It is through hearing stories about wicked stepmothers, lost children, good but misguided kings, wolves that suckle twin boys, youngest sons who receive no inheritance but must make their own way in the world, and eldest sons who waste their inheritance on riotous living and go into exile to live with the swine, that children learn or mislearn both what a child and what a parent is, what the cast of characters may be in the drama into which they have been born and what the ways of the world are.
Interpretation
Stories shape children's understanding of family and society's complexities.
In this quote, Alasdair MacIntyre emphasizes the importance of storytelling in children's development. By exposing children to various narratives featuring diverse characters and moral challenges, they gain insights into their own identities and the dynamics of parental relationships. These stories, whether about wicked stepmothers or misguided kings, reflect the complexities of life and influence how children perceive their roles within their own families and society.
In practice
In a classroom discussion on family dynamics, a teacher might use this quote to illustrate how stories influence children's understanding of relationships.
Imprisoning philosophy within the professionalizations and specializations of an institutionalized curriculum, after the manner of our contemporary European and North American culture, is arguably a good deal more effective in neutralizing its effects than either religious censorship or political terror
There ought not be two histories, one of political and moral action and one of political and moral theorizing, because there were not two pasts, one populated only by actions, the other only by theories. Every action is the bearer and expression of more or less theory-laden beliefs and concepts; every piece of theorizing and every expression of belief is a politcal and moral action.
Modern systematic politics, whether liberal, conservative, radical, or socialist, simply has to be rejected from a standpoint that owes genuine allegiance to the tradition of the virtues; for modern politics itself expresses in its institutional forms a systematic rejection of that tradition
It's the way I study - to understand something by trying to work it out or, in other words, to understand something by creating it. Not creating it one hundred percent, of course; but taking a hint as to which direction to go but not remembering the details. These you work out for yourself.
Coaching is unlocking a person's potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.
One of the biggest ways to level the playing field is to give all young people the same context on what opportunities are out there. And that means touching on some of the questions that are a little taboo in society: How much money do you make? What are your stresses? What would you do differently if you could?
Books delight to the very marrow of one's bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join with us in a living and intense intimacy.
A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine.
The colleges, while they provide us with libraries, furnish no professors of books; and I think no chair is so much needed.
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