Learning a Holiday Lesson

There is a great lesson that can be learned from the conversion of Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. However, there is SO much more to the story! As you know, I have been reading this story every year since 1982. You would think that after all these years, I would have learned all that there is from this story, but that’s just not true.

While surfing through Facebook recently, an ad appeared for Hillsdale College. They offer free online courses on many topics. This particular ad was for an online course on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

I figured there had to be some sort of catch to this, but there wasn’t any. They are able to provide these course free because of donations and such, but there was no pressure to give money or anything like that. This course, for example, allows you to make a decent donation to obtain a copy of the book, if you wish.

At any rate, I just finished up this course, which consisted of 6 lectures. Each lecture varied in length and were no longer than an hour. After each lecture, there was a quiz of 8-10 questions and a final exam (consisting of questions from the previous tests). You have to complete the lecture and quiz before moving to the next lecture.

The professor who taught the course was very good. He mentioned things that I have overlooked while reading and brought out some really neat points. This course truly allowed me to see this amazing tale in a whole new light. Some things were so obvious, I don’t know how I ever missed the connection.

I had already done my yearly read of the book when I discovered this course, so it was fresh in my mind. Let me encourage you to take advantage of this if you are looking to get into the holiday spirit. It is easily something that you could do in a day or two. You can read more about it or enroll (and do it on your own time) by going to their website:

https://online.hillsdale.edu/courses/christmas-carol

If you do enroll and finish the course, I would love to hear what you thought!