by Marsha Familaro Enright
I am so pleased to welcome Carrie-Ann Biondi to our Advisory Board!
Dr. Biondi is an expert in Socratic Practice, the teaching method we use for the collaborative seminars of The Great Connections. If you want to read a deeply considered and informative account of this method, try her “Socratic Teaching: Beyond The Paper Chase.“
I will be interviewing her in March – be on the lookout for our Conversation With Marsha video. You will learn about the method and how she works with students to achieve the best learning for them.
She is a prolific writer, with many essays on Aristotle’s thought, and topics from children’s rights to designing tests for higher order thinking. Additionally, she serves as Book Review Editor for the journal Reason Papers.
Currently, she is an Adolescent Program Manager and Coach at Higher Ground Education as well as a Humanities Guide for their Academy of Thought and Industry high school.
She has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Bowling Green State University. Dr. Biondi taught college philosophy courses for 26 years at several universities including Bowling Green and John Jay College of Criminal Justice, as well as thirteen years at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City where she was Associate Professor and Chair of the History, Philosophy & Religious Studies Department.
Thank you, Dr. Biondi, for joining us! We look forward to availing ourselves of your rich wisdom.
One Response
Good evening, Dr Biondi,
I just watched your interview with the Atlas Society. I left the comment about your validating my teaching method with my inner city students. I never answered questions but consistently asks them. My students never knew what I thought, forcing them to defend their opinions instead. One of the questions from JAG was why the Objective movement wasn’t necessarily taking hold and what to do about it. I agree that it is not a movement (and should not be because movements are held together with group think) but one reason Objectivism has not taken hold is because it is hard to live a life of object truth. Because of this, it is a life that to some is lonely. Actually an objectivist’s life is not lonely but rather one where one must stand alone. We, as a society, are failing to present educational experiences that lead students to confront, formulate, and defend opinions and conclusions thus establishing a set of object truths.
For many years I taught “outside the accepted pedagogy” being protected by my principal who didn’t really understand my philosophy but knowing that my students were always engaged, rarely discipline problems, and could defend their position in writing however poor their grammatical structure.
It would be wonderful to share my process with at some point if you have the time!