This episode continues a conversation with Mortimer Adler, writer and social critic, who published The Paideia Proposal in 1982. Adler is joined by educators Harold Doster, Edward Fort, Thomas Houlihan, and Joan Hinde Stewart. The Paideia Proposal argues for curriculum reform in American schools, grades 1 through 12; it calls for single-track secondary education based in the liberal arts, for all students regardless of background or social status. According to Adler, such an education prepares students for mental, moral, and spiritual development, and it is upon these goals that the discussion focuses.
At the time of this interview, Adler was director of the Institute for Philosophical Research and chairman of the editorial board of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Doster was president of Atlantic Christian College. Fort was chancellor of North Carolina A & T State University. Houlihan was principal of the Clayton (NC) High School. Sewall, a Fellow at the National Humanities Center (1981-82), was former education editor for Newsweek. Stewart, a Fellow at the Center (1982-83), was professor of French at North Carolina State University.
This edition of Soundings was conducted by Wayne J. Pond.
