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[GreekIslandGirl]

The Odyssey is 3,000 years old, but teacher Peter Worley finds it's still relevant in his philosophy lessons today.

This is because the stories contain so much complexity and ambiguity that they engage young people in a much more interesting way than straight moral tales.

Homer's work is full of big questions including: the legitimacy of war; moral dilemmas (Scylla and Charybdis); moral relativism (the Laestrygonians and Ciconians); the nature of love (Kalypso); the value of happiness (the Lotus Eaters and Circe) and personal identity (The Phaeacians). All are universal issues that affect us just as much as the people of antiquity. Porphyry, a philosopher of antiquity, recommended that the Odyssey be used for teaching philosophy and that's just what I've tried to do in a modern British primary school context. This has prompted me to use Homer as a source to spark debate among children today.

The children sit in a big circle. We begin by looking at one of the online maps available with the book I've written to support my teaching, that records Odysseus' progress around the Mediterranean and beyond, then I tell or we read the latest installment. We stop reading, usually at a crisis point in the story, to conduct a philosophical enquiry around the issue present in the crisis.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-netwo ... NTCMP=SRCH

[supporttheunderdog]

I wonder which translation they are using?

[GreekIslandGirl]

Which one do you favour?

[supporttheunderdog]

I quite like the 1946 E V Rieu Penguin Classics version in those Brown covers - it was the one I grew up with.

[GreekIslandGirl]

They're not among the most scholarly but this is less about literal translations and more about the meanings and morals behind the wealth of ideas presented in story-form.

[supporttheunderdog]

Anabasis might also be worthy of similar usage....

I'll try to find an E-Book download to re-read,

[GreekIslandGirl]

And Thucydides is prescribed reading for US officers and politicians.

[kurupetos]

And Thucydides is prescribed reading for US officers and politicians.

Reading?! Oh yes... Everton vs. Reading at 17:00.

[GreekIslandGirl]

And a call to make studying the Byzantium as part of the National Curriculum:

Sometimes it is easy to forget why we study history. Of course, we use the past to understand the present; but also, ideally, we learn from it too. What a shame, then, that there is no space in the new national curriculum for the history of Byzantium.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... son-for-eu