Ep. 4 - Introducing Norms and Nobility

This is Episode 4 of The Everlasting Education Podcast, a Kepler Education Production.

David V. Hicks's, Norms and Nobility was first published in 1981 when it won the American Library Association's Outstanding Book Award. Since that time, it has gone on to become one of the most influential books in the Classical Education movement. Hicks's "purpose in writing the book is to offer a personal interpretation of classical education—its ends, as well as some of its means—and to respond to the objections of those who might approve of the goals of such an education, but who believe that it cannot meet the needs of an industrial democracy ro that it is not feasible as a model for mass education."

In this episode, Scott Postma and Joffre Swait unpack the prologue and engage some of the basic premises of Hick's philosophy, namely that modern education is descriptive in nature, whereas classical education is prescriptive in nature. Modern education treats education from the philosophical standpoint of what is while classical education strives for a standard of what ought to be.