But consider Chaucer's Wife of Bath. She evidently did not receive a formal education in dialectic and rhetoric. And yet she carries on arguments. Where did she learn how to carry on such arguments? Most likely from listening to preachers who had received a formal education.
Next, consider the grave-digger scene in Shakespeare's play HAMLET. The grave-digger did not himself receive a formal education. And yet Hamlet, who did receive a formal education, remarks on the grave-digger's skill in carrying one arguments. Once again, I would suggest that the grave-digger probably learned how to carry on such arguments by listening to educated clergy preach.
Besides, Greenhaven Press has for years been marketing well-edited anthologies of pro-and-con debates about controversial topics in the United States for use in secondary education.
Ah, but what about elementary education in the United States? We may need to ask the Johnsons to write a separate book about structuring instructional units around contests in elementary education. However, once again, we should be careful not to involve state or federal legislators at this level of constructing textbooks for teachers.
Next, I want to plug Johan Huizinga's famous book HOMO LUDENS: A STUDY OF THE PLAY-ELEMENT IN CULTURE. It should be required reading for all college-educated people.
Finally, I want to round out this essay with a brief reflection on the Latin expression "magister ludi." The Latin word "magister" means both master and teacher the idea being that we should be able to teach whatever we have mastered. The word "ludi" is in the genitive case, so it can be rendered "of school" AND "of play." Thus the expression "magister ludi" means both a schoolteacher of play and a master of play. So going to school involves learning the play of the mind and how to play with conceptual constructs, for a schoolteacher who is a master of such play.
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