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

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.

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.

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

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 homeschooled 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 homeschooling 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.

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

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 extracurricular 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 homeschool 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

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-yearolds read over twenty-five plays and novels, including Hugos Les Miserables, Sophocles Antigone, Shaws Saint Joan and Dumas The Count of Monte Cristo. They wrote essay answers to questions such as, Compare and contrast Gauvain and Cimourdain from Victor Hugos Ninety-Three, and, Demonstrate that the theme of Corneilles Le Cid is The primacy of honor over love and life, by discussing the choices of three of the primary characters.

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 right literature. It is no wonder that those of us who were forced to read Moby Dick or 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 included Anne 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.

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 Dumas Man in the Iron Mask or 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 important to 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 for you. 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 plottheme, 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 plottheme 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 the Hunchback 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 their poems. 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 Henley Thinking 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 taught in 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 test covers addition of fractions! I am reading Les 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 contrast Anthem and Brave 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 of Anthem, Cyrano de Bergerac, and the Scarlet Pimpernel fight collectivism in the universe of Brave 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 Revision by 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 read Marva 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 halfway 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 Rands Atlas 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.

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