About the project

In line with the aims set out during our May Symposium on the value of a liberal education, we are looking to develop an online and asynchronous postgraduate certificate in the ‘Great Works’ taken over a year. This would consist of a series of texts and alternative media (art, film, etc.), providing a multidisciplinary survey of the history of ideas. The course would be designed to equip teachers with the philosophical tools and knowledge base to provide high-quality intellectual formation for the challenges that beset us today. We are inviting academics who share our vision for education to join us for an initial consultation in February to determine what we could produce together. 

We estimate that the consultation will be in February; a date will be decided soon.  Dr Leonard Franchi (University of Glasgow and University of Notre Dame Australia) has kindly offered to get this project moving if we at the Foundation can generate sufficient interest. For now, please get in contact with j.thomson@thomasmorefoundation.co.uk to express your interest or complete the Google Form below. 

The certificate in the context of Eudaemonia

In May the Foundation held a symposium to discuss the value of a liberal education and what could be done to promote it here. We determined two feasible projects for us, a Sixth-Form core course, currently under development with the help of Roy Peachey, and a postgraduate certificate in the ‘great works’. The former, soon to be trialed at the Cedars and Laurels' Schools, will be a collection of materials for Socratic seminars which can be given to schools either as an extracurricular course in its own right or to enhance existing courses. 

Many teachers, depending on their background, will themselves need support to effectively deliver these, because the seminars are about seeing the world as a complex whole, rather than as divided up into neat, discrete subject areas. They require that teachers read widely, engage with subjects beyond their own, are willing to detach themselves from common assumptions and distinctions for the sake of better understanding them; bound up with all this are the values of a liberal education, such as seeing education as an end in itself and as something which continues beyond one’s school years. We can provide some support in the form of documentation, detailing our approach to education, offering practical suggestions for the delivery of seminars, and providing an overview of the history and significance of the most important ideas which recur across our seminars.  And in a city like London, where the schools we will reach out to in the immediate future are based, it would be desirable to organise once-a-week formation sessions, like the Pascal Institute do, where teachers come together to study and to discuss the virtues of a comprehensive educator. 

The postgraduate certificate is another powerful means by which we could offer teachers a better formation. Teachers should gain a substantial foundation of knowledge which they can bring with them to all educational ventures. I discovered recently that there is a documented lack of core knowledge among teachers in the UK, leading the author of one paper in particular to call for ‘educated educators’ – teachers who have a rich understanding which goes beyond their specification and beyond their nominal subject area. A postgraduate certificate could effectively provide this. The Foundation envisions a multidisciplinary survey of the history of ideas. This should not be limited to the ‘great books’ but should also explore their expression in art and even in film. The ‘history of ideas’ approach something we also encourage for teachers who will use our core course, because it puts all the ‘facts’ of the curriculum into a narrative context of problems (or creative opportunities) which arose or recurred through time, the prior works and the historical conditions which were necessary for these problems to arise and their solutions to be formulated; the postgraduate certificate should aim to give teachers this ‘map’ of ideas. 

We originally considered that the course should be online and asynchronous, so as to maximise outreach and be flexible around the work lives of educators, who are our primary, but not exclusive audience. Reflecting on conversations with the Pascal Institute, we are considering a model comprising a termly series of 5-day residential courses, much like Opus Dei’s formation weekends, or like this Oxford Literature and Arts Masters programme. Deciding between these will be a primary objective of our first consultation. 

Several ‘great works’ programmes have popped up in recent years across the world, including most recently Jordan Peterson’s new venture with his online Academy. I think we have the potential to do something bespoke here, however, something which caters to the particular difficulties of the UK situation – a longstanding decline in the humanities and, relatedly, in the breadth of knowledge that educators bring to their role. Furthermore, the Foundation is backed by Fundación Parentes, who are willing to invest in the project, provided it can be shown to be feasible. 

This is a challenging but exciting time for education. The Foundation is steadily developing a good network of academics who can make the postgraduate certificate become a reality which has the potential to benefit thousands. We hope you'll join us on this endeavour.

Register Interest Below