Classical music is a special taste like Greek language or pre-Columbian archeology, not a common culture of reciprocal communication and psychological shorthand.
Allan BloomRead
There is no real education that does not respond to felt need; anything else acquired is trifling display.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True education should address the genuine needs and interests of individuals, rather than just superficial knowledge.
Allan Bloom emphasizes that authentic education is rooted in the real needs of learners. If education fails to engage with what students truly value or require, it becomes nothing more than a show of information that lacks significance, leading to an empty pursuit of knowledge devoid of purpose and relevance.
Themes
EducationLearningKnowledgeRelevanceNeeds
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on the importance of curriculum design, this quote could highlight the necessity of addressing student needs.
More from Allan Bloom
All quotes βThe humanities are like the great old Paris Flea Market where, amidst masses of junk, people with a good eye found cast away treasures...They are like a refugee camp where all the geniuses driven out of their jobs and countries by unfriendly regimes are idling.
Allan BloomRead
Our Nation, a great stage for the acting out of great thoughts, presents the classic confrontation between Locke's views of the state of nature and Rousseau's criticism of them... Nature is raw material, worthless without the mixture of human labor; yet nature is also the highest and most sacred thing. The same people who struggle to save the snail-darter bless the pill, worry about hunting deer and defend abortion. Reverence for nature, mastery of nature- whichever is convenient.
Allan BloomRead
Reason transformed into prejudice is the worst form of prejudice, because reason is the only instrument for liberation from prejudice.
Allan BloomRead
Students now arrive at the university ignorant and cynical about our political heritage, lacking the wherewithal to be either inspired by it or seriously critical of it.
Allan BloomRead
We are like ignorant shepherds living on a site where great civilizations once flourished. The shepherds play with the fragments that pop up to the surface, having no notion of the beautiful structures of which they were once a part.
Allan BloomRead
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If children have interest, then Education happens
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The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.
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Over the past five years, I've met several presidents, several secretaries of education ... and there is no plan. If you want to save your children, you're going to have to do it yourself. It's just us.
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Natural inclinations are assisted and reinforced by education, but they are hardly ever altered or overcome.
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I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
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