Is truth truly beauty, and beauty really truth? And is that all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know?
This was under discussion on a January morning on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The moderator was Chana Ruderman, a former university seminar instructor, and the spirited participants, wearing crisp uniforms, were 11- and 12-year-olds, approaching John Keats’s immortal lines with the enthusiasm their peers usually reserve for Spider-Man or Juan Soto.
Creative ideas were welcomed but textual proof was demanded to back up each statement. The students dived back into the “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” shouting with glee when they discovered lines that supported their theses. As the pace grew quicker, they exhibited something you rarely experience in middle school: joy.
