In Maryland: Adolescents, Aristotle and Adler

By J. MADELEINE NASH

Twenty-one teen-agers in T shirts and jeans are sitting around a big, doughnut-shaped table. They are all sneaking glances at the short, plump, balding man seated in their midst. "He's awfully old," whispers Stacie Stockman, with a toss of her head. "I was hoping for someone younger. I would like to think we could change his mind." Schoolmate James Perkins nods knowingly: "Yeah, his ideas are probably set in concrete."

Until now, the object of discussion has appeared immobile, his eyes half closed. Suddenly he springs into action, sharply rapping a pencil on the edge of a glass ashtray. The unexpected tinkling sound marks the beginning of what Stacie, a senior at North Caroline High, will later call the most exciting classroom experience of her life. For the next three days, Philosopher Mortimer Adler--compiler of the 54-volume set of the Great Books of the Western World, outliner of the 102 Great Ideas of All Time--is loose again, doing what he does best, teaching. In an experimental session at Wye Plantation in Queenstown, Md., he is trying to stir up high school students on the subject of Aristotle and other philosophers. "I want to do it," explains Adler, 18 months shy of his 80th birthday, "because I want to show it can be done." Adler has long believed that ancient philosophers and Great Ideas can be, and should be, taught in the average public school, though in the U.S. students usually don't get such instruction until college--if ever.

The students have been chosen by local school principals. As preparation, they have had to read Adler's latest book, Six Great Ideas. Most found it rough going. "I had a dictionary in one hand," giggles Gunston School Junior Sandy Luna. "I learned a lot of new words like proclivity." The six ideas, handled in six two-hour sessions: Truth. Goodness. Beauty. Liberty. Equality. Justice. What they are engaged in is nothing less than a moral philosophy marathon, and at first the students seem cowed. Less than 15 minutes into the opening session, when Adler asks for questions about truth with a capital T, only a few raise their hands.

One is Garrick Grobler, an articulate Easton High School junior who wants to go into politics. "How is it possible," he asks, "for people to differentiate between what is objective reality and what is subjective reality?" Replies Adler gently:

"You know, you are using words that make it impossible for me to answer your question." There is a pause. Adler swivels in his chair, swings both feet in the air and gazes thoughtfully at the ceiling.

Then he asks a question back. "Have you ever told a lie?" "Yeah, sure," admits Garrick, looking a bit sheepish. "It would be better," continues Adler, "to give an example of a lie you told--and I assure you everyone in this room has told a lie." Garrick is on the spot, and the other students know it. They shriek with glee. Garrick hesitates, then blurts out, "Yesterday, we took this poll in school. I said no to a question when I should have said yes!"

"And why was that a lie?" Adler pursues, index finger resting on chin. Then he continues: "Because a lie consists in saying the opposite of what is true. Now let me ask you another question. Have you ever made an erroneous statement?" Jokes Garrick: "I just did when I said 'subjective reality.' " Adler takes the idea a step further. "Let me give you an example of an erroneous statement: There are three mountains on the Eastern Shore of Maryland more than 5,000 feet high." The students laugh at such an absurd notion. Poking the same index finger on the table, Adler draws the distinction precisely. "A lie," he says, "is the difference between what you say and what you think; an erroneous statement is the difference between what you think and what there is."

Watching Adler teach is a bit like watching Itzhak Perlman fiddle or Walter Payton run. No passive observer of the learning process, Adler is a full participant. He punches the air with his fists, bounces up and down in his chair, clasps his hands prayerfully to help students approach comprehension. When a difficult point is finally understood, he laughs with delight. During the discussion of goodness, when a student brings up Aristotle's concept of "right desire," Adler roars with pleasure. "What is really good for you is what you really need!" he shouts, waving his arms. Then he adds: "If I get so excited again I'm going to smash my watch."

During a break, Adler can be seen mopping his brow. He is short of breath. "The trick is to get them relaxed," he puffs. "They've got to be taken out of the teacher-student relationship. Every good teacher has to be something of a ham."

Under Adler's spell, the great ideas take on palpable form. To make them concrete, he talks about triangles and squares, black swans and schnauzers, vanilla ice cream and boxes of ball bearings.

At the end of the first day, Adler is somewhat unsatisfied. Only half a dozen students have regularly been involved in the discussion. Overnight he devises a trick to pull the others in. His solution is ROBERT BURGESS a familiar piece of pedagogical gear: a blackboard diagram. The way Adler uses it, however, would make less self-confident teachers quail. For his goal, it turns out, is not to illustrate a point but to start an argument. To do so, Adler returns to Garrick's first question, but adds a new twist. The blackboard diagram contains conflicting statements about the nature of beauty. Position A holds that beauty is purely subjective. Position B holds that there is an objective aspect to beauty as as well. Adler explains the definitions, then asks for a show of hands. When two hands are raised to support the view that beauty exists only in the eye of the beholder, Adler's eyes sparkle with anticipation.

"We owe it to ourselves to start with the extreme subjectivists," he chortles.

"And they are Thomas and Sandy. All right, Thomas, defend yourself." Thomas is Thomas Keating, a tall sophomore who sat through the sessions on truth and goodness without saying much. Now, under Adler's coaxing, he offers an admirable defense. He begins by quoting Thomas Aquinas. "The beautiful," he says haltingly, "is that which gives pleasure upon being seen." Exclaims Adler:

"That's right! But ice cream gives me pleasure, a very soft pillow when I'm tired gives me pleasure, a cold shower on a hot day gives me pleasure. Is it the same kind of pleasure?" Soon Adler gets Thomas to agree that beauty pleases the mind as well as the senses. But how does the mind judge beauty? "It's all subjective."

Now Adler gives the other side a chance. "How many of you ever got an A-plus on a composition?" Hands thrash the air. "Do you think your teachers were right?" After considerable debate, the consensus turns out affirmative. Sandy decides to desert the ranks of Position A. "Now, Thomas," says Adler, "you stand alone. But you can still defend yourself. You can say they're talking rot." The discussion goes back to grades. Thomas admits to having received a C. Then Garrick plunges into the fray. He wants to know if Thomas thinks his teacher was "totally subjective" in giving him that C.

Thomas mulls it over, then decides, "She couldn't have been totally subjective."

Adler is visibly elated. "So you're giving up your position?" he cries. Thomas nods.

"I guess I have to."

By the end of the session, Thomas is not the only one to have switched sides. Adler is rewarded by delighted grins when he confesses that he has changed his mind as well. The question this time:

Whether or not one is justified in urging other people to admire what one thinks is truly beautiful. "My book suggests that you ought to enjoy more what is intrinsically excellent." But now, he muses aloud, "I think what I wrote was wrong.

I recognize that the last six quartets of Beethoven are supremely beautiful, but I enjoy Schubert more. Yet I can't say that I, or anyone else, ought to enjoy Beethoven more." Over lunch the students continue the debate with passionate interest.

"I take back what I said about his being old," says Stacie. "He's flexible, he's willing to listen. You can be dead wrong, and he'll still listen. You learn by defending yourself--and finding out you're defending the wrong thing."

"The ice has been broken," Adler observes. So it has. The session on equality turns into a free-for-all. Afterward Sandy wails, "I have to regrow all my nails. I got so excited I bit them all off." By now Adler is glowing. "You see," he says, "this is unchallengeable evidence that children this age are just ripe for dealing with important questions. They obviously enjoy thinking." The session at Wye, Adler proudly informs a visitor, is the second set of seminars he has given for teenagers this year. In January he taught Aristotle and Machiavelli to a group of California youngsters. He plans two similar sessions for Chicago schoolchildren later this year. "Why shouldn't this be done in every high school in the country?" he demands. "Why shouldn't this be part of everyone's basic schooling?"

Why not? The visitor has glum thoughts of pot and punctuation, of TV and marginal literacy. Finally, Adler answers himself. "Because most teachers are monitors. They assign lessons. They give exams. But the ideal is to teach not by telling but by asking." The visitor is reminded of Socrates, who badgered youths into debate on the streets of ancient Athens. Does Adler really believe public school teachers can master Socratic dialogue? "Well, you can't do it with students sitting in rows," Adler says, sputtering with excitement. "And you can't do it in just 50 minutes. But I say any teacher can do it. All any teacher has to do is think." The word think shoots out like an explosion in the quiet of the room. --By J. Madeleine Nash

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