The Challenges and Benefits of Educating for Intellectual Virtues

“An intellectual virtues education takes seriously our students’ desires to learn. Why do they want to learn? Why don’t they want to learn? How can we help them see the goodness of learning? What are their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to learning (e.g., open-mindedness, humility, courage, etc.)? The point of an intellectual virtues education is not to give them some other good (grades, money, candy!) and use that to motivate their attempts to learn. The point of an intellectual virtues education is to help train their intellectual appetites. But that will be a long and difficult journey for most of our children.”

Co-founder and board member of the Intellectual Virtues Academy Steve Porter discusses what’s challenging and beneficial about intellectual character education on the IVA blog. Read the full post.