A Thomas Jefferson Education...a must read or not

[Tammy in Germany]

Curious of what everyone thought of this book...thank you!:D

[Carol in Cal.]

Having said that, there was one useful takeaway for me which was that in order to get DD to write and write well, I needed to model doing it myself.

I realized that I don't write much, and that when I do, it's not all that visible to her.

I started to do some of her writing assignments alongside of her (very occasionally) and then we would compare them. She is 11, and she writes pretty well, so this is not as overwhelming or competitive as it might sound. Also I picked ones like history summaries that I had already given her a lot of instruction in. One of the things that she saw was that there are aspects of her paper that we both liked better than mine. I think that that was good for her because it helped her to accept other suggestions more easily. Also, she saw an entire piece that was written the way that I have been teaching her, rather than hearing bits and pieces in working on rewriting hers.

I also consciously looked for mentoring of me as a teacher as well as her as a student, and signed up for KidsWrite Basic. That didn't consciously grow from TJEd, but I have realized that the idea was more appealing to me because of reading that book.

We were already consciously transmitting values along with literature, and so the book didn't effect that at all, but that is another good message of this book.

[Tarheel Heather]

Curious of what everyone thought of this book...thank you!:D


I would like to know also!

[Joanne]

Must read? No.

Worth reading? Yes.

[GreenKitty]

I wouldn't say it was a 'must read', but I thought it was good.

[Jill, OK]

Must read? No.

Worth reading? Yes.

If you can get it used, or from the library, I'd go that route, personally.

I don't wholeheartedly agree with everything they espouse (and I think that "A Thomas Jefferson Education" as a title is sort of misleading), but there are some good ideas and points.

[Sunny]

It was interesting, but NOT a "must read". I had a problem with several ideas he relied upon as premise to his philosophy.
It is just about impossible to implement on one's own, but is definately something many homeschoolers would believe as an "ideal" as far as educating oneself along the process.

[Patty Joanna]

I agree, Sunny.

I took the two or three day class and came away very disappointed because of two things:
First, there is a tremendous load they lay on parents' backs--you are supposed to study at least as much as your kinder. Well, sitting on each side of me were women whose husbands ran farms and who were caring for Alzheimers parents. This is not the season of their lives where they have time for hours of (truly pointless for their reality) study. They have enough on their plates; TJEd made the burden too heavy.

Second, they acknowledged that God can provide revelation and that this is one source of knowledge. But they put it on an equal footing with human rationality. I have no problem with human rationality, but it seems to me that if GOD SPEAKS, that this is the LENS through which all other knowledge is valued, not just another one-of-four-pillars-of-knowledge. KWIM?

Anyway. Some good ideas. Some flaws. The best part of the book was the description of the main ways we view education--toward being a cog in the gears of the machine (most college these days), toward a profression (MD, JD, MBA, etc.) or toward being free people (liberal arts).

[WTMindy]

I agree, Sunny.

I took the two or three day class and came away very disappointed because of two things:
First, there is a tremendous load they lay on parents' backs--you are supposed to study at least as much as your kinder. Well, sitting on each side of me were women whose husbands ran farms and who were caring for Alzheimers parents. This is not the season of their lives where they have time for hours of (truly pointless for their reality) study. They have enough on their plates; TJEd made the burden too heavy.

Second, they acknowledged that God can provide revelation and that this is one source of knowledge. But they put it on an equal footing with human rationality. I have no problem with human rationality, but it seems to me that if GOD SPEAKS, that this is the LENS through which all other knowledge is valued, not just another one-of-four-pillars-of-knowledge. KWIM?

Anyway. Some good ideas. Some flaws. The best part of the book was the description of the main ways we view education--toward being a cog in the gears of the machine (most college these days), toward a profression (MD, JD, MBA, etc.) or toward being free people (liberal arts).

Excellent summary, Patty J! I agree with your assessment all around.

[wide eyes & laughter]

No book is going to hit on all cylinders, but I think this book and philosophy is worth reading not once, but twice and some notetaking.

But then I tend toward this style anyway; I felt very affirmed in reading it since it gave greater detail to the course that dh and I had already outlined for our homeschool. Fwiw.