I am Tony Schwab of New Jersey, USA. I am new to Humanities Commons but not to thinking and writing. I taught secondary school English for 25 years in alternative public schools in the South Bronx, Manhattan and New Jersey and retired in 2017 as principal of a private therapeutic high school to which NJ public systems sent teens with extreme anxiety and depression. I write articles and plays and I am a painter.
My site name says it all. There is a thoughtful moral constancy that I find lacking around me and I want to be part of the search for it in schools and in literature. My first two monographs on Humanities Commons are : “The Mystery in Each Student: Colin Jager’s “Unapprehended Pedagogy” and Steps Towards a New Teaching” and “To Deny Mansfield Park Its Moral Power is Not Okay.”
Both papers express an optimism, even a romanticism, I think is relevant today when we search for morality and the Good in the public space. These two concepts are always risky because my definitions may not be yours and forcing people to adhere to rules of goodness without showing respect for their autonomy is quite dangerous. What I seek is dialogue about goodness, constancy, virtue and respect for the dignity of everyone. What would that dialogue look like today in classrooms around the globe and in considerations of literature?
Please help me explore.