The Art of Freedom: Teaching the Humanities to the Poor (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

Description

The idea came from a woman in a maximum-security prison: the difference between rich and poor is the humanities. The writer took that idea and started a course at the Clemente Family Guidance Center in New York. With a faculty of friends, he began teaching the humanities at the college level to dropouts, immigrants, and ex-prisoners. From that first class came two dentists, a nurse, two PhDs, a fashion designer, a drug counselor, and other successes. Over seventeen years the course expanded to many U.S. cities and foreign countries. Now Earl Shorris has written the stories of those who teach and those who study the humanities a tribute to the courage of people rising from unspeakable poverty to engage in dialogue with professors from great universities around the world. This year, in a high school on the South Side of Chicago, a Clemente Course has begun that may change the character of public education in America and perhaps the world.