge during my Ph.D. studies. Integrating multiple fields, as I am doing, is encouraged, although this particular course is by necessity very single-purpose and highly focused - and has been feeling quite constrictive as a result. This short talk helped me put things into perspective and remember that this is just one course; it is now how my entire program has been or will be. Thank you for sharing this. I see you and the light within you. Be well. 🤲🏻❤🤲🏻

Exquisite,sweet soul sibling..Deepest appreciation and much love,light and bountiful blessings..Namaste beloved peace particle..