Summer Program helps teens read and appreciate Great Books
 By
BILL GREENWALD
Ventura County Star
Photos by Chuck Kirman
(July 17, 1997)
When Lacy Rothrock studied Sophocles’ classic
struggle between individual conscience and state fiat in "Antigone"
in high school, she was mesmerized by Antigone’s rebellion
against her uncle, King Creon.
She said Antigone had almost movie star status
at her all-girl high school.
But last week at Thomas Aquinas College in
Santa Paula, the 15-year-old Pico Rivera student saw things
differently. As part of the college’s Great Books program
for high school students, Rothrock reread "Antigone."
The experience was intense and, for the first time, it made
her see it from Creon’s point of view.
"When we studied it here I saw Antigone
as a coward because she became weak at the end and tried to
save herself," Rothrock said.
But it also made her wonder if she wasn’t
expecting too much from the heroine.
 "I
figured I would have done the same thing and wouldn’t
have been true to myself and would have probably chickened
out. Reading it this way was a humbling experience."
The purpose of the Great Books program wasn’t necessarily
to make Lacy humble but to make her and 25 other high school
students from around the country think more deeply about the
classics.
The program was a first for the private college.
For eight years the college has offered adult Great Books
weekends. The reason for adding the high school program, administrators
said, is not just to attract the best students possible to
attend the school but to give them a more intense academic
experience.
It’s a curriculum not designed for lightweights.
It includes Bertrand Russell’s essay "Why I Am Not
a Christian," selection’s from Kierkegaard’s
"Fear and Trembling," Euclid’s "Elements,"
sections of Genesis, the Declaration of Independence and the
Bill of Rights, and Shakespeare’s "Macbeth."
The students must have completed the readings before
coming to the seminar and be ready for questioning. The students
bonded quickly. They broke up into two groups and had morning
and afternoon discussions. Instructors were impressed with
the students’ grasp of the subjects and their sincerity.
"The students have been quite amazing," said Paul
O’Reilly, tutor and assistant dean of student affairs.
"Our approach is unique and difficult. It requires a
lot of effort on their part. It takes strength of character."
Though the school is Catholic in orientation,
when it comes to readings like Genesis, there are no holds
barred. O’Reilly said the idea is to provoke thought,
not to indoctrinate.
In one of the discussions on Genesis,
O’Reilly said, a young woman speculated what was
in it for God by creating mankind. She suddenly broke
in and said:"Why did he create us? All we’ve
done is give him trouble."
 In
some arenas, that question might be seen as irreverent,
but in the Great Books program, O’Reilly said, it
is exactly the kind of thought-provoking breakthrough
that is encouraged.
Michael McGhee, a 16-year-old from Alabama,
was one of those involved in a lively discussion on Bertrand
Russell’s argument that science is superior to Christianity.
He agreed with some of Russell’s points. It made
him define religion for himself. Both religion and science
answer questions, he said, but in different ways.
McGhee said the most inspirational reading
was Socrates’ "Crito." "I like his
loyalty to what he believed when his friends tried to
spring him out of jail."
"Antigone" also made a strong
impression on 17-year-old Michael Byrne from New Jersey.
He and other students noted the conflict between the state
and the woman who wanted to bury her dead brother, prohibited
by Creon because he had attacked his own city.
They saw it as a lesson that a conflict
between two rights doesn’t necessarily produce something
good.
"It was like the Civil War because
it was a conflict between two desirable things: state’s
rights for the South and racial emancipation for the North,"
Byrne said.
The group also included local students
such as 16-year-old Erin Hicks from Santa Paula High School.
"I was interested in the Great Books
and I thought it would be a clue to see what college would
be like," she said. One of her favorite readings
was the Declaration of Independence. "You come to
a deeper understanding," she said. "The people
who wrote it lived by it. It changed the way the world
worked."
This article originally appeared
in the Ventura County Star on July 17, 1997. Reprinted
with permission..
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