Robert A. Heinlen once said
that the foundation of our civilization rests on the study of three things: math, science, and history.
\r\n\r\nThe intellectual history of our civilization was founded in Athens by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. We ignore what they had to say at our peril.
\r\n\r\nSimply put, it's very difficult to figure out where you're going if you have no idea where you came from... and Western Civilization came from those three guys. The Apology should be required reading for everyone in our civilisation... it's probably the most impassioned and eloquent defence of democracy ever written, by a man who knew that that democracy was about to have him killed. Another piece of reading that should be required along with The Apology is (IIRC) the Crato... that is, the one about Socrates after his condemnation to death. That dialogue was about his refusal to accept his friends' offers of help to get him out of the city so that he wouldn't be required to drink the hemlock. This was a common practice of prominent citizens who'd been condemned to death at that time and place... and he said no because to do so would be to betray the democracy that he believed in so much. In short, he was willing to die to avoid putting the lie to his impassioned defence of democracy in the Apology.
\r\n\r\nCurrently, here in Canada, a student who wants to get a wide-ranging exposure to those writings has to take an obscure philosophy course in university... I think that some of them should be taught in grade school. The comment that they won't find it relevant simply means that your exposure to them wasn't handled properly. It's not difficult to find relevance in the Dialogues in today's society... all the teacher has to do is point to televangelists, marketing and publicity, politicians of a certain stripe, and common latter day business practices and relate them to the appropriate dialogues to make them be relevant. This accomplishes a few things in the student's mind... these things, though presented as being novel, are not new at all; these things, though presented as virtuous, have long been demonstrated as being anything but (and by no less an authority than the founding fathers of our intellectual traditions); and that the job of the thinking, active citizen is to be able to see and then to act against the works of sophists whenever they encounter them in their society.
\r\n\r\nA fringe benefit of this kind of education is that it will help the student understand their true place in the world and in history... that is, instead of being the centre of the universe, they will realise that they are a small player on the enormous stage of human history... and they will come to realise that the myth of exceptionalism which every regime wants to see promulgated about their particular society in culture is in fact, a myth. This understanding will then mean that they will be in a position to make better decisions about what is to be done in certain circumstances... because they will see that the situation now (for example) is not "the first time ever" and is not "unique in history", and they will have the tools to be able to go back and look at something like the history of the Pelepponnesian wars and understand what happened to the society that acted in that manner. They will be able to make better decisions. This can only be a good thing for the United States in the long run... though possibly quite a few oxen would get gored in the shorter run.
\r\n\r\nI think that training in our society's intellectual history, the history of our forms of governance, and the history of thought on the subject of the state, the individual, and the responsibilities of both parties should be taught in grade school. I see nothing in several of the Socratic Dialogues that would be beyond the reach of a lively student in grade six. I speak from personal experience... I was given some of the Dialogues to read by my parents when I was in grade school, and I had no trouble understanding them.
\r\n\r\nAppropriate classical works for high school would include things like Thucydides and some of the Aristotelian works... and all of this should be leavened by works from other epochs as well: Descartes, Hume, Hegel, and Marx (yes, Marx!) is a short list. The point here is not to just drive it into them... the point is to get them to read these things critically... at the same time that the students read these books, they should also be being given the intellectual tools needed to read them critically. If this is done... you will have good citizens coming out of the nether end of your primary education system.
\r\n\r\nThe fact that this is NOT done leads me to believe that the real goal of our (I include the Canadian system as well... we have the same problem up here) education system is to produce good workers and consumers, not good citizens. My grandmother taught school in the nineteen-teens to school children... and children were expected to know who Socrates and Plato were by the time they were released out into the world at the age of fifteen. It was a core part of the historical curriculum at that time... and the parent's would have gotten quite incensed if they weren't being taught that, because they knew that what those guys said taught more about what it meant to be a good member of the community than anything a thousand hours of esteem-building could ever hope to teach.
