Talk:Great Books programs in Canada

Neutrality

This article needs to include sources from newspapers, magazines or other established media discussin this subject. It also needs to be rewritten in a more encyclopedic and more neutral manner. As it's written now it seems to advocate for this subject. ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:06, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Please read the Wikipedia article Great Books. The Great Books article lays out the origin of this movement in North American education. This article simply describes the general features of such programs as they are currently found, and its purpose is to supply a page where such programs can be listed. Please compare List of liberal arts colleges in the United States. Any perceived lack of neutrality is simply a reflection that such programs themselves are not neutral with regard to how they think students should be educated. I will modify the article to make it explicit that this is a description of the aims built into such programs.

Gregory macisaac (talk) 02:54, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Nothing in the title of the article indicates its a list of, but I see your point as far as it being a sub-article of sorts. It still needs to be neutral, I took a stab at editing it to that affect and also tried to tighten the prose a bit. More on the unique features of the Canadian program and its history might be nice to include. Is it just a subset of the US program, or does it have its own directives and leadership? Either way this isn't really clear from the articleChildofMidnight (talk) 03:26, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I made a few modifications of your modifications, because I think you didn't quite get the gist of what the article is actually about. Great Books Programs is in the plural, because there is not a single "Great Books Program" in Canada with a single set of leaders. Rather, what the article is pointing to is the existence of a few isolated university and college degree programs in Canada which take their cue from the Great Books movement in the United States, started by Mortimer Adler et al, and which itself inspired such programs in the U.S., whether they be called Great Books Programs, Programs of Liberal Studies, etc. So your modification of the body of the article to make "Great Books Program in Canada" into the singular was misleading. As someone who teaches in such a program, the fact that the features which I list are normal is not really a controversial fact. You suggest balancing the article with criticisms of this approach. There really isn't any literature which explicitly argues against such an approach in Canadian academia, because unlike in the U.S. where Great Books have a fairly substantial presence, in Canada they are in the vast minority. There really are only the ones listed here, and perhaps a few others the details of which I am unaware. (The purpose of this list is that it is a beginning, and more programs can be added to it as they come into existence, or as editors become aware of them.) Your removal of the idea of a 'return' to a Liberal Arts model, and its replacement with a phrase simply saying that these programs advocate such a model, gives the impression that there is a real debate in Canada, with advocates on both sides. Rather, the situation is that 99.9% of Canadian university programs do not follow such a model, and the few programs that do see themselves as returning to an older model of classical education. See Kay's article to get a sense of how much in the minority these programs are, and how invisible they are for most Canadians. Finally, there is no written history of such programs, because up to now (on this page) there has been no place to find a list of them. So most of them are individually inspired by American models, and are not really in communication with each other. Finally, Perhaps the title should be changed to List of Great Books Programs in Canada. But I do think that such a list needs to be prefaced with a short description of what it is that is being listed, as it now is. Gregory macisaac (talk) 04:17, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

References

I have added a few references which describe such programs in Canada. However, I would like to point out that the article asserts that such programs exist in Canada. The best evidence for this is not from books/magazines etc., but the existence of the programs themselves. Respectfully, ChildofMidnight, please visit the websites of the various programs to see that they do in fact conform to the general description given in the body of the article. Gregory macisaac (talk) 03:14, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Notability and article content on Wikipedia is based on good sources. As I understand it the subject itself can be used for non-controversial material, but coverage from outside parties would be a good addition. Certainly people outside the Greats Book Canada movement have covered the issues involved in such a program? I think including a note on the arguments against this type of acamedic approach (for instance) would make the article more complete and effective. ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:26, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

As I stated above, the purpose of this article is to register the existence of such programs in Canada, and to give a list, prefaced by a non-controversial description of what is being listed. The educational aims of such programs are their essential feature, hence the description in these terms. There are not really any explicit arguments against this approach, as I stated above, not because everyone accepts it, but because it is accepted by such a minority of Canadian academics that I guess no one considers it important enough to argue against. In other words, the fact that Canadian academia as a whole has for decades now been organised along lines which are completely contrary to this model is probably the biggest public argument against Great Books Programs. But this is just taken as the norm, not as something which has to be advocated, in Canada. Gregory macisaac (talk) 04:23, 24 November 2008 (UTC)