My Home-School Experience Demonstrates the Benefit of a Rational Approach to Education

by | Sep 20, 2000 | Education, POLITICS

It was painful to watch. Our bright 9-year-old son was rapidly losing his love of learning. Dissatisfied with his private school, the best we could find, I decided to postpone my second career as a writer and home-school him–a choice many Americans are forced to make thanks to deteriorating academic standards and escalating school violence. […]

It was painful to watch. Our bright 9-year-old son was rapidly losing his love of learning.

Dissatisfied with his private school, the best we could find, I decided to postpone my second career as a writer and home-school him–a choice many Americans are forced to make thanks to deteriorating academic standards and escalating school violence.

I accepted two other grade-five students. Educated in public schools, they were far behind my son in “basic” skills: math, reading, spelling, grammar, and writing. They knew a lot about the latest fad or gizmo but little about science and history. They found focusing and thinking difficult and seemed to regard any feeling of theirs–rational or irrational–as an unquestionable absolute to be followed blindly. Their initial responses to questions indicated disorganized minds.

These two students were tragic victims of the Progressive Education philosophy ruling our schools today, a philosophy which has dumbed-down the school curriculum, eliminated teaching methods that train logical thinking, and encourages children to blindly follow their feelings. As one progressive school in Chicago proudly advertises: “This philosophy of education acknowledges the natural interests [i.e., feelings] of the children rather than requiring them to adapt to a preconceived curriculum or methodology.”

To counter the damage caused by this anti-methodology approach, I put together a rigorous program of core academic subjects–math, writing, vocabulary, grammar, science, literature, and history (which included geography)–designed to motivate learning, build a solid foundation of essential knowledge and basic skills, and train logical thinking. Here, I will only discuss how I used history to train logical thinking skills, such as identifying cause-and-effect relationships.

History is an essential academic subject because it provides facts about man’s past actions from which abstract principles of human nature and social systems can be grasped. Furthermore, history explains how man got to where he is today and thereby makes today’s world easier to understand.

In today’s “social studies” classes, the shamefully scant history that students get consists of a grab bag of disconnected names, events, and customs–the first female Pharaoh, construction of the Great Wall of China, religious ceremonies of “native Americans,” etc.–to be memorized. Mostly, students are bombarded with current events and social-political practices, often intertwined with “political correctness” propaganda, which students can’t evaluate objectively, thanks to inadequate knowledge and thinking skills. Then students engage in class discussions where everyone’s “opinion” is considered valid.

Such an approach thwarts the development of logical thinking.

In stark contrast, we covered the history of Western Civilization in chronological order–from the first humans in Africa to the Founding Fathers in America–as an exciting, integrated story. For each period, we focused on major characters, events, and developments along with the dominant ideas and practices.

My students grasped man’s progression as a series of logically connected steps. For example, by studying first man’s slow progress as a hunter and gatherer, the students could then grasp how abundant food production, via the discovery of agriculture along fertile river banks, spawned the first civilizations in Egypt and Sumer. By studying the ascendance of rational thought and political freedom in Ancient Greece (and again during the Renaissance), the unprecedented advances in science, technology, and art that resulted made logical sense to them. By studying the fall of ancient Egypt and Rome the students grasped the danger of handing government too much power.

Presenting key historical facts in chronological order–while highlighting causal relationships between a given culture’s dominant ideas and the results that followed–naturally trains students to think logically.

My students quickly came to love history and couldn’t get enough of it. Because history made sense to them and they grasped its importance, they were bursting with intelligent questions, such as: Why do civilizations rise or fall? What’s the best form of government? What’s good or bad about our government?

I applied the same logic-oriented approach to the other subjects as best I could. Not only did the basic skills of the two public school students improve significantly in nine months, as indicated by high scores on standardized tests (which, unfortunately, test only basic skills), they also became more enthusiastic, thoughtful, self-disciplined and self-confident.

My son was recently tested by an education testing firm and evaluated as “above-average” for grade 8, even though he was technically completing grade 5. And it was wonderful to see him regain his love of learning.

Although far from perfect, my home-schooling experience demonstrated the value of a curriculum of core academic subjects taught in a manner that motivates children to learn and trains them to think. Nothing short of a revolution in the education system will counter the damage of Progressive Education and give our children the knowledge and skills needed to guide their lives towards success and happiness.

Glenn Woiceshyn is a freelance writer, residing in Canada.

The views expressed above represent those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors and publishers of Capitalism Magazine. Capitalism Magazine sometimes publishes articles we disagree with because we think the article provides information, or a contrasting point of view, that may be of value to our readers.

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