<p>Fun article today in the Chronicle of Higher Education about how Whitman College runs a special section of their "great books" freshman seminar --- for parents! Parents read the books and discuss them online and meet on campus twice during the year for more discussion. </p>
<p>The parents in the article were all enthusiastic but their students were kind of "why would you WANT to read this stuff?" </p>
<p>Since my kids attend a high school where parents have to read some of the summer reading books right alongside the kids, I loved this idea myself. By the way - the parents don't have to write papers and they aren't graded. :)</p>
<p>I agree is could be fun if the parent has the time. Also adding discussion and new perspectives when sharing the dinner table with the student. Time, the magic word is time....</p>
<p>yeah, the keyword there would indeed be time. i have one sister that lives at home, as well as two cousins that live with us, and my parents are always busy with something :P</p>
<p>Reed has all freshmen read the Illiad before fall term so that they are ready to discuss it as soon as school begins. They send it to them shortly after admission and many students are very excited ( initially at least, just wait till they see the rest of the book list!)
As part of orientation week Reed also hosts seminars for parents on the Odyessey that are very popular. I was interested, but I didnt finish it and running around getting things we forgot took up more time than anticipated.
Great idea though.
I do like reading books that my high school daughter is reading. At least to pick it up and skim ideas. Sometimes they are given books ( at least they were in middle school) with very controversial upsetting ideas, and she was quite upset over them.</p>
<p>DS goes to Whitman and I did the parents seminar. I really enjoyed it - the readers were great and talking to other freshmen parents was reassuring. We had the same reading list as the freshmen did for their core class (all freshmen read the same books, starting with the ancient Greeks and going through to modern times), and the faculty leading the on-line discussion gave us the same questions he posed to his section. It was a lot of reading! but made me appreciate how my freshman must have been feeling - since this was only one of his classes. It was also a way for me to have som connection to him as I dealt with my own separation issues without his having to be involved. As an added bonus, DS - not usually one to share much - was so excited by all his newfound intellectual stimulation that he actually liked to talk about the readings with me once in a while!</p>
<p>fender girl yes even though my daughter read them in middle school for latin and again in english in high school , she was interested in reading them yet again for college- and even though the fagles translation is not as "classic" as perhaps the fitzgerald or lattimore, it is very poetic.
It sounds like Whitman has a similar humanities course to Reeds ( although Reeds isn't modern at all) I didn't know this - will have to check it out!</p>
<p>Whitman sounds great. I think I'll put that school on my list of "suggestions" for D (current sophomore) to consider. That would be too much fun!--sounds like a great way of coping with the empty nest syndrome, which I already have, even though I still have three daughters at home. It is amazing how much I miss having my boys around, even though neither one is easy to live with by any means. It is just a funny time of life. Letting them go, one by one.</p>
<p>Whitman really is an exceptional school Mstee. I have never heard complaints from students or parents that I know that have attended (aside from the location in Walla Walla Washington). Academically, from what I can see, Whitman is stellar. It's one school where the faculty and administration really seem to "walk the talk" about caring for students. If it were located in the northeast or even in California, I think it would be competing for students with places like Pomona, Williams, Middlebury, etc. But, because of its location and lack of name recognition, it's a great admissions value - 50% acceptance rate during RD, higher during ED. It would be a reach for my daughter but I am hoping to get her to at least visit at some point.</p>