Is the current system of grading undermining students today and their long-term formation? Dr. Williams, a college dean at Eastern University, offers a fascinating history lesson about the origin of grades (hint: it’s a late modern invention) and challenges teachers and parents to consider separating true assessment from number and letter grades. Lots of practical advice in this episode about how to actually do this in our world today. Listen in to this fascinating discussion!

Dr. Brian A. Williams is Dean of the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University. Before coming to Eastern, he was lecturer in theology and Christian ethics at the University of Oxford and director of Oxford Conversations. He formerly taught Upper School at Cair Paravel Latin School in Kansas, one of the earliest schools in the classical Christian movement. Dr. Williams’ broader academic interests include virtue ethics, Christian and Muslim political thought, Karl Barth’s theology and politics, classical education, and Dante Alighieri’s Commedia. He is the author of The Potter’s Rib: The History, Theology, and Practice of Mentoring for Pastoral Formation (Regent College Publishing) and co-editor of Everyday Ethics: Moral Theology and the Practices of Ordinary Life (Georgetown University Press). He is married to Kim Williams and has three children: Ilia, Brecon, and Maeve.

Links:

https://templetonhonorscollege.com/curriculum/great-books