Grade Level: High School
There's so much to talk about in Walden.
In the short excerpt we read (a section from Walden's first chapter excerpted in Bill McKibben's anthology American Earth) Thoreau raises questions about community vs. independence, traditional education vs experience, walking vs. train-riding.
He praises his own hard work and self-sufficiency while admitting "it's difficult to begin without borrowing." He condemns the cost of education stating, "while [students are] reading Adam Smith, Richardo, and Say, [they] run their father[s] into debt irretrievably."
Today, we spent much of our time together reading aloud and discussing, laughing and opinion spouting. We wondered about Thoreau's ideas about a college education and laughed at his line, "if I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than myself." We journaled in response to Thoreau's educational views and ideas about living deliberately.
In his section about education Thoreau confesses the most valuable part of a college education may be conversation with thoughtful comrades and contemporaries.
I look forward to our next class period of Thoreau conversation.
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