September 27, 2019
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
If you have been to a personal trainer or regularly attend the gym, you understand the importance of the core. All of our limbs extend from a core whose strength allows us to be upright, graceful, and strong. In other words, core fitness is essential for the body’s freedom of movement. While there has always been a focus on core strength, equipment for the core has drastically increased in recent years. Things such as the bosu ball, TRX bands, medicine balls and the large exercise ball have been added to our existing planks, pushups, and situps. Many of these intend to create a destabilizing effect, which, in turn, makes the core work harder to attain balance.
I know what this term means in relation to the human body, but I also hear it when discussing a core curriculum or core beliefs. I believe that “core curriculum” encompasses a number of vital texts necessary for cultural dialogue. Core texts are meant to be the internal structure around which you deepen your knowledge of a subject, such as religion or love or justice. Many schools begin by selecting a standard, core curriculum. Some of these texts may come and go as they age, though the majority will remain. I began to wonder if these two usages of core have the same meaning. Am I conflating two different things? I realize that the question, are abdominal muscles in any way related to a core curriculum, is a bit absurd. But, are they?
Merriam-Webster includes three separate definitions for core. First, “a central and often foundational part usually distinct from the enveloping part by a difference in nature.” Under this definition they include such things as fruit cores, computer parts, and elevator shafts. The second definition reads, “a basic, essential, or enduring part (as of an individual, a class, or an entity).” Third is the standalone (meaning that it has no bulleted or additional parts to the definition): “a part (such as a thin cylinder of material) removed from the interior of a mass especially to determine composition.” It is important that the first definition introduces a difference in nature – in that the two substances naturally exist together, but are essentially different somehow, like the apple and its core.
Furthermore, while core’s etymology is unknown, it is thought to have arrived during Middle English, perhaps borrowed from French. If it means the center, then the gym terminology makes sense. All limbs extend from a center, so it only makes sense to concentrate on the center for balance and strength. Furthermore, without a strong core, the human body also loses balance. This idea reiterates how I feel about core texts. They are vital. They increase stability and movement. They make minds nimble, intelligent, directed.
These various definitions helped me to further investigate the complexity of this term. Which definition of “core” do we mean when we say our “core beliefs” or “core texts”? Can it be that we are speaking about two different kinds of text? To me, it seems that core texts are the basic, enduring ones which speak about issues central to our knowledge base. A core text is essential, but so is an apple core. Yet the core text is supposedly of the same material as the rest of texts, just more important, whereas an apple core is different in kind from the apple’s skin and flesh. Furthermore, it seems ironic that, in the apple, the core is inedible and generally thrown away. On the other hand, it contains seeds, which are vital to the fruit’s existence, and so they are obviously not always thrown away, but also create seedlings. When distinguishing a core text, however, I often find that there are texts that speak more urgently or directly about issues that matter. Yet, I also find utility and interest in nearly everything. So, I am back to the question of, in what sense do we use the term core texts? With an apple, the answer is simple, bite into it until you reach a difference in texture. Perhaps the same is true of texts; that our responsibility is to sample enough to know the difference ourselves.
Columbia College coined the term “core curriculum” in 1919. Their website explains : “The Core Curriculum is the set of common courses required of all undergraduates and considered the necessary general education for students, irrespective of their choice in major. The communal learning – with all students encountering the same texts and issues at the same time – and the critical dialogue experienced in small seminars are the distinctive features of the Core. Begun in the early part of the 20th century, the Core Curriculum is one of the founding experiments in liberal higher education in the United States and it remains vibrant as it enters its tenth decade. Not only academically rigorous but also personally transformative for students, the Core seminar thrives on oral debate of the most difficult questions about human experience. What does it mean, and what has it meant to be an individual? What does it mean, and what has it meant to be part of a community? How is human experience relayed and how is meaning made in music and art? What do we think is, and what have we thought to be worth knowing? By what rules should we be governed? The habits of mind developed in the Core cultivate a critical and creative intellectual capacity that students employ long after college, in the pursuit and the fulfillment of meaningful lives.” This, then, explains how core texts begin the dialogue about what it means to be human. They endeavor to find and/or illuminate the center of humanity, which extends in many different ways on many different limbs.
Of course, Harrison Middleton University also functions on discussion-based learning, centered around the human experience. The website states , “We at Harrison Middleton University believe that the study of the humanities is both timeless and timely because it focuses on the central questions of human existence, lasting debates that bear directly on the problems we face today. And in a time when information of all kinds is increasingly fragmented, the study of ancient and modern classics provides a rich source of fundamental knowledge and unifying ideas.” While there is a core, much is left to the student’s discretion. The student’s personal path toward entering into this dialogue is of great importance at Harrison Middleton University.
It does matter which voices we teach and hear and listen to. It does matter what we include in our definition of core texts. Very often it can be nearly impossible to decide upon core texts for a broad group of people. And yet, we must, at the very least, discuss what composes our core. I do believe that conversation about what fits into this elite category is as vital as its existence. Culturally speaking, we must maintain foundational points of reference, even if we disagree on what or why. This dialogue gets at the heart of culture and society in a healthy way, very similar to the way that the core of the human body does. In the gym, we have toys which exercise our core. Personally, I like the destabilizing effects of a bosu, and I like it in my texts as well. I think we have as many different core texts as we do toys in the gym because it is good to remember that our minds require just as much exercise.
To leave a comment, click on the title of this post and scroll down.
