Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver De Mille

A Thomas Jefferson Education:

Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-first Century

Oliver DeMille

Published 2000

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This is the most awesome book about self-education and reading classics. I have read it three times. Shortly after I began homeschooling, in 2001, it inspired me to begin my own journey of self-education, and it radically changed my views on schooling. 

...societies are successful when people choose to be good. If people choose mediocrity, they end up with a mediocre society. If they choose excellence, they build an excellent society; if they choose decadence, society decays. This is not only common sense, it is historically accurate.

THE STATE OF EDUCATION TODAY

Oliver DeMille argues that the reason we cannot fix education is because people cannot agree on its purpose. There is also a misconception about what the problem is. In the end, the only person who can fix the education problem is the student. DeMille adds that teaching is not education, but rather teachers should inspire students to educate themselves. Education happens when excellent teachers inspire students to learn.

There are only two teachers: mentors and the classics. Mentors meet with students face-to-face to encourage, inspire, and share knowledge, while the classics are works produced by other great teachers through books, music, art, science, and the like. 

Parents are a student's first mentors, which is why homeschooling is perfect for education. Unfortunately, many parents only know one way of teaching: the way they learned in school. 

THE THREE SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION

1. Public Education teaches WHAT to think, and prepares everyone for a job. Originally, public schools were created to educate the poor, while the wealthy were educated at private institutions or had tutors or apprenticeships, focusing more on leadership or professional training. 

Public schools use a "conveyor belt" method of teaching. Each student gets the same ideas and is graded the same, "regardless of interests, talents, goals, and mission." The object is to set standards so low that all students finish at the same time, while conforming to the same ideas.

Over time, even the wealthy attended public schools, which monopolized the education system, eliminating those institutions that produced professionals and leaders. 

2. Professional Education teaches WHEN to think and trains up specialists, like doctors, lawyers, etc. to know how to utilize information in their field of expertise; but it is not the best training for leadership. Even this system has its own conveyor belt, in which standards are set higher, making the field competitive.

3. Leadership Education teaches HOW to think and prepares students to be entrepreneurs in business, statesmen in government, and leaders in the home and community. The three main goals of leadership education are to train up competent thinkers, to perpetuate freedom, and to lead effectively to "help society remain free and prosperous.

THE LEADERSHIP CRISIS

Today, more people receive the conveyor belt public school education, which means there are more people in leadership positions, such as business and government, who are unfit for such positions. (You can say that again!) The result is a highly trained, uneducated society of people. 

HOW TO MENTOR

Thomas Jefferson, the author of America's Declaration of Independence, was a well-educated statesman. (Look at his resume, if you need evidence.) George Wythe, signer of the Declaration and delegate to the Constitutional Convention, mentored Jefferson for four years in law, the ancient classics, English literature, and political philosophy. It was an "apprenticeship for greatness." 

Mentoring under TJE is also quite simple because all that is required is reading, having the student write about what he read, and then discussing with the student what moral lessons he takes away from reading the book. When discussing, mentors should ask questions to prompt the student to think deeply. When students write, mentors can focus on content and helping them to be better communicators. Another aspect of mentoring is application of lessons, either personally or to current events and society. 

Mentors can personalize a program for each individual to fit his or her goals. Learning through the classics is individualized because each reader will get something different from the same book. 

Finally, mentors must set the example by reading, studying, thinking about, and applying the classics along with their students.

WHY STUDY THE CLASSICS

Reading the classics changes people because they make us think about the "great ideas of humanity." 

The classics teach us about human nature, how to predict behavior, and to use good judgment. They teach us "empathy, compassion, wisdom, and self-discipline." 

They bring us "face-to-face" with greatness and inspire us to be better. They give us courage to confront our internal "frontier," which has yet to be conquered. They force us to think. And they connect us to those we share stories in common. 

In addition, reading the classics helps us to discover our own PERSONAL CANON, "a set of stories which we hang onto and believe in and base our lives around; and great classics are the best canon. A canon is the set of books we consider to be the standard of truth." Our canon "becomes our plot!"

There are four types of stories: bent, broken, whole, and healing. Bent portray evil as good, and good as evil. Avoid these. Broken portray evil as evil and good as good, but evil wins; though not pleasant, they may help us to change the direction of society. Whole stories portray good as good, and good wins. These are the best stories. Finally, healing stories are whole or broken where the reader is personally moved, changed, and improved for life. Healing stories become part of your canon.

DeMille encourages readers to develop a personal canon, spend time reading these books, become an expert in them, and teach them to others. 

As students become familiar with and...conversant with the great ideas of humanity, they will learn how to think, how to lead, and how to become great. The classics, by introducing the young mind to the greatest achievements of mankind and the teachings of God, prepare children to become successful human beings,...

TEACHING

Teaching subjects in TJE simply means using the classics in literature, history, science, math, art, and the rest. DeMille encourages students and mentors to study the originals and make personal inferences instead of using modern text books that often "mischaracterizes classics and historical figures to fit an agenda." 

STATESMANSHIP: MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN SOCIETY

Again, TJE seeks to develop men and women capable of leadership, no matter what they do. Statesmen portray six characteristics: virtue, wisdom, diplomacy, courage, ability to inspire greatness in others, and to move the cause of liberty.

The Leadership Education goal is to train thinkers, entrepreneurs and statesmen - individuals with the character, competence and capacity to do the right thing and do it well in business, government, church, school, family, and other organizations.

 The second goal is to perpetuate freedom, to prepare people who know what freedom is, what is required to maintain it, and who exert the will to do what is required.

The success and perpetuity of our society depend upon leadership education. 

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Following is a list of 100 required classics for students of George Wythe University, which sadly closed its doors in 2016. Nonetheless, it's a book list!! My edition also includes a list for children and youth and a recommended reading list about education.