The Myth of Relevance and the Relevance of Myth, by Dr. Edward Mulholland

We are a few decades into a trend that argues that students are best served by reading things that are “relevant” to their lives and to the “real world.” It is interesting how this only seems to apply to academic subjects. Nobody thinks gym training is useless because it uses especially crafted weights (as opposed to hay bales or the opposing team’s defensive linemen) to target specific muscle groups. This talk shall argue first that the “real world” as defined by pedagogical fads is a moving target at best, an ideological fiction at worst. And second, drawing on Stratford Caldecott, that the truths communicated by myth and fantasy are often more real than today’s headlines, indeed often “deeper magic from before the dawn of time."