Mr. Anderson - History, Political Philosophy, Government

This will be Mr. Anderson's sixth year teaching at Ridgeview. Mr. Anderson grew up in Montana and received his secondary education in Colorado. He spent time studying in the United States, France, Ireland, and England. His undergraduate work culiminated in an honors dissertation comparing the work of Isaiah Berlin, R.G. Collingwood, and Michael Oakeshott. He graduated with a BS in political science and international relations from the University of Denver. Mr. Anderson completed the bulk of his graduate work at univeristies in England and France, and was primarily interested in intellectual history and political philosophy. Throughout his graduate work, Mr. Anderson focused on the works of Michael Oakeshott and Friedrich Hayek. 

Since coming to Ridgeview, Mr. Anderson has taught seventh-grade Literature, eighth-grade American History, eleventh-grade American History, American Government, American Political Philosophy, Advanced Political Philosophy, Political Novel, Rhetoric, and Russian Literature. Mr. Anderson continues to be interested in the American founding and the origins of constitutional government. He has helped to create the Ridgeview Classical Institute, which has assisted dozens of schools around the country to implement a classical curriculum in their classrooms. 

Mr. Anderson also created and continues to host an extracurricular student book group called The Bent Nib Society. Students gather together roughly once per week to discuss texts that have included Isaiah Berlin's The Hedgehog and the Fox, Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield, John Ruskin's The Nature of the Gothic, Albert Camus' The Stranger, G.K. Chesterton's Everlasting Man, and Ivan Goncharov's Oblomov among many others. For a time, Mr. Anderson also hosted a film group called the Black & White Society at which students gathered together to watch and discuss classic films such as Judgment at Nuremberg, The Third Man, and The Caine Mutiny. 

Mr. Anderson has twice presented at Ridgeview's Humanities Day. He presented an original paper entitled The Evangelism of Egalitarianism, which was a review of Albert Jay Nock's short work on education in America. The following year, Mr. Anderson presented another original paper entitled Education as Liberation, which was a work assessing the state's impact on schooling and education in America. He has written several pieces for The Conversation, which is Ridgeview's academic journal. 

During his more leisurely hours, Mr. Anderson enjoys taking long walks with his wife and daughter, travelling to Europe, having great conversations with friends, cooking and eating, and reading. Logan Pearsall Smith of Oxford once said, "People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading." That may be going a bit far, but only a bit. Mr. Anderson is a voracious reader and tries to keep up by not only reading books related to his courses, but journals and periodicals such as the Times Literary Supplement, the Literary Review, the New Atlantis, the New Criterion, Modern Age, and a multitude of others. 

This year Mr. Anderson will be teaching eighth-grade American History, eleventh-grade American History, American Government, American Political Philosophy, and Moral Philosophy.