In my recent article "The Failure of Field Trips," I explained what is wrong with traditional school outings. The typical field trip is irrelevant to the students' education, either because they have been unprepared to appreciate it by their schooling (e.g., City Hall...
It is ironic that in the present case, the victims of this anti-capitalistic attitude are colleges and universities. What is ironic is that they systematically instill such anti-capitalistic attitudes in practically every course they offer.
The lecture by Dr. John Lewis last month on Islamic totalitarianism at George Mason University was one of the most surreal public experiences I have witnessed in all my years as an activist and advocate. It evidenced in no uncertain terms that rationality and common...
Many educators stress the importance of field trips--opportunities to get students out of their desks and away from their books, and to give them direct, vivid, sensory experience with the world around them. Reflecting on my own education, these excursions off campus...
I began my career as a private teacher for a few families committed to providing their children with a real education. These parents had abandoned a fruitless search for a school in which their children would read the classics of literature, learn the story of...
Last week, I contrasted the cliché junior high classroom--of raucous teenagers throwing spitballs, passing love notes, and giggling at lewd jokes--with a VanDamme Academy junior high classroom--of young adults in raptures over Cyrano de Bergerac. How we produce...
When I tell people that I teach literature to junior high students, the response is nearly universal: an expression of profound sympathy. Teaching junior high is regarded as a martyr's job, to be taken on only by those with such a selfless commitment to children and...
Several weeks ago, in my article "Pattern Recognition vs. Real Understanding," I stressed the crucial connection between writing and understanding: For the student to write explanations, in complete sentences, about every subject--whether history, literature, grammar,...
Every class in elementary and junior high school should be in a lecture format. The teacher must be an authority on the subject, he must grasp its basic purpose, he must carefully define the knowledge to be conveyed by reference to that purpose, and he must present...
Every year, when I give my first test in a grammar or literature class, some new student asks me whether the test will be multiple choice. Every year, I look him in the eye and say "I can assure you that you will never, in any class, under any circumstances, at any...
It might be a hilarious comedy routine to have a group of highly educated judges solemnly expounding on something that everybody knows to be utter nonsense. But it isn't nearly as funny when this solemn discourse about nonsense takes place on the Supreme Court of the...
Every year, dozens of parents sit at my desk and describe to me the intense frustration they feel as they watch their children get churned through the public schools. One of the refrains of their complaints: endless homework. And no wonder: The work itself is largely...
The science curriculum for the elementary students at VanDamme Academy is taught primarily through experiments. These students are learning principles that are very close to the perceptual level, so we always demonstrate the principle in carefully designed hands-on...
Recently, I was visited by a mother frustrated with her son's education and looking for something more.She informed me that mid-way through his kindergarten year, they were still learning their letters--most recently, they had been studying the letter "P." And in...
Nothing should be surprising any more about the Duke University rape case. Still, it is a little staggering that, after all these months, District Attorney Mike Nifong has still not interviewed either the accuser or the accused. Rape is a felony with serious...
Another consequence of the rampant violation of hierarchy in science education, available to both teachers and students alike, is that students find learning about science boring.When I ask people about their experience studying science in school, particularly...
This year, I have the pleasure of teaching literature to our school's Elementary 1 students, children in second and third grades, a class that includes my own seven-year-old daughter Lana. Their uninhibited enthusiasm for learning, their eager quest to see...
Several years ago, a teacher from my school was tutoring Kevin, then a freshman in high school. One day, Kevin came to their session asking for help in preparing for a test on protein synthesis. The tutor went over the information Kevin had been presented, helping him...
Science education is a frequent topic in the news these days. Earlier this month, Microsoft announced a campaign to improve math and science education in the Seattle area. According to Brad Smith, a senior vice president and general counsel for Microsoft: "We're very...
Imagine what would happen if a first-grade teacher, instead of teaching her students addition and subtraction, attempted first to teach them algebra--or, even worse, in the name of intellectual rigor and in an effort to offer a program of exceptional quality--decided...
Physics is the fundamental natural science. Its birth in the 17th century heralded man's coming of age as a rational being. The discovery of the basic laws of nature led to the industrial revolution and modern technology, demonstrating the enormous practical power of...
With little exaggeration, the whole of contemporary education can be described as a process of encumbering the student’s mind with as little knowledge as possible.
As if things weren't crazy enough already in the Middle East, here's the officially sanctioned message in sixth-grade Palestinian textbooks for 11- and 12-year-old kids: "The noble soul has two goals: death and the desire for it." The goal isn't to build magnificent...
For many years I have argued that America's intellectuals--those learned people with the greatest ability to understand our virtues and articulate a moral defense of our way of life--have long abandoned America. Another piece of evidence of this betrayal can be found...
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