Rethinking the Purpose of Education: A Critique of Bloom's Taxonomy from a Classical Christian Perspective

by Jason Matthew Barney

This book evaluates Bloom’s taxonomy from within the broader purpose of education as articulated in the classical Christian education renewal movement. Then it proposes a Christian vision of moral, intellectual and spiritual virtues as the proper goals of education. Lastly, it articulates the value of Aristotle’s five intellectual virtues as a rival paradigm for Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive domain objectives. The practical conclusion explores how to write learning objectives in a classical and Christian way.

148 pages, Paperback

Published March 12, 2023

Reviews

[JR Snow · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great start. Barney proposes replacing Bloom's taxonomy with Aristotle's five intellectual virtues and using them as educational objectives. The benefit of doing this is that Aristotle has a more holistic understanding of the different parts of a person–man as producer, as a doer, and also as a thinker. Bloom really only takes the last into account.

I am thinking that these three domains might graft onto my learning objectives for individual lessons very well–so, for each lesson I ask:

What do I want my students to know?
What do I want them to love?
What do I want them to be able to produce/make?

Interesting stuff!