Americano: is Ron De Santis right about 'classical education'?
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The Spectator
4.4 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
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Summary
Freddy Gray is joined by Amy Wax who is a professor at Penn University to discuss education in America. Recently the Florida Governor Ron De Santis has been embracing a return to ‘classical education' which emphasises liberal arts and western teachings. Amy Wax speaks to Freddy about how education in America has been taken over by ‘woke’ ideologies, what simple teaching techniques should be retuned to the classroom, and whether there is any need for the Department of Education.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Spectator magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis and unrivaled books and arts reviews. |
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| 0:15.0 | Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher. |
| 0:24.1 | Hello. forward slash voucher. Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics, |
| 0:31.1 | power and prejudices. It is 2025 and Donald Trump is president once again of the United States. |
| 0:40.3 | We will, of course, be following the moves of the Donald's and his second administration very closely. |
| 0:46.8 | However, it won't just be politics for us this year. |
| 0:49.5 | We'll also talk a lot and cover American culture, life and the arts. |
| 0:55.2 | I should also remind you, because my producer Natasha will not let me hear the end of it, |
| 1:00.1 | that we are on Spectator TV. |
| 1:02.9 | So head to our YouTube channel to watch that. |
| 1:06.5 | Today we are going to be talking about education in America, |
| 1:10.4 | because Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida and the man who tried to beat Donald Trump in the Republican primaries and failed, has been implementing a classical education program in his state that is causing some controversy. |
| 1:26.4 | A lot of liberals think it's dangerously conservative. A lot of |
| 1:30.3 | conservatives think it's great. DeSantis has even introduced a classical literacy test. I think it's |
| 1:36.9 | called the classical literacy test. I may be wrong. And that is going to be a rival to the SAT, |
| 1:42.3 | the standard test for American students. |
| 1:45.5 | To discuss this, I am delighted to be joined once again by Professor Amy Wax, who is still, |
| 1:52.1 | despite her own controversies, a tenured professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania. |
| 1:57.4 | Amy, thank you very much for coming back on to Americano. |
| 2:01.2 | Thank you for having me. |
... |
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