I once read an article from a professor at Harvard University who had created a multi-lesson review of literary classics for working and retired adults. He found great enthusiasm for his seminars from people who admittedly had dreaded reading the works of Homer, Shakespeare and other renowned authors when they were younger students. The more seasoned audience of learners brought the insights and maturity of their own life stories with them and more enthusiastically related to to the tales, poems and characters in the works of authors from hundreds and even thousands of years ago. 

I have always enjoyed reading and thanks to my high school English teacher I voraciously devoured books of poetry, epic adventures, romantic fiction, and spellbinding plays. I became familiar with the best writers of all time and learned how to relate their tales to my own life. I understood how to look for metaphors, irony, allusions in their highly crafted words. I learned about ancient heroes and myths that continue to be celebrated to this very day. I considered myself to be adept at critically analyzing any volume that I opened, and yet as I grow older I find that revisiting my favorite books and some that I once detested has allowed me to reach a higher level of understanding and appreciation for the greatest writers of both the past and the present. 

As a young person I had not suffered much other than the tragic death of my father. Mostly I was an innocent who was not able to relate to the anger of Achilles or the jealously of Othello. I knew of difficulties in people’s lives but was still mostly removed from intimate knowledge of such things. After almost eight decades of life I read the old masters with a new set of eyes and a greater appreciation of how they have used words to paint vivid pictures of all of our human emotions. I am able to see that characters from ancient Greece are not that much different from humans of the modern world. We are still ravaged by conflicting emotions that influence our behavior and sometimes lead to tragedies. 

Somehow my own personal growth has taught me that the classics of literature are more powerful than I ever imagined. They demonstrate both human evolution of thought as well as the sameness of our conflicted natures. We still have heroes with clay feet doing what they believe to be the best for humankind. Nonetheless we are wise enough to see the foreshadowing of danger when broken individuals assume power. We know that the Hectors among us do not always win the day. Sometimes they are humiliated and defeated but their goodness lingers and inspires for all time. Life can be brutally unrelenting just as those old stories depict but with determination we are able to overcome the challenges that seem to wear us down just as Odysseus did. 

Of late I hear many people insisting that education should be practical. We should emphasize more math and science and engineering. They insist that business skills should be more important than the liberal arts. They would prefer to replace English and History classes with courses that provide students with a trade or a direct route to a high paying job. Somehow the old feeling that a proper education should include the arts is falling into disrepute in many quarters, but I would suggest that many of today’s problems result because of a general ignorance of our past and an inability to use words instead of weapons to solve disagreements. Critical thinking demands abilities beyond simply learning how things work. We must also be aware of how people behave. We learn those things from literature, poetry, the arts, the stories of our past, the social sciences. 

It may sound strange for a long time mathematics teacher to advocate for a branch of learning that seems so removed from what societies seem to require to function well. While we definitely need a variety of skills I would argue that we also must possess a deep understanding of people. So much information comes from studying how we are the same as our ancestors and how we are different. Our knowledge requires the classics as well as the modern.

in many ways we would do well to focus education on showing young people how it all fits together like the weaving of a magnificent carpet. Creativity is the mark of our human natures. It distinguishes us from the other creatures. It has always been the key to progress, but rather than seeing ourselves as somehow better than our ancestors of old we would do well to know both what they did right and what they did wrong. It is the only way to attempt to avoid the mistakes of they made. It is the best way of being able to discern truth from lies. 

I’m enjoying my journey with the classics. I am annotating and parsing the words for deeper understanding. I am learning that when we strip away all of the modern conveniences that we enjoy our human natures are not that far removed from the people who walked this earth thousands of years ago. Acknowledging this helps in realizing that regardless of culture, wealth, language, religion or other differences we may have when all is said and done we are more alike than different. Seeing that truth makes it clear that our first job should be to find ways to live in harmony and peace, knowing that sadly we have to also overcome our warlike tendencies in the process. We can learn much from both the folly and the success of the past.