ON Classical Education has two thoughtful book reviews that speak directly to the heart of classical education: the wonder of mathematics and the imaginative encounter with literature.
In his review of J. Jacob Tawney’s Another Sort of Mathematics, Dr. Jonathan Gregg considers how mathematics can be understood not merely as a technical discipline, but as a beautiful and deeply human pursuit.
John Von Heyking’s review of Jeanette DeCelle-Zwerneman’s Teaching Fiction From the Inside Out, 2nd Edition turns to the literature classroom, exploring how teachers can help students enter fully into the world of a story through imagination, character, and plot.
Together, these reviews invite readers to consider how both mathematics and fiction can form the mind, stir the imagination, and deepen the student’s encounter with truth and beauty.
J. Jacob Tawney’s Another Sort of Mathematics
Reviewed by Dr. Jonathan Gregg
Dr. Gregg introduces his review of Jake Tawney’s Another Sort of Mathematics with high praise. The book is, on the most basic level, “a tour-de-force of the discipline of mathematics.” But Gregg’s appreciation of Another Sort of Mathematics pushes beyond this recommendation to a still higher level of admiration. Read the full review to grasp Gregg’s assessment of how Tawney’s book invites the reader to appreciate the discipline of mathematics comprehensively “as a beautiful body of knowledge and as a participatory human endeavor.”
Jeanette DeCelle-Zwerneman’s Teaching Fiction From the Inside Out, 2nd Edition
Reviewed by John Von Heyking
Teaching Fiction from the Inside Out is a guide to teaching fiction that instructs Humane Letters educators to discard their theories of literary criticism and philosophical frameworks, and invite the imagination of the prep school age student into the narrative of a work of fiction without intellectual scaffolding. Read John Von Heyking’s appreciative account of DeCelle-Zwerneman’s advice to teachers about how to bring the “literary architecture,” the souls of the characters, and the plot of the story to life in the classroom.