Liberty Lyceum Travel

We arrived safely in Madrid this morning. It’s spring green everywhere! On the plane, I made more progress in James Michener’s wonderful 1968 book about Spain, Iberia. I’ve always loved Michener, and this non-fiction tour of the Spanish peninsula based on his many years of travels here is an excellent introduction to the country. I particularly liked his digression about education in it. Since it fits in well with our own ideas about learning, I’ll share the excerpt here:

“As I stood in the Alcázar with this statue of Carlos [King Carlos V], I reflected upon the years I have spent studying this emperor and his works. For me he has always been a central fact of Spain and one of the figures of world history who best repay study. When I was a young professor I used to daydream about what I would do if placed in charge of a college whose only responsibility was to provide a selected group of students the best possible education without regard to outside pressures from alumni, large contributors, the sports editors of the nearby metropolis or the general damn-foolishness of American life. Like any sensible man I would naturally sponsor only a general humanities program, reserving training courses like law, medicine, engineering, or business for university specialization which would come later. My students would direct themselves to language, literature, science, philosophy, the fine arts and history, secure in the knowledge that if they mastered those subjects they would later be in a position to control such social functions as medicine, manufacturing, constructing, teaching, and governing. In other words, I would stress with my students the widest possible exploration plus the most intensive analysis of two or three specific unities.”

“The latter, which would be the heart of my system, would be attacked in a radical way. Twice in the student’s four years — once at the beginning, and once at the end, so that he could see in himself his deepening capacity — I would ask him to spend the year or most of the year in studying one brief segment of history. During that time, he would take no traditional courses whatever, no mathematics, no chemistry, no Literature IV. Instead he would immerse himself in the world culture operating at that period in time, and to do so, he would study the art forms, the music, the contemporary understanding of geography, the philosophy, the religious convictions, the economics, the travel, the architecture, the writing, and the daily life of the peasant. And he would be obliged to explore in depth the half-dozen nations or principalities which best illustrated the significant meanings of the age being studied.”

I don’t take this suggestion literally or exactly, but it’s similar to our ideas about immersion. I love how Michener’s immersion in Spain resulted in so many vivid descriptions that delight us over 40 years later. And yes, to homeschoolers familiar with A Thomas Jefferson Education, my similar title was intentional.