Real Life Education

I have been rethinking how to approach our children's education. This rethinking is occurring in a much broader consideration of my philosophy of education. One of the main questions that must be answered is this: How do we learn? I have come to some conclusions based on my own experience with education. I was in school for about thirty years straight! I have also taught a variety of children, high school students, college students, and adults for almost twenty years now. My conclusion is that people learn and retain information and skills best when they are directly related to real life situations. Unfortunately, most education in our nation (both secular and religious) is attempted in a classroom/textbook setting. There is certainly a place for classrooms and textbooks. But this is only sometimes necessary and is only a fraction of the learning process.

Here is one small example. When Bethany learns math, she is required to do exercise after exercise of particular types of problems in order to learn how to solve them. I suppose there is some value in this. But when I give her the  job of keeping track of the finances related to caring for our chickens, our egg consumption, and our egg sales, she has a totally different motivation to do math. When she is allowed to prepare a dish for the family, she is doing math as well. In these situations math isn't just for practice, it is a means to an end that has real results.

I am going to seek more and more to integrate education with real life. I hope this will minimize "school" time, increase motivation, learning, and retention, and increase real contributions to our family life.

"Public Education Is Going Down"

I am working with a young man who turned 18 in December. You know what he got for his birthday? A B.A. degree from an accredited college. His parents paid for tuition: under $15,000. The college awarded him his degree for work performed. He did the whole thing at home.

Is this a better way to go to college? You bet it is.

Are more parents going to figure this out? I hope to persuade them.

Is boola-boola at a distant campus worth $100,000 or more, plus five years instead of four? Not to wise parents and students.

Is earning a college degree at 18 better than earning a high school diploma? That family thought so.

What do you think?

This is the beginning of Gary North's prophetic article "Public Education Is Going Down." Fascinating.

“Whoever controls the image and information of the past determines what and how future generations will think; whoever controls the information and images of the present determines how those same people will view the past.”~ George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

Manly Missionary Monks

This Fall I will be teaching Medieval History (and Theology) in the Blue Ridge Teaching Cooperative in our local homeschool association. It will be based on the textbook Omnibus II: Church Fathers through the Reformation. We will be reading and discussing the following primary sources: Eusebius, The Church History Augustine, St., Confessions Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People Geoffrey, The History of the Kings of Britain Luther, Martin. The Bondage of the Will

Today I have been reading about the monk Bede, who wrote the Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

"A common misconception about early medieval monasteries is that they were places where monks went to escape from civilization. But the opposite is true: monks boldly went into untamed places and carved out fresh civilization by establishing monasteries. In doing so they carried literacy to place where people could not read, food to where people were underfed, medicine to the sick, and most importantly, they carried the Christian gospel to people who had not heard of Jesus” (Omnibus II, 90-91).

I also found it interesting that Bede was the first to mark time with reference to the birth of Christ. In Latin he wrote, “ante vero incarnationis dominicae tempus” (“the time before the Lord's true incarnation”). This was translated into English and popularized as “Before Christ” and abbreviated B.C. Bede also used and popularized an earlier time marker, the Latin phrase anno Domini, “the year of our Lord,” abbreviated A.D. (Omnibus II, 95; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_Christ).

The Logic of Abortion

One of my favorite class discussions in our Public Speaking class at Appalachian State is on "Building Powerful Arguments." In it we talk about logos, pathos, and ethos, and deductive and inductive reasoning. In order to demonstrate how a logical appeal (logos) can be made with a deductive argument, we use the topic of abortion. I lead the class in an attempt to create a deductive argument for a pro-choice and a pro-life position. I emphasize how important it is to be able to accurately articulate the view of the opposing argument (that is, to the satisfaction of one who hold that view). If this simple step were taken in such discussions, much misunderstanding, straw-man arguments, and talking past each other would be eliminated. Deductive reasoning argues for a claim based primarily on the logical relationships of certain premises. First, the students must establish a major premise. This is an assumed principle that both sides should agree upon. Next is the minor premise. This is where the one logically connects the major premise to his or her claim. A simplified version of a deductive argument (a syllogism) for both sides of the abortion issue may look like this:

Pro-Choice

Major Premise:            Women have a right to control their bodies and # of children. Minor Premise:            Abortion is an exercise of that right. Claim:                         Protect abortion rights

Pro-Life Major Premise:             Taking the life of another human is wrong. Minor Premise:            Abortion is taking the life of a human. Claim:                         Stop abortion

There are other ways to argue both sides, but this is a start upon which both sides generally agree. Anyone have any suggestions on how to improve this beginning point for discussion? Next time I will explain how both sides usually criticize the logic of the other.

History: Medicine for a Sick Mind

"The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid." - Livy, The Early History of Rome

After talking with a person reputed to be wise, Socrates reflected as he walked away,

“Well, I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.”

- Plato, Apology