The First Person with Michael Judge

The First Person with Michael Judge

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The First Person with Michael Judge
The First Person with Michael Judge
Learning to Be Human

Learning to Be Human

Claudia MacMillan writes that what we call the humanities — literature, history and philosophy — have never been more needed in our society or more crucial to the American experiment.

May 03, 2022
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The First Person with Michael Judge
The First Person with Michael Judge
Learning to Be Human
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Emily Dickinson (composite by Jonathan Aprea/via Wikimedia Commons)

By Claudia MacMillan

As grateful as we are to venture out these days, we are still mourning the loss—and suffering from the effects—of losing two years of natural human contact to a global pandemic not experienced in over a century. Sadly, the routines and education of school-age children were hardest hit. As far as I can see, the only good thing to come out of COVID-19 is that pretty much everyone now agrees that online learning cannot really replace in-person learning, especially for children.

School, we seem to have remembered, is a decidedly human thing.

The isolation we experienced during this pandemic has forced every meditative person to reconsider the role that human contact and human interaction play in a meaningful life. And although we were grateful for technology that kept our unnaturally hyperactive brains from imploding during this long pause, we, like the schoolchildren, yearned for real human contact.

“Amon…

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A guest post by
Claudia MacMillan
Claudia MacMillan is founding and executive director of The MacMillan Institute, a nonprofit whose mission is to provide educators training that fosters the rigor and joy of the “spirit of liberal learning.”
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