Relevance in Education
Just this morning I wrote about the importance of relevancy in school and just tonight I started reading a book about Emile Durkheim - one of the social science great ones... and what is in the introduction but the following paragraph, talking about the writer of this book which explains Durkheim's four most important works. I shall repeat it here for it bears relevance to the discussion of relevancy.

"R.A. Jones is well known for his advocacy of the "historicist" position - that is, the examination of historical works in terms of the issues and debates of their own time. He has consistently argued against the "presentist" position of analyzing class works with reference to the intellectual problems of today. For as he emphasizes, the questions and debates, as well as the personalities and intellecutal politics, of a time change; and it is unfair and inappropriate to impose our present-day criteria on scholars of the past."

OK - I can agree with that - I love studying history in it's own context - I am a voracious purchaser of old bound volumes of magazines such as The Review of Reviews, and Harpers and the Nation... but then how is that type of study 'relevant?' Well, here is how, as the introduction continues...

"Jones' answer is that these masters were great sociological thinkers and understanding how they thought is, per se, an important task. By seeing how great masters dealt with the issues and problems of their times can broaden our own perspective and can, as Jones concludes, alert us to the "almost limitless possibilities of the sociological imagination."

Exactly. First one must understand the context, and then see how the great ones dealt with the world as they lived in it, and with that knowledge of how things were and how the great ones dealt with their world, you can appreciate today's world better and be better able to understand what one can do.