Dr. Stephen Herschler’s Core class, in collaboration with the Atlanta Laboratory for Learning, recently hit the road to learn first-hand from some of Atlanta’s most historically relevant places: the Carter Presidential Library and Museum and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.
The group also toured Dr. King’s birth home and visited Ebenezer Baptist Church, collectively designated with Dr. King’s burial site as a national historic park in January 2018.
The sophomore Core 201 class focuses on the relationship between individuals and communities and investigate issues such as the nature of human excellence and virtue, the character of justice, the origins and sources of social order and the status and legitimacy of political power.
During the “educational odyssey,” Dr. Herschler said, “we thought a bit about how conceptions of virtue in Plato, Aristotle, and Mengzi (aka Mencius)—as an innate quality, as a quality to be cultivated, and as a quality to be practiced—are exemplified in the persons, the lives, the actions of King and Carter.”
Students also wrote a paper on the subject afterwards.
The A_LAB worked with Dr. Herschler to arrange transportation for the entire class. “We in the A_LAB are happy to facilitate any and all connections between students/faculty and Atlanta and beyond,” said Dr. Beth E. Concepción, director of the A_LAB.
Dr. King’s birth home on Auburn Avenue.