Teaching Classically & Reading Josef Pieper with Dr. Fred Putnam

About this episode

Dr. Fred Putnam discusses classical education and the importance of reading with a focus on Josef Pieper.

About the Guest: Dr. Fred Putnam Fred Putnam retired after forty years of teaching high school, college, and graduate school; for twelve of those years he was Professor of Bible & Liberal Studies in the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University (2012-2024), where he helped to design, and taught in, the program leading to the MA in Teaching [MAT] in classical education. Beginning as a seminary professor of Biblical Hebrew and Koiné Greek, his teaching expanded to include not only the languages and interpretation of the Bible, but also linguistics, translation theory and practice, English literature, philosophy, etc. During those years of teaching, experiences with students led him from being a fairly conventional teacher (lectures, quizzes, tests, grades, attendance, etc.) to a text- (or subject-) and student-centered pedagogy that others have identified as “classical”. The main thrust of his teaching has always been helping students learn to read-learning to attend to, reflect on, and respond to texts, whatever those texts may be (including poems, novels, Scripture, works of art and music, etc.). In the Templeton Honors College, he led undergrad courses on the Old and…

People in this episode

Guest: Dr. Fred Putnam

Topics covered

• classical education
• pedagogy
• reading
• philosophy
• Bible studies

Keywords

• classical education
• Dr. Fred Putnam
• reading
• pedagogy
• Bible studies

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Templeton Honors College, Eastern University

Books & works: The Count of Monte Christo, Joseph Pieper

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