TRUE FACT: The 2026 annual meeting of the American Historical Association included a session on “The Reading Problem,” prompted by the significant decline that has occurred in college students’ reading skills. When you add that problem to the one of ChatGPT-enabled students no longer doing their own writing, we arrive at the question: What’s a university to do if its students can neither read nor write?
Not to worry, says Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. In September 2026, Stonehenge College will open in Ocala, a city of over 60,000 in North Central Florida. According to the Governor, “Stonehenge will be the first college in the country to fully embody the oral tradition of education. There will be no readings or written assignments — EVER. Professors will lecture, students will listen, and then students will talk and be graded on what they say. If a subject can’t be taught this way, it’s not worth learning.
“Plato and Aristotle pioneered the Stonehenge model of voice-based education in England back in 350 BC, and it still works. As Socrates famously proclaimed, ‘the sparrow’s song at dusk is the vessel that carries all that is needed for an examined life’.
Stonehenge College will join the NCAA’s Southeastern Conference in the fall of 2027, fielding teams in football, basketball, and yodeling.