What is liberal education? And what is it not? In this conversation Margarita Mooney Suarez introduces her vision of liberal learning by considering the nature of the person whom we educate, the means of liberal learning, and the challenges that liberal learning faces today. Along the way, we consider what role imitation, play, humor, and imagination fulfill in liberal education and what we might continue to learn from Maritain, Newman, Huizinga, and St. Benedict. And how do all of these elements and sources enable us to (1) educate the integrated human person who possesses both a transcendent dimension and telos, (2) attain an integrated vision of all things, and (3) enter into the dance that transports us between focused forms of knowing—through the disciplines—and the contemplative vision of the whole?

Links of Potential Interest:

Margarita Mooney Suarez's personal website

Scala Foundation

Abigail Adams Institute

Newman, The Idea of a University, Rise and Progress of Universities, and The Benedictine Essays

Huizinga, Homo Ludens

Maritain, Education at the Crossroads