David Kemper has narrated 4 audiobooks on Listento.it by 4 authors. The most-rated is Awakening Wonder.
John Milton
Summary
The Puritan poet John Milton is most famous for his massive theological epic Paradise Lost. He was also known as perhaps the greatest genius of the English Renaissance possibly the best-educated man of his day and also a major theorist of classical learning for Christians. The man who wrote the seminal words 'The end then of Learning is to repair the ruines of our first Parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him....' (Of Education, 1644) argues across all his voluminous writings that the purpose of education is soul work for virtue as opposed to information gathering for profit. In this book, Milton scholar Professor Grant Horner from The Master's College examines the poet's powerful vision of a Christian and classical education. Trained at Duke University by Stanley Fish, the world's most influential Miltonist, Horner approaches the text as a Christian educator himself, bringing the complex seventeenth-century texts into modern light for practical application. Addressing questions such as how to handle pagan texts, how to develop a theology of aesthetics, and why we must grapple with the relationship between pagan wisdom and scripture, this book will serve as a thorough and readable introduction to the complex thought of one of the Puritan intellectual giants.
©2015 Classical Academic Press (P)2017 Classical Academic Press
John Amos Comenius: A Visionary Reformer of Schools
Summary
John Amos Comenius, a 17th-century theologian and reformer, had so great an influence on Western schooling that he has been called the father of modern education. To this day he remains one of the most influential and fascinating thinkers in the history of education. In this concise introduction to the work of Comenius, Dr. David Smith sketches some of Comenius's central ideas, pointing to several important themes that summarize Comenius's tireless work for educational reform. Listeners will discover that amongst the literally hundreds of works Comenius wrote in Czech and Latin, many of which are lost to us today, he created one of the world's most successful children's books; suggested that learning should resemble gardening; and proposed that joy, piety, and harmony are central to the education of children. In this book, Smith also touches on the key questions with which Comenius wrestled- questions that remain pertinent today. Listeners will learn that Comenius is at once a forerunner of much of what we find and affirm today in education while also an advocate of some ideas that we would pass over. Smith suggests that we should let Comenius "be himself, rather than a forerunner of ourselves," if we wish to be challenged by him afresh. This volume is an important study for any educator wishing to understand the history of education with an eye to recovering perennial educational ideas and practices that will inspire both the present and the future.
©2017 Classical Academic Press (P)2017 Classical Academic Press
C. S. Lewis: An Apologist for Education
Summary
C. S. Lewis is widely recognized as one of the great apologists and writers of the 20th century. He is known for remarkable books such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain. Lewis also wrote two fiction series that have enjoyed an enduring popularity: The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy. In addition to all this, Lewis was a prescient observer of education and a thoughtful critic of modern educational theory and practice. In this brief audiobook, Lewis scholar Dr. Louis Markos surveys Lewis' thought on education as represented in books such as The Abolition of Man, An Experiment in Criticism, The Discarded Image, Collected Letters, and numerous other essays and publications. What emerges is a timely call to renew a radical liberal arts education that assumes a meaningful, purposeful cosmos and that will awaken students from the slumber of cold vulgarity and cultivate their affections for truth, goodness, and beauty.
©2015 Classical Academic Press (P)2018 Classical Academic Press
Awakening Wonder
Summary
In his masterful work, The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis observed how modern education was changing our conception of what it means to be human. By cutting off students from the transcendent values of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, modern schools ceased cultivating virtue in students and instead communicated a mechanistic vision of the world that viewed students as products to be engineered. Lewis believed that in seeking to control nature, modern conditioners would also seek to control humans and remake them according to the preference of the conditioners, since any appeal to Truth, Goodness, or Beauty had been rejected. Lewis argued that we must recover these transcendent values in order to prevent the dehumanizing tendency in modern education and renew the cultivation of virtue in our students. With Awakening Wonder, Steve Turley demonstrates that it is precisely such a recovery that is at the heart of the current classical education renewal. Once again, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are celebrated as those objective values that are essential for cultivating students as flourishing human beings. In these pages you will discover the history and development of these transcendent values and how they redeem our senses and sanctify our imaginations. Teachers will also learn how to incorporate these values into their teaching to awaken awe and wonder in both themselves and their students.
©2014 Classical Academic Press (P)2018 Classical Academic Press