I
A great books seminar is a kind of collaborative learning space, or space of shared inquiry.
For many, this kind of learning is new – 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? Are there any answers? 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?
II
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?
III
The path of lifelong liberal learning is necessarily a zig-zagging and even arduous path. Albrecht Dürer’s Melancholia Prima I depicts the dilemma of liberal learning.
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.
For the reasons stated above, Symposium Great Books Institute offers Liberal Learning Consultation support sessions for all of its community members.
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.
Use the sign up form below to set up a time for your consultation session. All sessions are free for current subscribers.
Sign up for Liberal Learning Consultations
