Reclaiming Education

8/6/2019 Reclaiming Education

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Reclaiming Education

By Lisa VanDamme

(Lecture originally delivered in July 1998.)

In 1985, Dr. Leonard Peikoff gave a brilliant and innovative course:

Philosophy of Education. Thirteen years later, I have attempted to implement

the principles laid out in this course, with his daughter as one of my

students.

The results have been phenomenal. After two years under my tutelage,

my sixth and seventh grade students can describe the essentials of the whole

history of western civilizationthey have read over forty plays and novels

from Sophocles to Shakespeare to Victor Hugothey write with clarity and

intelligencethey know the history of physics from the Greeks to the 19th

centuryand they love to learn.

After giving you some background as to how I became a private

teacher and briefly discussing the advantages of home-schooling, I will

explain the ways in which I have tried to put some of Dr. Peikoffs

principles of education into practice, I will describe the curriculum I have

developed and some of the observations I have made in my experience as a


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teacher, and I will relate the extraordinary successes that are possible given

the right educational methods.

I am a private tutor for five children. I was hired by Dr. Peter LePort

to teach his children, Francisco and Aurora, and by Dr. Peikoff to teach his

daughter, Kira. Dr. LePort and Dr. Peikoff had tried a number of prestigious

schools, both public and private, and were dismayed that even at the best

schools their children were not being challenged, and that they were

suffering from the trends of modern education.

The children tell an endless series of stories relating the horrors of

todays schools. They tell of how little time is spent doing academic work

and how much time is wasted on frivolous activities. One of the schools they

attended had a special day every two weeks: Twin Day, when you and a

friend come dressed as twins, TV Day, when you come dressed as your

favorite television personality, Pajama Day, Hat Day, Inside-Out Day,

and so on. These special days involved activities and presentations, and little

if any real work was done. Student also took frequent, pointless field trips.

Kira complained of a field trip to a farm where the kids spent the day

picking peas. She said, indignantly, Dont they have machines to do that?

She also complained of a day spent at the park sprinkling seeds for birds.

They have survived without us this long! she said.


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They have many terrifying stories about the type of children they are

forced to associate with in the public schools. One of my students attended

the most reputable school in Irvine. While there, he approached a group of

kids playing a game and asked if he could join. They told him they would

not allow him to play until he showed them something he had stolen. At a

public junior high attended by one of Kiras friends, the children were

forbidden to bring water bottles to school because it was found that they

would bring vodka in them.

The most horrifying stories are the ones about the corrupt ideas

disseminated in todays schools. On Kiras first day at one school, the

children were given a test on material they had not been taught and, not

surprisingly, all got Fs. The teacher did not give them this test in order to

determine the level of knowledge of the students. Her explicit goal was to

ensure that every child failed the test, because, she said: No child should be

deprived of the experience of failing. Kira and Francisco had a teacher who

thought it was important to use the terms history and herstory

interchangeably. This same teacher favored the girls, bringing them special

treats, and made a policy of calling on two girls for every boy, because the

girls were a minority in the class.


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Dr. Peikoff and Dr. LePort were fed up with these schools. They hired

me, and I began teaching in the Leports home. When the parents of

Franciscos friend Novid heard about our arrangement and its successes,

they withdrew him from the public schools and enrolled him in my class.

And later, a parent from San Diego heard about my curriculum, and her son

now willingly commutes an hour and a half from San Diego to Newport

Beach every day. So, currently I have five students: Francisco, Aurora, Kira,

Novid, and Austin.

The laws governing home-schooling vary from state to state. In

California, some of the public school districts offer home-schooling

programs. The public school keeps official records, provides you with

textbooks (which you may or may not use), and your child graduates with an

official, recognized, grade-school education. We are enrolled in one of these

programs. I was apprehensive about it at first, because I was required to

submit monthly samples to an accredited teacher, who would monitor the

childrens progress and approve their work. Fortunately, my supervising

teacher has been impressed by the quality of my curriculum, and allows me

to do what I choose.

Incidentally, this program is a great deal for the public schools. They

get a pre-specified amount of money from the state for each child enrolled in


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the district, including those being home-schooled. So they get the tax money

even though they are not schooling the child.

Ours is a unique situation. Home-schooling is becoming increasingly

popular as the public schools prove their incompetence, but most home-

schooled children are taught by their parents, not a private teacher. Whether

you teach your child or you hire someone else to do so, the benefits to home-

schooling are tremendous.

The most important benefit of withdrawing your child from the school

system is that you control the curriculum. Whether you teach your own

children or hire a private tutor, you are the final authority concerning your

childs education. (Those of you who throw up your hands in despair when

your children report what they are learning at school must appreciate the

value of determining what they will or will not be taught.) There are many

other benefits to homeschooling. You or a tutor can give the children

individualized attention, responding directly to their needs and interests.

And it is much easier with a small group of students to allow them to

progress at their own pace.

The most common fear in regard to home-schooling is the alleged

problem of socialization. Some people object to homeschooling on the

grounds that it is more important that a child be socialized than educated.


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They believe that it is more essential that he learn to adapt to the group than

that he acquire the knowledge and skills he needs to become a mature,

independent adult.

Even many parents who place education above socialization fear that

by withdrawing their child from a school setting, they deprive him of a

social life and of the opportunity to develop the skills he needs in order to

have a healthy social life as an adult.

It is true that a child schooled at home is deprived of the range of

playmates he could have at school. But given todays crisis in education, you

often have to choose which is more important: schoolyard companions, or a

real education? It would be criminal to sacrifice a childs mind so that he has

children to play tag with at recess.

It is important to note that children do not learn social skills from

other children; they learn them from adults. A professor of mine once

pointed out that saying a child must learn social skills at school is like saying

to teach a child etiquette you should put him at a table of ten-year-olds.

Social skills are learnednot primarily from interaction with other children,

but from the adults who have already acquired them.

Remember that a good education is what best prepares a child to have

meaningful relationships as an adult. If you choose to separate your child


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from other children because it is the only way you can provide him with a

complete and rational education, you are not depriving him of a healthy

social life;you are making it possible.

If you are concerned about companionship, enroll your child in extra-

curricular sports or other activities. There are many ways to provide children

with the opportunity to make friends and experience other children.

There are many reasons why it might be impossible for you to home-

school your child or hire a private tutor. It can be expensive and it can

require a tremendous amount of time and dedication. I want only to assure

you that socialization should not be an important consideration in deciding

whether home-schooling is right for your child. I hope that after hearing

about my home-school, you will agree that given a good curriculum and the

right approach to education, the benefits of home-schooling far outweigh the

problems.

I designed my curriculum in accordance with the principles laid out by

Dr. Peikoff in Philosophy of Education. I teach the children literature,

writing, grammar, vocabulary, math, science, and history. All of my students

play musical instruments and are involved in sports, but these are strictly

extra-curricular activities. I will spend the rest of my time tonight describing


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my approach to each of the core subjects, beginning with my personal

favorite: literature.

LITERATURE

If someone were to ask me what I consider my greatest

accomplishment in my two years of teaching, I would say: I taught them to

love literature.

Before the children began studying with me, they had not read novels

for school. At the public and private schools they attended, they were

required to read only five-page stories from a grade-school reader. After

completing the story, they had to answer simple, straightforward questions

concerning the storys plot.

In their first year with me as their teacher, these ten- and eleven-year-

olds read over twenty-five plays and novels, including HugosLes

Miserables, SophoclesAntigone, Shaws Saint Joan andDumas The Count

of Monte Cristo. They wrote essay answers to questions such as, Compare

and contrast Gauvain and Cimourdain from Victor HugosNinety-Three,

and, Demonstrate that the theme ofCorneillesLe Cidis The primacy of

honor over love and life, by discussing the choices of three of the primary

characters.


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I hope you are thinking, How did you do it? Ill tell you how.

The single most important thing you can do to inspire a child with a

love of literature is to give him the rightliterature. It is no wonder that those

of us who were forced to readMoby Dickor were taught that James Joyce

was a literary master came to view reading as a dull or painful chore. Let me

share with you the criteria I used for selecting literature for my students.

Because my students had never read novels for school, I decided to

begin with childrens novels. I had a few criteria for selection. First of all,I

had to have liked the novels as a child. I refused to pass on what were

deemed literary classics unless they had been pleasurable for me. My

favorites includedAnne of Green Gables, a delightful story about an

adorable and passionate young orphan, and The Secret Garden, a mysterious

adventure story about children who become awakened to the joy of life.

Second, I wanted to choose stories and novels with clear, simple

themes. I wanted to get the children beyond the simple plot questions they

were accustomed to answering, and to get them to see a work of literature as

an integrated whole. By exposing them to novels with clear themes, I could

get them accustomed to tying the events of the plot together and identifying

the works purpose, however simple that purpose may be.


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For clarity of theme I introduced them to Horatio Alger novels. Every

Horatio Alger novel that I have read is a variation on the theme, Virtue

brings success. His rags to riches stories illustrate young boys rising to

great heights as a result of their honesty, integrity, or perseverance. The plots

are simple, the themes are clear, and the stories are inspirational. From my

experience, however, the appeal of Horatio Alger quickly wears thin. The

plots are often contrived, an the theme is always the same. Once your child

has read a few, he will be ready to move on.

For the purpose of getting the children used to identifying themes, I

also used many of the stories in William Bennetts Book of Virtues. Many of

the stories are strongly Christian in theme. But even for those giving their

children a secular education, there are stories that are compelling and convey

important moral lessons, and all of the stories have clear, simple themes.

Once my students seemed ready to move beyond childrens literature

(a change I witnessed in a few short months), I moved on quickly to adult

literature. There was such a wealth of material I wanted the opportunity to

expose them to, and I wanted to continuously challenge them.

Again, in selecting novels I simply evaluated them from the

standpoint of whether or not they would inspire the children to become avid

readerswhether they would make them appreciate what a joy it can be to


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immerse oneself in a book. I generally chose novels filled with action.

Eleven and twelve-year olds enjoy plot-driven storiesstories with intense,

dramatic action. They dont want to contemplate complex characters; they

want to be swept away by excitement. That is why I highly recommend the

works of French romantic writers for this age group: Baroness Orczys

Scarlet Pimpernel, Alexander DumasMan in the Iron Maskor Count of

Monte Cristo, and all of the novels of Victor Hugo. These novels have

swashbuckling heroes, brilliant plot twists, and intensely value-driven

characters. My students love them. They worship Victor Hugo as a literary

genius. When I returned from Paris with a poster of Victor Hugo, Aurora

asked me, Would you please put it up in the classroom? Because Victor

Hugo is so importantto us.

In addition to a page-turning plot, literature for young teens must have

themes they can relate to, on whatever level. The issue of justice in

Rattigans The Winslow Boy, injustice to social outcasts in Harper Lees

To Kill a Mockingbird, and revenge in The Count of Monte Cristo are all

themes which strike home for children. They have their own, schoolyard

experiences with these issues.

Let me also explain what types of literature I try to avoid. Junior High

School students are too young to appreciate psychological novels like Crime


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and Punishment, or social commentary like Gullivers Travels or the Jane

Austen novels. As Dr. Peikoff pointed out to me, they are also too young to

appreciate novels that are centered around a romantic relationship. Such

values are too remote from their experiences. They would be unable to

become caught up in the romantic conflict of Mona Vanna or Wuthering

Heights. I became entirely convinced that the children would be unable to

appreciate romances when my students read The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the novel, the character of Phoebus

is a worthless playboy who proclaims his undying love for Esmeralda, while

Quasimodo is a kind but hideously deformed monster who is truly in love

with Esmeralda. I once asked the children to contrast the two mens feelings

for Esmeralda. I was shocked when they all responded that both men were

deeply in love with her. When I asked them why they thought Phoebus was

in love with Esmeralda, they all responded, Because he tried to kiss her!

This is an eleven-year-olds understanding of love.

Once you have selected the right kinds of literature, there are other

techniques for encouraging children to become avid readers. An invaluable

technique for inspiring children with a love of literature is to read to them.

Too often, parents abandon the practice of reading aloud to children as soon


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as the children are able to read on their own. This deprives both you and

your child of a wonderful experience.

I read the first chapter aloud of every novel I have my students read. I

do this for two reasons. First, it enables me to help them ease into the

universe of the novel. By reading the first chapter aloud, I am able to alert

them to important lines or passages that suggest where the novel is going, to

get them thinking about the right things and to help them to understand the

theme. Second, sharing the experience of entering a new novel enables me to

motivate them. By planting questions in their heads, and explaining to them

what fascinates me as I read, I am able to stimulate them to read on. When

they hear my excitement or see the tears in my eyes as I read my favorite

scenes, they become aware of how valuable and powerful a book can be.

Reading aloud can also be a thrilling experience foryou. You get to

experience the joy of seeing the excitement in your childs eyes as you share

your favorite works of literature with him. When my students read The

Scarlet Pimpernel, I demanded that they let me read the last few chapters

aloud. These chapters are filled with page-turning suspense and dramatic

plot twists. By reading them aloud, I got the pleasure of watching my

students sit on the edge of their seats with their eyes wide, and of hearing

their reactions to the adventure. (When I read Victor Hugo aloud to the kids,


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Kira would often approach me and proudly say, Feel my hands! She had

been clenching her fists so tightly that her palms were drenched in sweat.)

Teaching children to analyze literature is another way to motivate

them. It is very stimulating to a child to understand that a novel is not just a

sequence of events or a set of interesting characters, but that these characters

and events are carefully and deliberately chosen by the author to convey a

particular theme. By teaching them the fundamentals of literary analysis, you

open their eyes to a new and profoundly important dimension of literature.

Instead of passive observers, they become thoughtful scholars with the

ability to integrate the characters and action to determine the novels theme.

When I analyze literature with my students, I try to follow the method

outlined by Dr. Peikoff in his course, Eight Great Plays. I discuss plot-

theme, theme, and characterization. My students have become very adept at

identifying themes in literature. When we read The Miracle Worker, the

story of Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller, I gave them the following

formulation of the plot-theme: A willful teacher struggles to teach a deaf an

blind child to use language. Kira and Aurora both thought that my plot-

theme failed to capture two essential elements of the play: Annie Sullivans

conflict with Helens parents and the fact that Helen was savage and

uncivilized. Later, when I told my formulation of the plot-theme to


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philosopher Harry Binswanger, he said that he thought I failed to capture

two essential elements of the play: Annie Sullivans conflict with Helens

parents and the fact that Helen was savage and uncivilized. Leonardo da

Vinci once said that if the student does not surpass his teacher, the teacher

has not done his job. I guess I have.

As important as it is to analyze literature, I think it is equally

important not to over-analyze it. I object to the rationalistic, line-by-line

analysis that they do in every college classroom. When my students read

Ayn Rands Anthem, they were tempted to pause on every line and

discuss its philosophic meaning. I put a stop to that immediately, fearing

they would lose the story, and view Anthem more as a philosophic

treatise. He said they should read it as a story first, and analyze it later.

In the past two years, my students have become real literary scholars.

They have read a list of literary works that would put the best private

schools to shame. They are able to discuss plot and theme intelligently. And,

most importantly, they love to read.

Let me now tell you a story that sums up my experience teaching

literature. When I was interviewed as a potential teacher for the kids, I was

asked to teach them for half an hour. We chose as the subject of my lecture,

a 30-page childrens version of theHunchback of Notre-Dame. Aurora, my


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youngest student, read this childrens version with the help of her parents,

who explained passages she found difficult. A year and a half later, Aurora

read the unabridged novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. As she neared the

end, she insisted that I let her finish in class, because she could not bear to

put it down. She didnt know that I watched her as she read the last few

pages, and witnessed every emotional reaction to the death of Esmeralda, the

murder of Claude Frollo, and the death of Quasimodo play across her face. It

was one of the most rewarding sights I have had the pleasure to behold.

Before leaving my discussion of literature, I would also like to urge

you to expose your students or children to great poetry, and to encourage

them to memorize their favorites.

When a child memorizes a poem, it becomes a part of him in many

ways. First, it makes him feel a special claim to it. My students began to

refer to the poems they memorized as theirpoems.

Second, the poetry becomes part of their subconscious, and helps

them to think and write in the same sort of lyric phrases. Any of you who

have read Shakespeare and found yourself thinking in thees and thous

know the phenomenon I am talking about. Aurora memorized the poem A

Psalm of Life by Longfellow. Later, when someone expressed some regret,


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Aurora turned to them and said, Let the dead past bury its dead! It is

wonderful for children to store eloquent phrases for such occasions.

Finally, there are many great childrens poems with inspirational

messages. By memorizing the poems, they carry the message with them.

Aurora memorized a light childrens poem called Keep a Goin. After

Christmas break, she reported to me that when she came to difficult sections

on the ski slopes, she would find herself thinking, If you strike a thorn or

rose, keep a goin, If it hails or if it snows, keep a goin.

I am not familiar with very much poetry, but I will tell you a few of

my favorites for children.

The Lady of Shalott by Alfred Tennyson

If by Rudyard Kipling

A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Invictus by William Ernest HenleyThinking by Walter Wintle

There are also many inspirational childrens poems in The Book

of Virtues.

WRITING

Now lets move on to writing. No skill is more important for a grade

school child to acquire than the skill of writing. Being able to write means

being able to take a chaotic mass of information, pick out essentials,


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organize them into a logical structure, and express them articulately. Being

able to write is essentially being able to think.

The process of writing is not taughtin todays schools. I recently read

a book that cited a survey of 36 teachers colleges. These 36 colleges offered

a total of 169 courses on how to teach reading. How many did they offer on

how to teach a child to write? None.

With that information to set the context, let me share my greatest

writing success story. Before starting school with me, Aurora loathed

writing. She considered it a hateful duty, and whined incessantly when she

had a paper to write for homework. A few weeks into her first year with me,

she was working on a paper about Michelangelo for homework. Her mother

interrupted her, and Aurora told her to go away and leave her aloneshe

was doing her homework. Her mother said, You used to hate writing! Now

you dont complain and you are eager to get to work! What did Lisa do

differently? Her answer was, She showed me how.

Many of you probably remember the feeling of sitting at your desk in

front of a blank sheet of paper, and being told to write an essay. Most

children have the same reactionone of total paralysisand arrive at the

same conclusion: writing is an innate gift, and they dont have it. Many

people go through the rest of their lives never knowing any better.


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I had the extreme good fortune of learning the writing process from a

great professor, Peter Schwartz. It is the basic principles of writing taught to

me by Mr. Schwartz that freed Aurora from her fear of writing. I will briefly

summarize what I think are the most important principles to teach your child

about the writing process.

The first thing you must teach a child is what to do with that blank

sheet of paper. One reason why many children become paralyzed is that they

believe that the first words they put down on paper must be part of the

polished, finished product. Children must be taught in some terms that this

first stage of writing is primarily a function of the subconscious, not the

conscious mind. After the child has chosen a topic, the first thing he must do

is take a sheet of scrap paper and write down everything that occurs to him

on that topic. He must understand that there need not be any logic or order to

the things he writes down; he should merely write down whatever his

subconscious feeds him. In my experience, a child feels liberated once he

understands this.

The second thing a child must understand is the crucial importance of

selecting a theme for every piece of writing. The theme is the papers

purpose, and therefore dictates the content of the paper. It is the standard by

which the child will select or reject each of the details on his scrap paper.


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My students are incapable of writing anything without first choosing a

theme. When we were studying Ancient Egypt, I gave them an informal

assignment. I asked them to spend an hour researching some subject that

interested them and then to spend a few minutes reporting what they had

discovered to the rest of the class. Kira chose the religion of Ancient Egypt

as her topic. When she finished her research, she

approached me and whispered, The theme of my presentation will be that

the gods were influential in every aspect of the Egyptians lives. She could

not conceive of completing an assignment, even a two-minute, informal

presentation, without first choosing a clear theme.

Every child must also understand the importance of an outline. It is

impossible for children to give a clear, logical structure to their papers

without an outline. An outline enables them to see the overall structure of

the paper by stripping it down to its essence. Once they have organized the

essential points into a logical progression, they have the blueprint that will

guide them in the process of writing the first draft.

The first draft, like the laundry list, is a subconscious process. Using

the outline as a guide, the student must write the paper using the first

formulations that occur to him. Otherwise, he spends agonizing hours


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searching for the perfect words. His mind will inevitably freeze under such a

command.

Finally, every child must understand the importance of editing. When

I give my students a writing assignment, I assign a deadline for the first

draft. I then make them spend at least two days revising their drafts, and they

are required to hand in the draft with the revisions.

My students have become excellent writers. As an illustration of the

skills they developed, let me read to you a letter to the editor written by Kira

last month. My students had just taken the California standardized test, and

Kira was appalled by the content. This is what she wrote:

I am a seventh grader writing to discuss my horror and disgust with

standardized tests such as the CTBS and Stanford Achievement Test.

Compared with the work in my homeschool, the content of the test is

insulting in its simplicity. For example, I am studying algebra, while the testcovers addition of fractions! I am readingLes Miserables and Othello

while the test contains excerpts from a fable about a talking spider and a

poem about a boy who dislikes wheat bread!

More importantly, the writers of the test not only examine the

children, but simultaneously smuggle in their own ideology. For example,

one article printed in this years state-wide test attempted to promote

environmentalism by proclaiming the problem of air pollution and the

need to recycle. This test is required by the state; students are forced to be

exposed to this propaganda.

Either these tests accurately reflect the knowledge of the public school

students, or the test-makers are out of touch with reality. Either alternative is

dismaying.


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When a college friend of mine read Kiras letter, she remarked that it

was better than much of what we had written for Peter Schwartz when we

were in college. I agree.

Let me say a brief word about the types of writing assignments I give

my students. In Philosophy of Education, Dr. Peikoff recommends that the

students be required to write essays for every subject. I have tried to do this

with my students.

My focus is on the expository essay. I give my students some creative

writing assignments, but it is the process of expository writing which gives

students the most rigorous training in logical thinking.

Let me give you a few examples of topics I have assigned my

students:

1. Science: Discuss the Greeks reasons for believing that matter was

composed of atoms, and explain the first real scientific evidence for atoms.

2. History: Explain some of the ways in which the French Revolution

promoted liberty and equality in France, as well as the ways in which it

collapsed back into despotism.

3. Literature: Compare and contrastAnthem andBrave New World.


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Though I emphasize the expository essay, I do give my students some

creative writing assignments. They enjoy having the opportunity to be a little

more imaginative. I once asked them to write a story involving two or more

characters from different novels they had read, and I told them that the story

had to capture the essence of the characters they included. Kira wrote a story

in which Equality ofAnthem, Cyrano de Bergerac, and the Scarlet Pimpernel

fight collectivism in the universe ofBrave New World. She wants to be a

fiction writer, so she always puts a lot of thought and imagination into this

type of assignment.

Children can become competent and willing writers; all it takes is a

knowledge of the basic principles of writing.

GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY

Now Id like to say just a few words about grammar and vocabulary.

I am a grammar tyrant. Any time my students say anything

ungrammatical I correct them on the spot. When they say, I was laying on

the ground, I say, You were what? and they correct themselves. When

they say, He bought a present for Francisco and I, I say, For whom? and

they correct themselves. They have become very used to my response of,

What? after an ungrammatical sentence. In fact, Aurora once said, Ill


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bring it tomorrow, and I said, Youll what? Her brow wrinkled and she

looked down in thought, trying to figure out what was wrong, not realizing

that I simply hadnt heard her! She is so used to me policing her grammar

that she is always on her guard.

The reason I mention this is that I think constant vigilance over your

child or students grammar is crucial if you want them to automatize the

principles of grammar. And before you can correct their grammar, you must

know grammar yourself. Ask yourself if you know the difference between

lie and lay and the tenses of each verb. Ask yourself if you know exactly

when to use I, the nominative case, or me, the objective case. If not, I

strongly recommend that you study grammar.

The best resources for an education in grammar are Leonard Peikoffs

lecture course Principles of Grammar and the book he used to develop that

course, an old college text by Foerster and Steadman. It is no longer in print,

but it can be found in used book stores. [Note:Writing and Thinking: A

Handbook of Composition and Revisionby Norman Foerster and John M.

Steadman is back in print and available at Amazon.com.] I also recommend,

for a light and informative read, Strunk and Whites Elements of Style.

I also want to mention that I strongly recommend that every child be

taught how to diagram sentences. A diagram brings the relationships among


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the words in a sentence to the perceptual level. It allows you to see,

perceptually, that the subject and verb are the essential components of the

sentence, that prepositional phrases serve as adjectives or adverbs, that the

sentence is compound or complex, and so on. It also gives you a logical,

step-by-step process for deciphering the function of a word in a sentence.

My students have mastered diagramming, and when they struggle over the

proper construction of a sentence, I often find myself saying, Picture the

diagram! It helps them immensely to be able to create a structural model of

the sentence.

Now on to vocabulary. I use a series of books called, Vocabulary

From Classical Roots. Each chapter teaches the children a few Greek or

Latin roots and fifteen words derived from these roots. After I teach them the

definitions of the new words, we take turns making sentences with the

words. My students love the creative opportunity to make sentences that

show off their knowledge of history and literature. Some visitors to the

classroom watched our vocabulary class, and sat with their mouths agape as

my students said things like, Captain Keller reprehended Annie Sullivan for

being independent and strong-willed, or, Louis XIV apprehended the

Cardinal de Rohan and threw him into the Bastille, or, Fantine (of Les

Miserables) supplicated with the old woman to let her keep her job. This is


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also a great exercise for the purpose of getting the word into their

subconscious minds and making it a permanent part of their vocabularies.

Learning the roots of the words is a valuable way to help you to

remember the words definition, and to enable you to decipher the meaning

of unfamiliar words with the same root. Dr. Peikoff told me that when he

teaches Kira a word like spectacle, he teaches her the Latin root meaning

to watch, he uses the word in several different sentences, so that she hears

the word in context, and he teaches her several other words with the same

root, like inspect, introspect, and spectator.

I strongly emphasize the importance of vocabulary, because I want my

students to have the best of the English language at their disposal. If they are

to take on great literature with ease, and if they are to be clear and eloquent

writers and thinkers, they need to know the principles of grammar, and they

must have an expansive vocabulary.

MATH

Now on to math. Math is not my area of expertise, but I would like to

share a few of the observations I have made in my experience teaching.


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I am sure many of you have heard the horror stories of new math

which has students abandoning the multiplication tables and spending

countless hours trying to develop their own, creative ways to solve two plus

two. This approach is too absurd to merit criticism here. But even in the

schools that have not adopted the trends of progressive education, there are

serious problems. One problem I have observed is that children are often

taught math in a highly compartmentalized way. They learn a new skill, take

a test, and then the skill is dropped and forgotten. Another problem that

seems to be universal in todays schools is that students are not allowed to

progress at their own pace; they can only advance at the rate of the classs

slowest student. My simple solution to both of these problems was to use a

series of textbooks by a man named John Saxon. I highly recommend the

Saxon texts to anyone interested in homeschooling or in supplementing a

childs education in math. [Editors Note: In recent years Ms. VanDamme

has expressed significant criticisms of the Saxon math series, and no longer

gives them an unqualified recommendation for homeschoolers.]

I was very impressed with the Saxon program. Each text consists of

about 180 chapters. Each chapter introduces a simple new concept which

builds on the concepts taught so far. The student must complete a few

practice problems to test whether he has mastered the new skill, and then he


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is given thirty questions which cover the concept he has just learned along

with everything else that has been covered in the text. This allows the

student to build his skills steadily, a simple, manageable step at a time, and

ensures that he retains everything he has learned throughout the course.

Because the material in these texts is taught in small and very clear

steps, students can use them to teach themselves math. Francisco, who is

exceptionally gifted in math, progressed so rapidly that he surpassed my

knowledge of math at age 12. For the past year, he has been teaching himself

from the Saxon texts, and now, still at age 12, he is well into calculus.

With these texts, it is easy for a child to progress at his own pace. In

my class, the students start each math class by reading the new chapter. I

then go around to each one and make sure he comprehends the new material.

Then, they complete the thirty chapter problems reviewing everything they

have learned. They are able to progress very rapidly this way. Even my

youngest student, age 11, has begun algebra.

Another thing I like about the Saxon series is the abundance of word

problems. Word problems help children apply their math skills to realityto

see the way in which math helps them to function in the world. I also try to

make a mental note of the times when I am faced with a mildly challenging

math puzzle in my day-to-day life, and I bring the example into the


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classroom. Saxons word problems, together with my real-life examples,

help the children to see that math is a valuable asset, not just an end-in-itself.

I must say though, that I think to some extent math is an end-in-itself.

I do not think it is necessary to bend over backwards trying to show a child

that every math skill he acquires will be directly useful to him. For a student

like Francisco, that is the primary source of motivation. He wants to be a

physicist, and he is desperate to acquire the calculus he needs to thoroughly

understand physics. But most children learn many math skills that they will

use rarely, if ever.

The benefit of acquiring these skills is that they condition the mind.

Math trains children in the skill of deductive reasoning. What is motivating

to a child about doing math is not that he is convinced he cannot survive

without it. It is the pleasure he derives from the mental exertion, and from

knowing he can use his mind to solve a complex problem.

One last word on math. Last year, I visited Marva Collins school in

Chicago. Dr. Peikoff had observed her classroom as background research for

an interview with Mrs. Collins on his radio show. He was very impressed,

and thought I could benefit from seeing her in action. I highly recommend

that everyone readMarva Collins Way. It is instructional and inspirational

to read about her efforts to establish a quality school in inner-city Chicago.


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One thing that I learned from observing the teachers at Mrs. Collins

school was the importance of drilling. It is important to continue drilling

long after children have mastered the multiplication tables. Drilling kids in

the basic skills helps them to automatize those skills. When the simpler

functions are automatic, their minds are freed to focus on the complexities of

math. It also enables them to complete math problems with much greater

speed. Given the importance placed on standardized tests, the ability to do

mathematical computations quickly is an invaluable asset.

I also learned from Mrs. Collins that math drills can be fun. I observed

a junior-high level class doing math races. Two students would stand at the

board, side-by side, chalk in hand, and wait poised and eager until the

teacher began the drill: Ten plus three minus six times eight divided by

two... and so on. The one who got the answer first waited at the board for

the next challenger. There was an intense level of excitement in the room,

and everyone was a good sport and put in their best effort. I now do this

activity with my students.

I also do timed tests with my students. I give them the same test of

basic skills several times. They record their time and work to beat it on the

next test. Ive found that this works very well for my class because they are

at dramatically different levels in math. With these tests, they are competing


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against themselves, and they get just as excited as the students did in the

math races.

With the Saxon texts, and some of the activities I do to supplement

these texts, my students have become confident and skilled in math, and are

advancing at a rapid and steady pace.

SCIENCE

Now lets move on to science. My degree is in philosophy and my

primary area of interest is literature, so I do not know a great deal about

science. Dr. LePort and Dr. Peikoff therefore decided to bring in a science

teacher with a specialized knowledge of physics. My students had the

extreme good fortune of being taught physics by David Harriman, a scholar

of physics who is currently writing a book on the influence of philosophy on

the history of physics. With his vast knowledge of physics and pedagogy,

Mr. Harriman designed a new, and very effective method of teaching

physics.

It seems that science is not taught in the public middle schools today;

it has been replaced by environmentalist nonsense and hands on

experiments which are really pointless diversions. At the high school

level, most students are exposed to some science, and most are required to


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take a physics class. But these physics classes generally suffer from a serious

methodological problem.

Let me give you an example of this problem, and then I will explain it.

The following scenario will probably be familiar to many of you. It is half-

way through the semester, and your physics teacher is going to discuss

Newtons Laws. You come into class, sit down, and the teacher begins to

write on the board: These are Newtons three laws of motion. #1: Every

body continues in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line

unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed on it. #2:...,

and so on. No explanation is given as to what observations, integrations, or

discoveries Newton made in order to arrive at these laws of motion. No

account is given of the long history behind Newtons laws of motionof the

earlier theories that were refuted or were accepted and refined.

This method of teaching is extremely rationalistic. Scientific

knowledge is presented as a series of commandments rather than as

conclusions that have been reached by a laborious process of observation,

experiment, and induction. If taught physics this way, a students grasp of

the principles is necessarily detached from reality.

This approach to teaching physics also fails to provide students with a

real understanding of the scientific method. If they are not exposed to the


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way in which a great scientist makes observations and then integrates them

to arrive at an innovative conclusion, then they will not understand how

science is done. Like the writing process, it will seem like an innate gift of

born scientists, and they will never understand that they too can learn the

process by which new discoveries are made. Because students are not

learning the scientific method through real, historical examples of scientific

discoveries, they usually have a few classes within the physics course

devoted just to the scientific method. But the way this method is taught

reflects the same rationalism. Students are told that the first step in the

scientific process is to, Choose a hypothesis. Not a word is said about the

process of observation that should lead you to a hypothesis, so the

implication is that the hypothesis must be chosen on a whim or divinely

inspired. Again, what they leave out is observation, integration, induction.

Mr. Harriman was acutely aware of the rationalistic method by which

physics is taught in the schools today, and he devised a way of teaching

physics that gives students a real, grounded, and complete understanding of

the principles of physics. He determined that the best way to teach physics is

to teach it chronologically.

By chronologically, I do not mean that he tried to chronicle every

development in the history of physics. That would be practically impossible


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and pedagogically disastrous. He taught the essential discoveries of physics

in their historical order of development.

The reason Mr. Harriman taught the history of physics, is that by

teaching it chronologically you teach it inductively. Induction is the process

of reasoning from concretes and lower-level abstractions to higher-level

abstractions. The earliest discoveries in physics are necessarily the closest to

the perceptual level. They are the simplest discoveries, and lay the

groundwork for all later developments. So, if you study physics historically,

you begin with these simple discoveries, close to the perceptual level. After

these discoveries are grasped, you can proceed to the next stage in history,

integrating the most basic discoveries with the observations made by the

next scientist, and grasping a conclusion at a step more removed from the

perceptual level. As you proceed through history, you are able to grasp

principles on increasingly wider levels of abstraction.

Dr. Peikoff said the following in Philosophy of Education.

Knowledge is not a grab bag of unrelated items. It has a definite set of

relations from the foundations in direct perceptions, on up to the more

esoteric, complicated and advanced theories. Proper education has to reveal,

or rather re-travel that structure with the student. It has to take them up the

levels from the foundation, from the directly perceptual, letting them see at


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each point how one level proceeds from the earlier back to the directly

given. That is the only way to tie advanced or abstract knowledge and

concepts back to reality.

As a result of Mr. Harrimans approach to teaching physics, my

students have not just memorized the principles of physics, they understand

them clearly and concretely. Let me tell you a story that conclusively makes

the case for this method of instruction. One day, Mr. Harriman was teaching

the kids about the first evidence for the existence of atoms. He had spent

several hours explaining many of the discoveries made by chemists, and he

reached the Law of Combining Volumes, which states that the volumes of

gases involved in a chemical reaction can always be expressed as a ratio of

small integers. (For example, 2 L of H will combine with 1 L of O to make 2

L of steam.) Francisco, as focused and intent as always, thought about this

for a minute, and then raised his hand and asked, Does that mean that equal

volumes of gases contain equal numbers of molecules? If you dont see the

connection, dont worryI didnt either at the time, and I had the benefit of

Mr. Harrimans class behind me. As it turns out, Francisco was anticipating

the next development in science. Avogadros Hypothesis states exactly what

Francisco saidthat equal volumes of gases contain equal numbers of

molecules.


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There is no way, given the common approach to teaching physics, that

Francisco could have anticipated the next discovery in the history of physics.

It is because he had been taught the essential data that was available to

Avogadro that he was able arrive at the same conclusion.

Mr. Harrimans approach to teaching physics is proper

epistemologically. The students gain their knowledge inductively, starting

with knowledge close to the perceptual level and building to greater and

greater levels of abstraction.

There is an added advantage to teaching physics historically. It is

fascinating to learn physics as a storyto learn how and why one

development led to the next, and to learn it in the context of the lives of

actual scientists. Mr. Harriman filled in some biographical detail when

possible. Children love to be inspired by heroesso knowing that Newton

did most of his work in two years on a sheep farm, and hearing that Galileo

did much of his work while under house arrest gives them more interest in

each mans scientific discoveries.

I have to mention that Mr. Harriman was once told by a high school

administrator that children can listen to a lecture for no more then fifteen

minutes. Well, he lives in San Diego and my classroom is in Newport Beach,

so he had to drive up to teach the kids once a week. Every Monday, he


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lectured the kids for 3 hours, with only a fifteen minute break in the middle.

They stayed attentive and involved the entire time. I think that shows how

grossly the public schools underestimate childrens potential, but I think it is

also testimony to Mr. Harrimans method.

HISTORY

Now let me say a word about history. Based on my experiences, grade

schools no longer teach history. Two years ago, I went to an Open House at

the most reputable public school in my area. This was an open housea

chance for the teachers to showcase the best elements of the curriculum.

The history teacher explained that his sixth-grade class would be

studying the Ancient World. He explained that for a major class project,

each student would construct an ornate Egyptian tomb and would then

decide what things he would want to put inside it to take with him to the

afterlife.

The little real content presented in history classes is distorted by a

political agenda. When Kira started studying with me, she had just finished a

year of American history at a public school. When I asked her a question

about the Civil War, she told me she didnt know the answer because they


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had spent most of their time studying the role of women and blacks in the

war.

Textbook companies have started sending out their manuscripts to

various pressure groups asking for their editorial comments so that they can

make the texts politically correct before they go to print.

A few remaining teachers seem to respect the importance of instilling

in children a knowledge of the major people and events of history. But these

teachers often just drill their students in facts and dates, and fail to cultivate

a real understanding of the events of history and their importance. Francisco

was always an A student in history. He would memorize the material and ace

the tests. But he would complain to his parents incessantly that he didnt

understand why he had to study history.

It is no wonder, given the way it is taught in todays schools, that most

children seem to emerge with a hatred for history. History seems to them

like an endless series of facts, dates, and art projects. They are unable to see

that history is a fascinating story, and that it is relevant to their lives.

My students love history, and they are able to recount the essentials of

history from Ancient Greece to the early 19th century. I spent a lot of time

teaching them about the French Revolution this year. I went to Paris in

April, and visited many of the historic landmarks we had studied. When I


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returned, they sat for two hours, rapt in attention as I told them about my

visit to Versailles, the palace of Louis the XIV, to the Conciergerie, the

prison that held Marie Antoinette and Robespierre, and to the Place de la

Concorde, where the nobles were decapitated. When I finished telling them

the details of the trip, Aurora let out a big sigh, and lamented that she had

been unable to appreciate these things when she had visited Europe two

years before.

Inspiring a child to love history is really quite simple. First, history

must be taught as a story. Children must not perceive it as a sequence of

causeless and unrelated events, but as an intelligible story of ideas, actions,

and their consequences.

I like teaching history chronologically, so that my students get a good,

chronological overview of the history of Western Civilization. Dr. Peikoff

had reservations about starting with the Ancient World, because he thought

it would be too remote from the childrens experiences. But I found that I

was able to motivate them by highlighting those aspects of each civilization

that were steps in the development leading to the United States, and by

teaching them about Egypt and constantly drawing a contrast between Egypt

and the heights of Greece and Rome.


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Second, you must teach history in essentials. You must determine

what are the key ideas and events that define a civilization, and you must

emphasize them and ruthlessly exclude all details of lesser importance.

I must mention here something that Dr. Peikoff has stressed to me

time and time againthat history is political history. As fascinating as the

culture of a certain time period might be, it should be a sidelight and not the

focus of the course. It is by studying political history, the ideas behind

political movements or events, the events, and their consequences, that you

are able to inductively reach philosophic principles.

In Philosophy of Education, Dr. Peikoff paraphrases novelist and

philosopher Ayn Rand as saying, How am I supposed to know what men

should do apart from the facts of human nature? And for that I have to study

men, actual men. What they did and what the results were. In that sense,

said Dr. Peikoff, history is a prerequisite of value judgment.

In teaching the essentials of a civilization, you must identify the

principles that integrate them, to give the students an understanding of the

defining characteristics of a given era. Kira once wrote a paper for me with

a theme that stated, Egypt was a civilization based on religion and

despotism, while Greece was a civilization based on reason and freedom,

and she compared the art, religion, and governments of the two civilizations.


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It was because I had constantly tied the details back to overarching themes in

each culture that she was able to take on such an abstract topic.

Finally, you must be evaluative in teaching history. Those of you with

children know that at age three, no matter what a child is told, he always

asks, Why? For a ten-year-old, the question is, Is that good or bad?

Middle-school kids are struggling to become independent, and as a

part of that quest, they try desperately to learn how to evaluate. It is the

evaluation of history that puts the spark in their eyes and makes them eager

to learn more.

For example, if I had simply taught them that Athens is a democracy,

and that meant that all citizens voted, and that there was a council of 500... I

wouldnt have held their interest long. But when I explain the story of the

trial and execution of Socrates, and that it demonstrates what is wrong with a

pure democracy, and I contrast that with our system of government, then

they are on the edge of their seats.

It is this kind of evaluative instruction that makes children understand

the relevance of history to their lives. They learn that ideas have

consequences, and that they must be equipped to distinguish the good from

the bad.


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Now I must mention that there is always a danger of dogmatism when

you teach evaluatively. The evaluation must be one that the child is able to

grasp, one that arises from the concretes in question, and doesnt presuppose

a context of knowledge that the child doesnt possess. But you should not

simply present the facts and leave the evaluation to themyou should

present the facts and show them how the facts entail the evaluation.

If teachers take a story-like, essentialized, evaluative approach,

students will love historybecause it is fascinating and it is crucially

relevant to their lives.

CONCLUSION

With the guidance of Dr. Peikoff, and a lot of studying, I have been

able to provide my students with a good education, and I have instilled in

them a love of learning.

What seems to make the biggest impression on those who visit the

classroom is the eagerness and total self-confidence of my students. That, I

think, is the most important thing they have gained. They have not just

acquired the fundamentals of a good education, they are ready to take on the

world.


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I want to be sure you are not let left with a common mistaken

impression. When one of the parents described to someone the impressive

work my students were doing, that person responded, How smart does the

child have to be to get in to the class? Here I would like to paraphrase Hugh

Akston in Ayn RandsAtlas Shrugged. Dont make the mistake of thinking

that these pupils of mine are some sort of superhuman creatures. Theyre

something much greater and more astounding than that: theyre normal

children. My students have the knowledge and the love of learning possible

to all children given a good education.

Reclaiming Education

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