After reading Our English Syllabus curtain trends started arising repeatedly. One of these that I really liked was the notion that “a perfect study of anything requires a knowledge of everything” this quote is one of the many reasons why core classes are so important to a liberal arts education, particularly at Calvin College. However, because students must study a broad range of subjects the information in each core class must be expansive in order to cover the whole subject in one semester. One problem with this that inevitably arises is what to put an emphasis on? The author gives the example of a tree representing the subject of English literature. The medium of soil has been necessary to the development of the tree so naturally the soil example is the people, social, economic, and intellectual things that gave rise to the tree. Further on the author doesn’t mention the soil, but I think back to our original essay and I believe that in order to understand something it is important to look at it from different viewpoints(at and along). The example that came to mind was the bible, If someone reads it without any prior context then they miss out on all the cultural implications of the story as well as geographical significants. Therefore, to fully understand the bible there is reference points at the bottom of the page that tell about whatever is being discussed. Originally, I would skip over these because they weren’t “part of the bible.” However, I now understand that they are central to my understanding of the verse because I’m not a biblical historian. In the rest of the example of the tree the author also says that students take a class (of say English) and when finished they say something like okay I’m finish with that subject what’s next on the list. This is a terrible way of looking at college as a group of requirements. Instead each class (including the ones I don’t like) should be treated a invaluable learning experience that is both broad and specific. Also along these lines the author gives the example of students that pick classes based on what they think employers will like. While college is, a great avenue for attaining a job it is also important to take classes that show interest to you. Otherwise, the things learned will be what you think others want you to know, instead of becoming knowledgeable in areas of thing you want to know.
Your comments on reading the Bible and understanding its context reminded me of a character from a Steinbeck novel. This character read the Bible straight through and believed everything at face value. But she never took the time to realize that parts of the Bible contradict each other. She figured if the Bible said something, that's exactly what it meant and that's what was true.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point that we must approach even our Bible readings with the same kind of feeling intellect that we should be using in all parts of our life
I really enjoyed how you used the example of understanding the Bible through the context as well as the text. I think we all too often forget how important context is, and that when we misunderstand the context we can misinterpret the entire text. I really liked how you explained how we must learn wholeheartedly in the classes we like as well as the core we are just "trying to get out of the way". This made me realize how important to do everything for the Lord. Even the things we don't like we must do to the best of our ability.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right when you say people often finish a class at school and decide their done with the subject for life. There is so much more to learn and we shouldnt expect to be experts after one semester. We should independently study on our own topics of further interest that relate to the original subject. This takes time but Lewis says we must learn for the sake of it.
ReplyDeleteI really likes how you applied the concept of the tree to the Bible, it was interesting. The whole soil point makes a great argument for the Core classes we take. It reminds us that core is just as valuable or perhaps slightly more important then the class we enjoy because it gives us background on subject we would not pursue ourselves.
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