Martin Cothran

He is the author of several books for private and home schools, including Memoria Press’s Traditional Logic, Material Logic, and Classical Rhetoric programs, as well as Lingua Biblica: Old Testament Stories in Latin. He is a former Latin, Logic, and Rhetoric Instructor at Highlands Latin School in Louisville, Kentucky. He holds a B.A. in philosophy and economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara and an M.A. in Christian Apologetics from the Simon Greenleaf School (now part of Trinity University). He is widely quoted on educational issues and other issues of public importance and is a frequent guest on Kentucky Educational Television’s “Kentucky Tonight,” a weekly public affairs program. His articles on current events have appeared in numerous newspapers, including the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader.

SESSIONS:

Classical Education in an Age of STEM

Why a curriculum that spurns practicality is the most practical curriculum. Much contemporary education rhetoric is focused on the utilitarian goal of preparing students for the modern economy. Learn why it is that generalists thrive in a specialized world and why it is the liberal arts, not narrow technical skills, that best prepare students for the modern tech economy.

Planned Amnesia

Knowledge and Its Fashionable Enemies. Modern education theory emphasizes skills and downplays content. But is there really such a thing as “reading skills,” “critical thinking skills,” or “problem-solving skills” apart from specific content knowledge? What does research say about whether skills can be learned outside of content domains? Can abstract skills be tested and what do these tests really measure? Can technology replace memory and content knowledge? How does classical education better do the things that skills training and technology purport to do?

In Defense of Western Civilization

One of the chief purposes of education is to pass on our cultural heritage. American culture is the product of the cultures it grew out of: those of Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem. This is the cultural heritage we mean when we say “Western civilization.” But Western civilization has come under increasing attack from those who have a mistaken view of it. Learn why the arguments against Western civilization fail, why it is important, and how we can pass it on to our own students.

The Classical Thinking Skills Program

The expression “critical thinking skills” has become a veritable buzzword in education rhetoric. Can critical thinking really be taught directly? Do those who promote it really know what it means? Learn what the old classical education did to teach thinking skills before critical thinking skills became all the rage.