Liberal Learning for Life: Consultations

Welcome to Liberal Learning for Life: Consultations

Description of Aim:

The purpose of Symposium Great Books Institute liberal learning consultations is to offer private advocacy and support for members of great books seminars or great books readers in general.

There are two primary challenges we face together.

A great books seminar is a kind of collaborative learning space, or space of shared inquiry. Because this kind of learning is so new for many people – different from what we we may be used to in our past educational experience – seminar can feel overwhelming. What do we do with all the questions? What happens when personalities clash? What is the best way to enter and sustain the conversation? What is the aim or purpose of the conversation? What are the rules or the art of conversation, if there are any all?

The great books themselves can be daunting. We do not have recourse to outside information as a matter of practice, but we approach the great books directly, and reflect on them on the basis of our shared experience. What is it to read a book without recourse to secondary outside information? What are some good habits of reading and habits of thought? What is the best way to prepare reading for conversation? What if we do not understand the reading before we meet to converse?

Fundamental practical questions arise in the life of any serious conversational reader on a path of liberal learning. Raising these questions for ourselves and answering them on the grounds of our own experience and reasoning can help improve our practice of the arts of reading, conversation and learning.

How can I become a better ‘questioner’? What is it to learn? What should I read? Why are we even reading? What is the aim of reading? How can I read better? What books might help me pursue some of my biggest questions? How can I make the most out of my reading? How does my time and energy look like week for week – what space can I make for reading in my life? How can writing support my reading, conversation and inquiries?

How much or little should I speak in a seminar conversation? What are better ways to enter the conversation? What should I do with the silence? What are some good habits of mind cultivated in seminar conversation? What is the aim of seminar? Why do we approach the books through conversation instead of lecture? How can I best prepare for seminar?

Learning is a passion and a lifelong pursuit. Those of us with a love of learning know full well that school – or terminal degree programs – at best can only be beginning for a lifetime search for knowledge, understanding and wisdom. We also know that the zeal for learning knows no bounds – we stretch far beyond our particular career path, and cast our nets widely and deeply. This is what liberal learning means: a robust form of learning that befits free human beings, in pursuit of an understanding that aims for the whole realm of learnable things.

Yet the path of lifelong liberal learning is a zig-zagging and even arduous path. Albrecht Dürer’s Melancholia Prima above depicts the dilemma of liberal learning. Dante at the opening of the Inferno, ‘lost in a wood midway through the journey of our life’, is in a similar position. We sense the ‘star’ of learning – that there is something significant, and even life-changing, in the reading of great books and the practice of the arts over a whole life. But often it can seem, trying to follow the ‘star’, that the way forward is blocked on all sides.

Now those with a lifelong passion for learning tend to be self-reliant or independent spirits. Nevertheless, from time to time, we all could use some help to get the most out of our reading and learning pursuits. We might wish for, and need, something more to support us.

To help lovers of learning find their learning-way through the rough terrain outside the pale of academia, and to provide intellectual advocacy and support, we offer – as an extra dimension of our learning community – our “liberal learning consultations” to all those who desire it, within the Symposium community and beyond.

Liberal learning consultation sessions can be used for any number of practical purposes:

To discuss what you are reading or are interested in pursuing over a long term.
To help devise a plan of reading.
To discover habits of reading, thinking and speaking that you’d like to be improved.
To help you discover and articulate what your genuine learning aspirations are, and discover ways to realize them.
To help you articulate what your vital questions or problems are – and even to study those problems together.
To help clarify the major challenges of lifelong liberal learning, to take steps toward understand the problems deeply, and to learn ways to meet and overcome them.
To help you develop a practice of reflective writing, in support of your learning.
To learn how to become a better reader: to learn strategies for close reading of great books.
To learn to get the most out of seminar conversation.
Anything else not listed here that comes up in our work together that might provide support and advocacy for your pursuit of learning.
This session can also be useful if you have questions about our method or approach, or great books “methodology” related questions.

In the last analysis, whatever direction we finally take, these liberal arts counseling sessions are designed as ‘discovery and solutions’ sessions, to help you get the most of your learning time with us and your learning through other avenues.

Our first session has the sole purpose of discovering what challenges you are facing, how we might help you live the life of learning, a life of the mind, to the fullest.

Frequency:

After the first session, consultations would be monthly, as desired.

Session Length:

One Hour

Days/Times:

Scheduled on a case-by-case basis.

Cost:

Free Initial 45 minute consultation, with no obligation to continue.

Thereafter, $45 per one hour session.

3 sessions, $120 for a quarter.

***This service is included in the benefits and is free for subscribers and members of slow reading pathways, ancient language classes, and special programs.***

Facilitators: David Saussy

Welcome to Liberal Learning for Life: Consultations

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