Educating character, difference and the “great questions” curriculum

Purpose This article examines difference in interdisciplinary character education programs in higher, secondary and elementary education. Such successful “classical education” curricula focus on “Great Books” or “classics,” but their canon-based approaches have drawn criticism for difficulties with incorporating difference. The innovative, inquiry-driven “Great Questions” curriculum of Villanova University's Humanities major represents a “classical” approach that remains grounded within its formative Augustinian tradition while reflectively opening to noncanonical texts. Design/methodology/approach While “Great Books” curricula advance the type of classical formation of virtue described by philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, he worries about their distance from living concerns, including difference. Analysis of Marilyn Nelson's narrative poem, “Minor Miracle” (1997), illustrates the ways that difference can animate studies of the virtues and the virtues can inform this dramatized racial conflict. The article draws on Anika Prather and Angel Parham's argument for inquiry-based approaches to classical education that can incorporate works like Nelson's. Findings The “Great Questions” curriculum of Villanova's Humanities major addresses the challenges of incorporating difference into interdisciplinary character education in two ways. First, turning from a canon-based curriculum obviates the contentious “zero sum” games involving adding and subtracting authors from a reading list. Second, the department's faculty reading group enables new noncanonical texts to be chosen around shared questions within a living tradition of inquiry, rather than interpolation. Originality/value This article sheds promising new light on difference and the growing field of “classical” character education. While analyzing a contemporary poem on racial conflict, the article both describes and demonstrates the “Great Questions” approach to interdisciplinary character education.