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Convinced of the major advantages and effectiveness of an interdisciplinary approach in teaching, colleagues from American Studies, Economics, and Greek Studies offered a joint seminar for master's degree students on "Individual Goals and the Common Good: Perspectives on Utility Concepts from Ancient Greek Literature, American Studies, and Economics." We intended to expose the students to a new approach to significant texts and authors that address these key economic concepts and to integrate the perspectives from the three disciplines. In this essay, we describe the development of our methodological approach, the individual and common goals that guided us, the challenges that we encountered, and the extent to which we achieved our goals.

This study examines the legacy of ancient cultures by comparing the logical principles of Chinese and Greek mythology. Using the structural analysis method of Levi-Strauss and a narrative literature review methodology (based on a review of 69 articles), we identified seven factors, including fate, heroism, gods, nature, ethics, symbolism, and allegory. Our findings suggest that, despite cultural differences, ancient Chinese and Greek mythology share similarities that continue to influence contemporary writing. These issues have both practical and theoretical ramifications for authors, historians, and consumers interested in the connection between mythology and literature. However, this study has several shortcomings, including a lack of primary sources and an emphasis on Chinese and Greek civilizations. Future research could examine the legacies of other ancient societies as well as the impact of mythology on various literary genres. This study contributes to the ongoing discussion regarding the significance of historical and cultural legacies and their continued relevance in contemporary society.

The current study examined laypeople's perceptions of sexuality education with young children in Greece. This exploratory qualitative web research used data from a convenience and snowball sample where respondents answered the question, "What do you think about sexuality education in early childhood (children aged 2-5)?" This study's approach is grounded on a feminist poststructuralist framework permitting the exploration and understanding of power relations through analyzing participants' written discourses. Reflexive thematic analysis was used in the current study. This study's sample comprised 64 participants aged 19-64 (M = 36.22, SD = 11.02). Based on this study's results, we identified three fundamental social discourses that influenced the issue of sexuality education in the early years in Greece: the concept of childhood sexual innocence, age-appropriate arguments that oppose sexuality education with young children, and parental influence. The current study questions the role of dominant social discourses acknowledging that they operate as social rules that exert power by creating structural silence on sexuality issues.

In "To Young Men," Basil of Caesarea asserted that pagan literature could be read discerningly for the pursuit of virtue. As a professor of English, I recognize Basil as an exemplar pedagogue in my own insistence that Christian students read secular texts. Not a scholar of Greek, I rely on patristic scholarship to understand Basil's assumptions giving him confidence in students' discernment. Pagan literature can be read discerningly because reading and faith are collective ventures, seeking virtue is practiced best in dependence on the Holy Spirit, and truth is unified based on a Platonist-Christian synthesis--a sacramental ontology.

Flourishing has become a popular ideal in the educational debate. Could flourishing guide meaningful choices in education? My skepticism rests on unclear definitions of flourishing, a hidden insistence of theories of flourishing on selfish and individualistic themes, and an elitist vision of flourishing as the consequence of favorable conditions. To avoid the controversial aspects of flourishing theories, I will suggest that education could instead promote medium-term goals that, without directly aiming at students' realization, nurture the base on which students can imagine their flourishing. Drawing on ancient Greek culture, I will discuss "metron" as an inspiring medium-term goal for music education. In its archaic meaning, "metron," the right measure, is both a dynamic balance and an ongoing movement that regulates individual actions and guides individuals toward their realization. I believe that "metron" in music education could help students explore their possibilities and limits as individual and social agents toward a more nuanced understanding of their selves. Thus, I will consider how promoting "metron" in music classrooms could enhance students' self-knowledge and foster their sense of self in and though musical interactions and critical reflections.

The Transition from Greek to medieval philosophy that speculated on religion, nature, metaphysics, human being and society was rather a rough transition in the history of English literature. Although the literature content of this age reflected more religious beliefs, the love and hate relationship of medieval philosophy that was mostly based on the Christianity with Greek civilization was exhibited clearly. The modern philosophical ideologies are the continuation of this period's ideologies. Without a well understanding of the philosophical issues related to this age, it is not possible to understand the modern ones well. The catholic tradition as well as the religious reform against church called Protestantism was organized in this age. In Medieval Period, philosophy and theoretical thoughts related to the Christianity were well-organized and the philosophy, science and theoretical thoughts served religion. Philosophy had different forms and orientations in various stages of this period. One of these philosophical thoughts was the Augustinian philosophy which was strongly in favor of church with its different practices and styles. It used Platonic and Neo-Platonic traditions to prove that faith is the result of divine dispensations, not the result of human will power and wisdom. On the other hand, according to Aquinas, we experience different types of the effects that existed in the world around us. He believed that we assign an effective cause to each effect we experienced around us. Additionally, he claimed that reasoning was the only way to reach the real faith. In fact, philosophy of Medieval Period attempted to prove that religious assertions and ideologists were in search of matching their philosophical beliefs with the beliefs of Christianity. Christianity as the dominant factor in Middle English Literature helped English to be established as a literary language.

The authors note that ancient Athens, in important ways, connected children, toys, and play. But they also find the scholarship of toys sparse and scattered. They discuss obstacles that can skew our modern view of the Greek mind, and they caution that modern eyes should not see play where the Greeks saw ritual and religious devotion. With these challenges in mind, the authors draw from archaeological, linguistic, and literary evidence found in ancient toys, art, and texts to offer an ecology of play that fits both modern and antique societies and guides future investigations of the subject.

This study was conducted at an important chronological turning point with regard to the structure of the Greek community and Greek supplementary schools in the UK. This paper, following a mixed-methods methodology, aims to examine whether pedagogic practices and norms of the past that took place in Greek supplementary schools continue to exist today, in a word of continuous socio-political changes. This is undertaken with a retrospective examination of the education of Greek immigrant children in the UK in the past, an examination of how pre-existing, primordial notions of culture and ethnicity influence pedagogic practices and how these influence students' motivation and identity development at present. The findings call for a revisiting of policies, as well as curricular and pedagogic practices in Greek supplementary education, in order to reflect the current fluid and constantly changing context.

In the classical tradition of education that emerged from the ancient Greek paideia, there is a productive pedagogical sequence of mixed methods for virtue education. First, stories of heroes are paired with physical training. Virtue concept-learning comes next, and strategies involving imitation are adjusted as a student intellectually matures. In this article, the author argues that the classical pedagogical sequence--and in particular the strategic pairing of imitation and discursive reasoning--models how to successfully transition a learner from habituation to phronesis development in order to foster virtue development. Furthermore, the classical model offers a framework for thinking of virtue formation strategies not as stand-alone tools but as part of a broader narrative of training, suitable to age and building on the work of the methods that preceded them.

Scholars of citizenship education have long regarded deliberation as the default framework for democratic discussion in the classroom and beyond. Turning to the history and theory of rhetoric, we question why the deliberative model of the Athenian assembly has been developed for social studies pedagogy without including the litigative discourse of the Athenian courts. In response, we offer civic litigation, a discursive framework that recasts public controversies from a pro vs. con to an accusation vs. defense format. By examining the role of civic litigation in a historical case study from the 1960s Black civil rights movement, along with three inquiry-based lessons concerning contemporary controversies, we argue that civic litigation plays a crucial role in the effort to make inquiry-based instruction critical when it addresses issues of injustice.

The research investigates the court system in Homeric Greece. This period was characterized by a declining culture and scarce works that described those times. Hence, the court procedures of those times remains understudied; therefore, the purpose of this research is to reconstruct theoretically the court procedure in Homeric Greece. Homer's and Hesiod's literature, as well as modern studies on this subject, were analyzed to reconstruct the court procedure. This research distinguishes two types of courts, the first one being Mycenaean royal courts and the second one being the courts of commons. After the downfall of the Mycenaean civilization, Greek communities preserved their courts, while the Mycenaean royal courts remained only as elements of epos and mythology. In the days of Homer, the Greek court of commons was based on oaths of the procedure participants. The research describes the main flaws in the court system in the days of Homer, such as corruption, prejudice, and elitist control. However, despite these problems, it was during this period that the court became the only place for settling disputes.

The ancient Greek astronomers devised ingenious methods for measuring the size and distances of the Earth, Moon and Sun. The concepts were beautifully simple and although in most cases could only yield approximate results, they have the advantage that they can be understood by anyone with a basic mathematical background. The emergence of affordable planetarium software enables educators to reproduce these pioneering measurements in the classroom. In this paper, several activities are presented that are based on observations and experiments performed over 2000 years ago. By using freeware software students are introduced to key milestones in the history of astronomy in an immersive and interactive way.

In teaching canonical literature, presuming a text's merit and infallibility can inhibit the development of critical thought and may transmit values that are not socially and politically just. The author describes how educators can promote academic literacy and critical consciousness in their students through pedagogy that helps students critically analyze canonical texts, specifically the ancient Greek epic poem "The Odyssey" by Homer. By implementing critical literature pedagogy, students can deconstruct problematic ideologies embedded in "The Odyssey," such as the text's promotion of patriarchy, violence against women, and sexual double standards. Using scholarship and examples of lessons and student work from an all-male high school English classroom, the author demonstrates strategies that allow students to identify and disrupt dominant narratives that try to shape their actions and thoughts, and instead construct counternarratives that are more sociopolitically just and inclusive of perspectives marginalized or absent from the canon.

This article presents Al-Kindi as the first Arab intercultural curriculum theorizer, rather than the first Arab philosopher as is often argued. He envisioned an intercultural and interdisciplinary curriculum within the Arabic intellectual tradition. This article proposes Al-Kindism as a conceptual framework for education that revisits interdisciplinary and intercultural possibilities geared toward conflict resolution and synthesis. It also explores how Al-Kindi was arguably the first in the Arabic intellectual tradition to initiate a move from Majlis to Minhaj, that is from Masjid learning practices centered on theological studies to schooling. In other words, in the absence of actual schooling, his educational vision offered a possibility of a conceptualized curriculum to be taught. Al-Kindi's scholarly eagerness was driven not necessarily by, as generally perceived, the desire to promote philosophy, but more importantly, by the need to develop an intellectually responsive educational tradition to accommodate emerging intercultural encounters. He believed that the acquisition of true knowledge could only be achieved through intercultural competence and that such competence would eliminate the tension between Greek thought and Islamic culture. Thus, as a curriculum theorizer, Al-Kindi initiated a Minhaj marked by indebtedness to intercultural encounters, by a shift away from Majlis, and by the implementation of interdisciplinarity.

A longtime Latin teacher explains why studying the ancient Greek and Roman world and learning Latin help to achieve one of the central goals of public education: helping students think deeply about how they want to live their lives and what they hope to accomplish. After all, knowing oneself is the first step in achieving success in areas one truly cares about. If educators and critics want children to achieve not just success, but a success they truly want, they must help them first understand themselves. Then, the children will know what they value and can focus on success in that area, whether it involves wealth, fame, or other less measurable but no less important achievements. One of the central goals of the school system, then, ought to be instruction in self-knowledge. (Contains 7 endnotes.)

Background: The quality of the classroom environment, as conceptualised and measured through the construct of classroom climate, focuses on the social and psychological interactions among its members which have been found to be related to students' academic achievement and reduced emotional problems. Aims: With regard to the limited data concerning the relevant Greek literature, the present study examined the possible relations between primary students' perceptions of the quality of their classroom psychosocial environment as measured using My Class Inventory and the evaluation of their "overall" performance by their teachers. Factors such as school district, urban and rural and grade level, fifth and sixth, were also taken into account. Sample: 268 students, 142 in the fifth grade and 126 in the sixth grade, from 14 classes in 7 primary schools from three primary geographical regions in Greece and their teachers (N = 14), participated in the study. Method: Questionnaires were completed by students in their classrooms during the lesson hour and teachers recorded their evaluation of each student performance on their questionnaire. Analyses of variance (ANOVA), t-test and Pearson r correlations were conducted. Results: Research findings showed that competitiveness is prevalent in Greek classrooms. Especially in metropolitan urban schools, "excellent" students experience high levels of friction as they strive to succeed academically. Students' satisfaction was positively related to cohesion and negatively to friction and difficulty, in most of the cases. Conclusion: It seems that traditional perspectives in evaluation methods used by teachers and the focus on academic achievement as well as modern life conditions in metropolitan urban settings influence students' sense of competitiveness and friction in the classroom. The application of more refined and systematic evaluation techniques with regard to students' overall performance and the enhancement of cooperative and social learning could boost students' self esteem, cohesion and satisfaction in the classroom. (Contains 3 tables.)

In this article Karl Hostetler portrays teachers as tragic ironists whose existence is prone to "playful disruptions of the soul," when the meaning and value of ideas pertinent to teaching--including "teaching" itself--become puzzling, prompting a reassessment and reinvigoration of those ideas. In developing his concept of tragic irony, Hostetler draws particularly on Jonathan Lear's "A Case for Irony" and the Greek tragedies "Oedipus Tyrannus" and "Medea." According to Lear, the aim of irony is "to inject a certain form of not-knowing into polis life." Relatedly, Hostetler observes, a frequent theme in classical Greek tragedy is the misery that can result from purporting to "know." Tragedy and irony, he argues, can be particularly powerful and unsettling avenues for introducing uncertainty. He further contends that teachers as tragic ironists maintain a measure of uncertainty about their craft, not only recognizing that they do not know everything, but sometimes questioning whether they know anything. In a culture that tends to valorize certainty, Hostetler concludes, this is an essential attitude in the practice of and discourse about education.

Using transcripts of 6 classroom debates that took place in 4 urban schools, the present study takes a closer look at what middle school students do during classroom debates in the context of a social studies curriculum designed to support student argumentation in debate. Two coding schemes were used to analyze student comments in the transcripts: argumentative moves and the quality of grounds (reasons/evidence used to support a claim). Results show that: (a) students used textual evidence to support their arguments over a third of the time (37.6%), which is a higher rate than what might be expected given previous studies; (b) students connected their evidence to their claims 20.3% of the time (also a much higher rate than what might be expected given previous studies); and (c) argumentative moves were related to text-based grounds quality at a statistically significant level (p = 0.006). Students were more likely to support positions with textual evidence than support oppositions and supporting comments with textual evidence. Implications for middle school practice are discussed.

This article considers the oeuvre of Xenophon (c.430-354 bc) as providing an insight into the concept of "care of the self" in Greek education. In many of his works the leading characters are men who take care of themselves through education. Addressing the theme of "fathers and sons," Xenophon aimed to show that "care of the self" is a particular way of upbringing in the family and in the "polis," where the older instruct the younger in fulfilling their duties according to their age, following model examples of thought and conduct during work and leisure. Thus, with the help of specific situations involving parents and children, mentors and their pupils, Xenophon established a general framework for understanding the ancient citizens and family men, to whom education and self-education were a special means of finding their own identity in their culture.

Between 1906 and 1909 the biologist Ronald Ross and the classicist W.H.S. Jones pioneered interdisciplinary research in biology and history in advancing the claim that malaria had been crucial in the decline of golden-age Greece (fourth century BCE). The idea had originated with Ross, winner of the Nobel Prize for demonstrating the importance of mosquitoes in the spread of the disease. Jones assembled what, today, we would call an interdisciplinary network of collaborators in the sciences and humanities. But early negative reviews of Jones's "Malaria and Greek History" (1909) by classicists and historians ended the project, despite a positive reception among malariologists. Today, the "Jones hypothesis" is often used to exemplify the naïvete of past scholarship, and few examine Jones's evidence and reasoning. In this age of renewed interdisciplinarity, a review of what went wrong is timely. Jones and Ross knew they were opening new methodological territory and struggled with the challenges of multiple ways of knowing. Over 100 years later, malaria remains an important site of historical-biological research, yet integration is elusive. After reviewing the Jones-Ross relationship, Jones's interdisciplinary campaign, and the reception of the hypothesis among classicists/ancient historians and in malariology, we conclude by highlighting some of the specific challenges faced by those exploring the interface of biology and history.

Research has demonstrated the benefits of using historical empathy in history classrooms to encourage historical inquiry and understanding. This article chronicles the experiences of one middle school teacher as she integrates an updated theoretical and practical model of historical empathy into an existing instructional unit on Ancient Athens to help her students develop enduring understandings of social control. Students investigate primary sources, take part in group activities, and engage in Socratic dialogue to unpack the historical context, perspectives, and affective considerations of Athenian citizens who faced propositions revolving around slavery, the rights of women, and the prospect of war with Sparta. The culmination of their efforts is a simulated debate in the Athenian Assembly in which students display their newfound understanding of Ancient Athens and the human phenomena of social control gained through historical empathy.

This paper presents music teaching in nineteenth-century Greece orphanages and schools of destitute children, which were the main schools for vocational training of the working class in that period. Five representative institutions were selected. Music education for young male workers in nineteenth-century Greece was both in accord with and satisfied basic aims of popular education, such as to shape the students' character and to provide the necessary qualifications, through vocational training that would allow low social strata to make a living. The aforementioned aims of people's education, which prevailed throughout Europe and was supported by an extended network of philanthropy, are described thoroughly. The aim of this paper is to show that the important role of music in the nineteenth-century Greece charitable institutions constitutes a Western European influence and is an aspect of the effort to Europeanise the Greek education system, which began to take a shape when the Greek state was established towards the end of the 1820s.

Since early times, human beings have searched for spiritual experiences that provide connections to their hearts and souls. People sometimes find these connections through experiencing music--perhaps the last remaining ubiquitous spiritual experience in Western culture. And yet, material values rule our world, even in music education. Is music in our schools taught in ways that empower students to conduct this search with integrity and judgment? (Contains 1 figure and 38 notes.)

Scholars who have taken interest in "Theaetetus'" educational theme argue that Plato contrasts an inferior, even dangerous, sophistic education to a superior, philosophical, Socratic education. I explore the contrasting exhortations, methods, ideals and epistemological foundations of Socratic and Protagorean education and suggest that Socrates' treatment of Protagoras as educator is far less dismissive than others claim. Indeed, Plato, in "Theaetetus", offers a qualified defence of both Socrates and Protagoras. Socrates and Protagoras each dwell in the middle ground between the extremes presented in the dialogue's digression, which contrasts the life of the philosopher and the life of the courtroom orator. Both Socrates and Protagoras demonstrate a serious engagement with both politics and philosophy. Theodorus presents an educational option in which theory is divorced from politics while an ignoble sophistic education is presented as political but divorced from theory. Protagorean education, in "Theaetetus", emerges as superior to a base sophistic education, though it remains inferior to Socratic education.