A Sampling of Books Every Teacher Should have their Students Read

1. Norms & Nobility - David Hicks

2. Economics in One Lesson - Henry Hazlitt

3. The Intellectual Life - A. G. Sertillanges

4. Climbing Parnassus - Tracy Lee Simmons

5. John Adams - David McCullough

6. Arguing About Slavery - William Lee Miller

7. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

8. The Divine Comedy - Dante

9. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

10. Persuasion - Jane Austen

11. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

12. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

13. Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens

14. A History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides

15. King Lear - William Shakespeare

A poem by Dickinson

221

(543)

I fear a Man of frugal Speech -

I fear a Silent Man - 

Haranguer - I can overtake - 

Or Babbler - entertain -

But He who weigheth - While the Rest -

Expend their furthest pound - 

Of this Man - I am wary -

I fear that He is Grand - 

~Emily Dickinson

On Myth

Life is full of moral imperatives that defy our reason and our simplistic systems of punishment and reward and our theoretical models of vale-preferences...But myth assures mankind that certain values transcend reason to give human existence meaning within an unchanging frame of reference, while ensuring unity among the members of the community concerning these values. This unity of values is the hallmark of culture. Without this unity regarding the imponderables, civilized actions become impossible, and man is cast upon the shabby mythology of his own random dream-wrolds and is at the mercy of state and natural religions.

~David Hicks, Norms&Nobility

Watch out world....

This blogger has a driver's license.

From the Prologue of The Four Cardinal Virtues

To define the obligations of man is certainly a legitimate, even estimable, and no doubt necessary undertaking. With a doctrine of commandments or duties, however, there is always the danger of arbitrarily drawing up a list of requirements and losing sight of the human person who "ought" to do this or that. The doctrine of virtue, on the other hand, has things to say about this human person; it speaks both of the kind of being which is his when he enters the world, as a consequence of his createdness, and the kind of being he ought to strive toward and attain to - by being prudent, just, brave, and temperate.

~Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues

A poem

Or at least, it is meant to be. I do hope this does not come across as excessively uncouth of me, and that is effect is not depressing. It was written in a moment of great internal suffering, but by the end a light shone on my path.

Contemplation of a Personal Sin

My demon passed me by this day,

A blurry face yet presence real;

He paused to laugh a circle round me,

Then disappeared into my mem’ry.

His power I had thought repressed,

His countenance a shadow’s shadow.

But today his pow’r was strongest yet.

He has no raving tongue, nor mouth

Agape with dripping blots; he stood behind 

As if a friend, or harmless bystander. 

But he commands whene’er he wills, 

And is stronger now then e’er before. 

What frightens most is simply this:

My own face wound in his malicious is.

How could a stranger and myself be one?

Yet he combines myself with evil foe.

I am the dreamer who wakes with fright,

And also the nightmare which frightens so.

I am the robbed and robber too.

I am the house divided which cannot stand - 

My demon and myself, both one and separate.

Dear God, the highest one, beyond myself,

Let me suffer pain, let me die at once

That he may pass away forevermore.

My demon’s face is mocking me,

He dares me try to strike him dead.

I tell him I’ll not do the deed,

I cannot, but my Father can.

A Definition of Poetry (if that's even possible)

"[In poetry] there is always the communication of some new experience, or some fresh understanding of the familiar, or the expression of something we have experienced but have no words for, which enlarges our consciousness or refines our sensibility."

~T.S. Eliot, 'The Social Function of Poetry'