On the occasion of the BURcongress , the University of Navarra received a visit from Scott Lee, director of the Association for Core Texts and Courses (ACTC).

The Core Curriculum Institute took the opportunity to invite him to give a seminar with the degree scroll "Teaching core texts: arguments and perspectives", aimed at ICC teachers.  

Scott Lee explained to the professors that in order to develop the seminar method of reading and discussing great texts, it is not necessary to be a specialist in the discipline or specific author, but to be educated in the deep sense of the word, that is, to be able to situate oneself with a text and show what its fundamental ideas and arguments are. In principle, any university professor possesses this preparation.

At the heart of the pedagogy of the Big Books method, said the ACTC director , is discussion, that is, that students, as a result of the text, are able to ask themselves questions about essential issues and to ask others, give their own answers and be able to defend them and, if necessary, assume that they are insufficient. This is a method of shared research, in which the teacher must be able to guide the students and, above all, give them the necessary feedback, in class and in the essays they write.

In this sense, one of Scott Lee's main proposal was that teachers should collaborate with each other both in academic activities and, especially, through informal conversations about the issues dealt with in the classes. He also emphasized that the best incentive for those who teach this subject of course is staff: those who teach in this way learn first and foremost themselves. Each class can open up new perspectives for him and force him to seek new answers to the questions raised by the students.

The ACTC, an association to which the University of Navarra belongs, brings together more than one hundred academic centers in America, Europe and Asia, such as the universities of Columbia, Notre Dame, Dallas and Yale. The goal of this association is to promote the cross-sectional analysis of the great human questions through the reading and discussion of great classical texts.

This methodology is implemented at the University of Navarra in various courses within the Core Curriculum, such as “Literature and the Great Human Themes” or “Great Books of Greece and Rome,” among others. The pathway allows students in the Schools Law, Architecture, Philosophy and Letters, and Communication to choose this methodology for their Core courses. Students in the School of Science also School of Science the opportunity to opt for the seminar method of reading and discussing texts if they take the courses “Reading the Contemporary World” or “Ethics.”