What I'm reading: Jacques Barzun

Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning, by Jacques Barzun.

Krakovianka posted this on Jacques Barzun's 100th birthday, but I'd put it to the back of my mind until I picked up this book at the library.

So far this is very good stuff.

Take one familiar fact: everybody keeps calling for Excellence--excellence not just in schooling, throughout society. But as soon as somebody or something stands out as Excellent, the other shout goes up: "Elitism!" And whatever produced that thing, whoever praises that result, is promptly put down. "Standing out" is undemocratic.--page 3

And this echoes Charlotte Mason:

The result for them is that learning, homework, teachers, tests, grades, standards, promotion form a great maze--mostly make-believe--that they have to stumble through in order to be let go at last and, thanks to a piece of paper, get a job.

Of course, some go on to college--as many as 58.9% of high school graduates in 1988 were in college or on the point of entering. But with some exceptions, their experience there will not differ greatly. So-called higher education repeats the lower in form and substance: the sole aim is "to qualify."

And one more:

....educationists have persuaded the world that teaching is a set of complex problems to be solved. It is no such thing. It is a series of difficulties. They recur endlessly and have to be met; there is no solution--which means also that there is no mystery. Teaching is an art, and an art, though it has a variety of practical devices to choose from, cannot be reduced to a science.