Eudaemonia launch at Cedars soon!

The Cedars and Laurels Schools will soon deliver a new series of extra-curricular seminars as part of their commitment to the cultivation of intellectual and moral virtue in students. The seminars will use materials from Eudaemonia, a core course under works by friends of the Thomas More Foundation, and by Roy Peachey in particular. The original plan to run these as fortnightly or monthly Saturday seminar days has been postponed until later in the year. It seems advantageous to let the Cedars staff learn how to work with the resources in-house, following which they will be able to deliver the Saturday series themselves. It gives Roy the opportunity to work with some of the staff there who have undertaken similar seminar-style Great Books projects. This collaboration is expected to be beneficial for refining the content and structure of the Eudaemonia resources and also for thinking about marketing. Read more about the trial here. 

With regards to marketing, I have had several discussions with the schools. There are three notable selling points to Eudaemonia over other enrichment programmes. First, the seminars specialise in directing students towards the wisdom and ingenuity in the ordinary. Second and relatedly, they are not confined to the Great Books, occupying instead that bridge between appreciating the wisdom in literature and starting to recognise it in one's own life. This is not to diminish the value of the classics, but to further challenge students to seek out wisdom and understanding in the absence of any obvious primer of the relevant ideas or virtues. Finally, the sources on which they draw are often incredibly novel, and not at the expense of quality, drawing on authors, ancient and modern, who are typically absent from comparative curriculums, including Catholic authors; on scientific journals and reports on contemporary initiatives in humanitarian aid and environmental stewardship; and on architectures and artefacts from across the world. The Western Classics need not be put down in order to open students up to a broader range of works, provided the assurance of quality which comes with the Classics is not sacrificed; at the same time, this broadening cannot contradict the aims of liberal education, since the kind of enrichment it pursues is universally possible. 

Some thought has been given to how the programme can be introduced to other schools. The Saturday seminar series will naturally connect us to other schools in London. In addition to this, the diocese itself can connect us with a variety of Catholic schools who are in need of solutions to a lack of quality formation; this is an avenue I am pursuing presently. 

How teachers who take up our resources will be trained is another question of great importance. I envision providing a series of workshops for teachers at a central location, assuming we have significant uptake. I have made contact with one educator who is interested in providing this service for us. But this leads on to a broader question of the long-term formation of these teachers, a problem I have given much thought to; I have sketched some of these thoughts in the following section. 

The importance of regular in-person formation for Eudaemonia teachers

Eudaemonia should serve schools across the country by enabling them to provide better intellectual and character formation through enriching seminars. In order to deliver these seminars effectively, teachers themselves need a solid intellectual and character formation. This should not be quantified primarily by how many books teachers have read, although reading widely will increase their knowledge base and give them an important advantage in leading the seminars, but by their habits of engagement with other subjects and their thoughtfulness about enduring and contemporary issues. Such habits would be symptomatic of valuing education for its own sake. Because the UK discourse has sought for decades to frame education as something which sets one up for a career, and because the humanities have been steadily excluded from this on the grounds of their supposed inutility, it shouldn’t surprise us that many teachers may well lack confidence in delivering socratic seminars. For a start, it is insufficient to go off of the reading material, but a broader understanding of the context of the reading and the place it occupies in the history of ideas is demanded. Teachers must have a much broader and deeper understanding of ideas within and beyond their qualified subject. 

One of the motivations behind the postgraduate certificate was to offer teachers, especially our Eudaemonia teachers, an in-depth understanding of the history of ideas. We originally posited that this would be multi-modal and interdisciplinary, meaning it is not simply a ‘Great Books’ or a ‘Classics’ course, but should present the history of the liberal arts and sciences in their interdependence. The course would comprise a series of lectures and seminars written by our network of accomplished academics, possibly modular in structure. 

Three interrelated difficulties emerge. First, how are we going to assess our participants? A postgraduate certificate surely calls for a more advanced assessment, for instance, an extended essay or dissertation. Eudaemonia teachers may find this too much commitment in proportion to their needs — assuming they are primarily after a stronger knowledge base to complement Eudaemonia or any other curriculum — which leads to the second problem of whether a postgraduate certificate in its very concept is too much for our Eudaemonia teachers. It certainly could never be an expectation that they must complete this course before they are able to use our resources; but we should certainly encourage them. A third difficulty complements the previous two, the problem of whether the course in remote or in-person. Robert Teague has argued strongly for the remote option, as this would enable us to reach a larger audience, whilst simultaneously enabling us to connect people to our best academics around the country. Whilst this may be the best option for the postgraduate certificate, it is arguable that Eudaemonia teachers would benefit from regular in-person formation. 

I am increasingly seeing the importance of in-person formation in connection with the Eudaemonia course, given that in principle it is not simply a curriculum but a method which teachers can apply to texts they find more appealing to their particular course; and also given that we may offer more programmes in the future, besides Eudaemonia, targeting more specific aspects of intellectual or character formation. In-person formation could be offered to a regular group of teachers in London. In connection with this, I am very interested in initiatives like the Canterbury Institute, who offer regular formation for their students and researchers in Oxford in the form of regular seminars and dinners. Similarly, it was noted in the Summer Newsletter that the Pascal Institute make a point of concentrating their resources on the formation of their teachers, which comprises weekly gatherings for studying together and participating in seminars to develop teachers’ confidence and competence in their role as an educator.

In principle, an in-person formation option could be the principal means by which we train teachers to use Eudaemonia. There are many schools in London who would be a natural first port of call for take-up of the resources, so having a centralised place for their teachers to meet and discuss the implementation of the course would be advantageous and far more practical than our representatives going to each school individually. 

Thought needs to be given to the most appropriate venue for this. If we are able to come up with some working relationship with the diocese, they may well open some possibilities here. 

Consultation for Postgraduate Certificate announced

We recently published a call for contributors to a postgraduate certificate in the history of ideas, in line with our aims set out at the May symposium. Presently we have interest from academics from the University of Birmingham, University of St Mary’s Twickenham, University of Notre Dame Australia, University of Glasgow, and the Canterbury Institute.

Based on the present availability of those interested, the optimal date for the consultation appears to be in February. An exact date and a programme of the key questions to discuss will be determined in due course. 

An initial point of discussion will be format. Consideration has been given to pursuing a residential programme, a series of 3-5 day retreats throughout the year. I take as my model the Literature and Arts MA programme at the University of Oxford, but similar formats have been pursued by leading liberal education institute Landmark, for their in-situ courses, and Opus Dei, for their professional development retreats and their annual courses in philosophy and theology. The retreats could align with half-term holidays. It would have a clear need to be tied to a site accessible to enough academics to draw upon for the delivery of courses and also having residential and catering facilities. Whether teachers would find it easier to commit to these retreats or the online asynchronous courses is difficult to assess, but I suspect ultimately the online option would be favourable.

It must be clear what advantages our course has over those provided by the universities. There are practical points here. We are marketing primarily for those who have no need for the full university experience — they are people who have already done a degree, who most likely work, and who are looking for personal enrichment which will also feed into their work. Because they work, they are also looking for something which can be done part time and with flexibility, hence our online/asynchronous solution. They are also likely to be reluctant to commit to anything which will take more than a year. The Masters options which universities offer part-time are all done over two years. The aforementioned Literature and Arts MA from the Oxford University is an exception, the taught content for which could theoretically be condensed into a year. That Masters, however, culminates in a thesis, so it is in fact two years’ duration. The taught content comprises four 5-day residential courses, each of which deals with a substantial section of the history of literature and art; it is one of the few genuinely comprehensive surveys of the history of ideas available in this country. Most alternative BA or MA courses are modular or organised according to system (i.e. ‘ethics’, ‘metaphysics’, ‘epistemology’, etc.) in such a way that it is practically impossible to receive a substantial survey through any combination of modules. Furthermore, those courses that do advertise themselves as ‘history of’ courses tend to be concerned with historiographical method or with questions of social and cultural significance, rather than dealing with the transhistorical value of ideas, i.e. what they mean for human behaviour and aspiration.

I will note some other promising courses, albeit their length exceeds what is permissible for our project. Cambridge’s Philosophy BA is comprehensive, although the value of this course is likely diminishing in the context of that university’s cultural and administrative difficulties, as recently reported by David Butterfield. St Andrew’s integrated Masters in philosophy is rigorous and takes the foundations of Western philosophy seriously, whilst their graduate ‘conversion’ certificate in philosophy offers students two generous reading pathways for their year of study. Courthauld, University of London and the University of Aberdeen offer stellar BAs in Art History and the History of Ideas respectively, the one situated in the Courthauld gallery, with paintings ranging from the middle ages to the C20th, the other striving for a genuinely human perspective on the impact of ideas, so far as I can ascertain. Finally, London Interdisciplinary School offer an interdisciplinary BA in tackling global problems, for which they fly in academics and entrepreneurs from all over the world to deliver workshops on globalisation, climate change, and other pertinent issues. I think the spirit of that course is commendable, even if its content is liable to be excessively political. 

What does all this mean for our postgraduate certificate? First, it is clear that very little is on offer in the universities which provides the breadth of historical understanding we seek to impart on a part-time basis; and that the understanding which is typically offered is more academic, in the respect of dealing with historiography and interpretation rather than with the ideas themselves. Second, few courses have achieved a blend of modalities (literature, art, architecture, film) through which to understand the significance of ideas. Third, assessments are extensive. The challenge of our graduate certificate is to maximise the breadth of knowledge that can be communicated on a part-time basis, minimising assessment whilst maximising credibility. Fourth, assuming we proceed with the online solution, this will enable us to connect students to the brightest minds all over the world with minimal effort. 

Recent articles

Our website aims to supplement our various projects with articles which further elucidate the significance of liberal education. We’ve had a strong start in this regard. First, we published Dr Matthew Post’s (University of Tulsa) detailed study of classical education as an enduring form of character education. He points to several aspects of classical education, but the decisive factor is the Great Books seminar. He describes the aims of these seminars and how they might be rendered ineffective, whilst defending them against contemporary charges of elitism and irrelevance, albeit not uncritically. 

Alexander Norris shared with us his reflections on the importance of the humanities for education, himself teaching at an inner-city school in London. He considers them to be an effective mediator between two competing tasks of education, to maintain social mobility by teaching what has always been taught and to be responsive to new demands of society. The humanities excel here because they describe the adaptability of the human spirit. 

Drs Leonard Franchi and Robert Davis (University of Glasgow) generously shared with us an article of theirs on the idea of curriculum. They investigate whether Catholic education has a distinctive take on the knowledge to be passed on to students and the means by which this is to be done. They point to the union of faith and reason and the inseparability of knowledge from character. Perhaps more distinctive is their discussion of the patterns common to learning and liturgy, that is, patterns of repetition through which understanding is able to mature.  

I myself have recently published some reflections on a lecture I attended at the Pascal Institute earlier this month delivered by Dr Pano Kanelos. Dr Kanelos presented his view on the purpose of a university, himself having recently founded one in Austin, Texas. Building upon his remarks, I describe the importance of community to the pursuit of liberal knowledge and and the dangers of the intellect becoming untethered from the inexhaustible complexities of human experience — a vice that St Newman termed ‘intellectualism’. Whilst we are not founding a university here at the Thomas More Foundation, the lessons to be learned here are readily transferable to the Sixth-Form environment. 

Next Steps

The first trials of Eudaemonia will be underway from January; our consultation for the postgraduate certificate will likely begin soon after. Over the coming months it will become clear which schools are willing to take up the Eudaemonia programme from next September. What remains to be determined are the options for in-person formation for the Eudaemonia teachers in London. 

Please contact j.thomson@thomasmorefoundation if you would like to support us with our projects or would like to be featured on our website as a ‘friend of the Foundation’. 

Jack Thomson, Project coordinator of the Thomas More Foundation