#classical school

This is probably the first paradigm (school of thought) you will be introduced to in a criminology class. This post will give you a general idea of what theories under this paradigm look at to explain crime. 

Themes:

Free will and rational deliberation 

You commit crime by choice

Cost-benefit analysis

Does the cost of committing crime outweigh the benefits?

If so, no crime will be committed

If not, crime will be committed

Principle Themes

Human beings are

Rational

Calculating

Hedonistic (self-serving)

Maximize pleasure and minimize costs and pain (for society)

Well known philosophers include Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham. Both were utilitarian philosophers who believed that social benefits should be maximized for society.

Cesare Beccaria contributed a bit to the Classical Paradigm:

Wrote Essay on Crimes and Punishment

Condemned 

Obscure laws

Unlimited judicial power

Confessions by torture

Punishments that exceed the harm caused

Important components

Rebuked

Irrationality

Cruelty

Capriciousness of existing laws

The judicial and penal system

Proposed a series of reforms that were more humane, rational, efficient, and fair

Codify laws

Write laws down

Reduces discretion

Use of sworn and freely given testimony

Elimination of the death penalty for select crimes

Equal treatment of citizens

Create a system that is swift, certain, and severe enough so that costs outweigh benefits

Thomas Hobbes was actually pretty important too.

He said that if everyone were “free,” then there would be a “war against all.” This meant that if everyone was free to do what they wanted, people could not only rob others, but they could be robbed by the person who robbed them. Because of this, he argued that people were actually not free because they were in fear of others.

  He created the social contract

Posited that we should give up some of our freedom to a governing body to obtain protection 

Basically lose some liberty to not get your ankles broke

Hopefully this sounds familiar (we let the criminal justice system - police, courts, corrections - to enact “justice” instead of taking it upon ourselves to do so)

The state’s function is to use as little force as possible to ensure compliance with the terms of the social contract

The point is to minimize pain and maximize utility

Here are a few other philosophers

Rousseau

Voltaire

Montesquieu

Lock

Three of the most well known theories under this paradigm are (If I have started a series on any of these, I’ll link to the first post of those theories.):

Deterrence Theory

Rational Choice Theory

Routine Activities Theory

So there it is. This is an overview and generally what I learned in class. 

Reference

because of this, i’m considering making the introduction sentence to each paragraph almost like a line in a poem.

it’s of the scarlet letter, the meaning of the ‘a’, and wouldn’t it be cool if the title was ‘‘A’ is for Anything’, and then the first line of the first body paragraph was smth like‘‘A’ is for Adulteress, that et cetera’, and the next paragraph ‘‘A’ is for xyz’, but all the same idea?

Address: 3511A Linkwood Drive, Houston, TX 77025

Phone: 713-791-9977

Website: https://saintnicholas.school/

Business Email: [email protected]

Saint Nicholas School, PK-8, in Houston, TX, is an independent Anglican school offering a Classical curriculum with Montessori lower school. The program includes summer camp and outdoor education. It was founded in 1987 and offers an exemplary curriculum with support for each student to achieve potential. Enrichment and family services are an integral part of the program and include extended hours, summer camp, field trips, and food service. Elementary and middle school students experience ranching, farming, and equestrian activities.

Keywords: classical school houston, private school houston, montessori school houston

Year Est: 1987

Payment: Visa, American Express, Master Card, Discover, Cash, Check

Hour: Mon - Fri : 6 am - 6:30pm

Miss R. and the Bionic Eye

I had just taken my students down the hall to the cafeteria and sneaked back into my room. The lights were mostly off so as not to alert anyone to my presence, and I sat behind a file cabinet, finally checking my phone, drinking some water, eating my lunch, and enjoying the comparative silence. Then there was a knock at the door. Children tend to just barge in unannounced, so I knew it was a…

I'm aware that my posts can be lengthy.  A few readers have asked for "just pictures." :)  So, if you don't want to read, go to the end and click on the link.  That video sums up the whole thing and will hopefully make you cry.  For anyone who wants to read through, have at it.

All of us "Gen Xers" have been there - sitting at dinner, reminiscing about old times with friends, and someone brings up music or style from the 90s.  You all have a good laugh thinking about how different things were 10 years ago.  Then, three topics later, as you're shoveling the Tiramisu into your mouth so you can get home to let Jax or Fifi out to do their business, it hits you like a ton of bricks from the Empire State Building.  The 90s, at least the part of them that you were thinking about, was nearly 20 years ago!  That's the moment you realize that it's NOT abnormal for you to have crow's feet.  You ARE old.

When I think back to the blessed 90s, I often picture myself in different scenarios - often wearing pleated khakis and a combover hairstyle.  I'm wearing a tie, matching argyle socks, and sitting in a classroom.  One memory of the 90s that I think of often is my Philosophy of Education class with Dr. Salter.  It was this class, a requirement for my B.A. in Spanish (any 2 philosophy courses would do), that really got me thinking about becoming a teacher.

Dr. Salter read many of his lectures.  Some background - the son of a Baptist minister in Germany who fought against the ideology of the Nazi forces, he was drafted into the Hitler Youth movement during WWII.  He was taken by the Allies and made his way to the US.  He was in no way sympathetic to the Nazi cause.  Nonetheless, his looming presence, German accent, and teaching style made many students fear for their lives.  One time a student in this lecture class dozed off.  In the middle of reading page 4 of his lecture, Dr. Salter looked up, paused, and said "would someone please poke the man in the purple sweater."  While this student's choice of clothing may have been cause for a fashion police pat down, this didn't seem the appropriate moment.  The student's eyes got wide.  "Please stand up!  I shall inform you now, sir, that there will be no sleeping in my class.  Do you understand?"  The student replied with a sheepish "Yes, sir."  And Dr. Salter continued reading.  The student remained standing until somewhere around page 32 of the lecture when we got a 5 minute bathroom break.  

This professor meant business, and, although he did read his lectures, he did make the class entertaining, eventful, unpredictable, and meaningful.  He sometimes came to life, apart from his notes, to share an anecdote or try out an interesting exercise on us.  A class of 170 was hardly the place to entertain active learning concepts, group work, or a problem based learning exercise.  I don't even know if those practices had been dreamt up by the educational intelligentsia yet.  It was, after all, only 1999!

While Dr. Salter may not have been able to practice what he preached, he really encouraged us to look at education, not as a transfer of knowledge, but as a leading by the hand.  Educators were to be seen as facilitators of learning.  We traced educational theory and philosophy from Socrates and Aristotle, through Kant, to Skinner.  

By the time I got around to taking classes for a Master's in Education at Covenant College, it was 2007 and scholars had finally reached the pinnacle of research telling us all that we could let our students work in groups, arrange the classroom in a shape other than rows and columns of desks, have students do activities that engaged their hearts as much as their minds.  It was officially ok now.  

It was here that I added to my interest in education and became rebuked. The deficiency model that I had clung to - I am the source of knowledge and will share it with you in new-fangled ways so you will love learning - had been dismantled.  While I had gotten part of the equation right (you will love learning) I still thought of myself as the emancipator, the transferrer of knowledge.  Now, Salter taught this was wrong, but I think every educator fights daily with the idea that our students don't bring much to the table.

My philosophy morphed and it would take more than a blog to explain.  I'm always intimidated when I see applications that ask for your "philosophy of education" and then afford you 30 lines, double spaced, to explain.  I would rather just write "Teaching Redemptively."  But, in a nutshell, I'll write it, bullet pointed here.  Again, this is the briefest and non-inclusive account I can give:

The goal of education is multifaceted but is, in short, to help students polish their gifts and abilities to redeem a fallen world

All students have value as they are image-bearers of Christ

They all bear communicable attributes of God (e.g., they are social, moral, physical)

As educators, we must consider multiple avenues of teaching and assessing - what works for some students doesn't work for others

I could literally write books expanding on and adding to these concepts, but those four are a good starting point for what I ultimately want to share in this blog post.

As students share communicable attributes with God, we should capitalize on those attributes.  If my students are social, because God is social, why would I have them never talk?  If they are rational, because God is rational, why would I teach them to memorize answers rather than think deeply?  If my students are creative, because God is creative, why would I never allow them creative outlets to show they understand the content (e.g., drawing, singing, painting)?  If the world is broken by the fall, why wouldn't I use my classroom as a laboratory for fixing and healing the world?  Redemption doesn't start when you can grow a mustache or get your driver's license. (I hope it is understood that I was envisioning males when I wrote the former).  Just because students don't have underarm hair (gender inclusive this time) doesn't mean they cannot do something of value. Just because I have more education at this point of my life than my high school students doesn't mean they cannot draw from their own life experiences and teach me something.

When teachers are required to prepare students for tests that apparently measure our country's economic potential, they miss many opportunities. Often students who are not white, English-speaking, middle class Christians slip through the cracks as though these students are the only ones who bear the image of God.  Students themselves, start to question the value of education.  Is it just to make money?  

Good teachers, and I've encountered a LOT, are able to work within the public school system that has become so stifling, to embrace students where they are.  My friends like Erin, Liz, Sean, Layla, and many others, have been able to humanize education despite the testing culture that exists.  This educational model of redemption goes beyond the American school system, by the way.  In fact, that is why I posted about this topic today.  It was this week that i discovered that the Classical School of the Medes (technically a school network of 3 schools in Iraq), the schools that I had minimal contact with for a couple summers, has made sense of the themes of teaching redemptively.  That is - the teachers and students have a phenomenal philosophy of education that seeks social justice and redeeming a fallen world.  

This video made me cry.  There is hope, friends.  There is hope for our world.  All the doom and gloom in the media could not cast a shadow over me the day that I watched what is going on in IRAQ!  PLEASE watch this video: