Weather Update

Due to the storm, Barnard College closed at 4pm Friday, for non-essential personnel. “Essential personnel" include staff in Facilities, Public Safety and Residence Halls.  

Friday evening and weekend classes are cancelled but events are going forward as planned unless otherwise noted. The Athena Film Festival programs are also scheduled to go forward as planned but please check http://athenafilmfestival.com/ for the latest information. 

The Barnard Library and Archives closed at 4pm Friday and will remain closed on Saturday, Feb. 9.  The Library will resume regular hours on Sunday opening at 10am.  

Please be advised that due to the conditions, certain entrances to campus may be closed.  The main gate at 117th Street & Broadway will remain open.  For further updates on college operations, please check this website, call the College Emergency Information Line 212-854-1002 or check AM radio station 1010WINS. 

3:12 PM 02/08/2013

Prof. Mark Carnes considers question of skills versus content in education

October 03, 2011
education
liberal arts
Mark C. Carnes

In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Barnard history professor Mark Carnes, creator of the "Reacting to the Past" curriculum, comments on the most important aspects of general-education requirements. An excerpt:

"Even devotees of the Reacting to the Past method dispute the extent to which the underlying subject matter is important. Mark C. Carnes, a professor of history at Barnard College and creator of Reacting to the Past, says he favors using the method to teach subject matter from the core curriculum. He has helped devise Reacting courses that cover the French Revolution (in which students read Edmund Burke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau) and the roots of democracy (in which they read Plato's Republic, Thucydides, and Xenophon), among other subjects.

"Great texts nearly always emerge in points of intense social transformation," Mr. Carnes says. "Thus games based on them have great drama, and students, in making difficult arguments, find gold in the texts."

The underlying content matters, he says, because "if students have powerful ideas rattling around in their heads, along with strong chains of evidence, they will learn to think.""

Read the full article here.