by Oliver DeMille
Allan Bloom wrote in The Closing of the American Mind that, “People sup together, play together, travel together, but they do not think together. Hardly any homes have any intellectual life whatsoever, let alone one that informs the vital interests of life. Educational TV marks the high tide for family intellectual life.”
The great solution to the closing of the American mind, and any other mind, is reading together as a family. When parents, youth and children sit together and read through a book, especially an important or great book, something happens deep within all who participate. If the parents frequently stop reading and openly discuss what is being learned, ask questions, and listen as well as share their thoughts, the thinking is often profound. This is, in fact, the high point of thinking, since the practical sense and unbridled intuition of the children often fixes any learned misconceptions of the adults. Wisdom flows out of the mouth of babes, but it is only really valuable if the adults are listening.
Youth naturally learn from adults in this setting, and the children learn from the youth. As mentioned, the adults learn a great deal from the children—as any parent who has consistently read with the family can attest. The youth are surprisingly open to listening to adults in this environment, and the adults are uncharacteristically likely to be taught by their children and youth. In fact, this educational setting is nearly a cure-all for family education dysfunction—and it often addresses non-educational challenges as well. Unfortunately, this type of learning is much too infrequent in the modern world.
But it is so simple! Set a time and read something together as a family every day or nearly every day. Discuss as much as you read, and gently invite everyone to participate. And keep at it year after year. If busy times result in you dropping the habit for a time, resume it when you realize how much your family misses and needs it. You don’t have to be perfect on this, just keep trying. It will literally upgrade everything about your family’s educational success—and it will have a lot of other positive consequences as well.
Diann Jeppson wrote in A Thomas Jefferson Education Home Companion: “In the evenings, around 8:00 p.m., we gather in the children’s room to read. The stories fill our minds and hearts, but equally wonderful are the discussions we have with each other. Sometimes I will read just two sentences and we will discuss them (along with a dozen or so interesting tangents) spontaneously for the next twenty minutes. These discussions have been some of the most sublime hours our family has spent together….
“Some books are so engaging that we do not want to stop for discussion. While reading Call of the Wild, my husband put his finger to his lips to shush the children’s comments as he listened in rapt attention. When we came to the part when worn out ‘Dave’ refused to ride in the sled, and attempted unsuccessfully to resume his place in the traces with the other dogs, I looked out of the corner of my eye to see tears in my husband’s eyes. Sometimes I have to stop reading, too, because I am so choked up. My oldest daughter will take the book out of my hands and continue reading.”
If I had to pick the Key of Keys, the Keystone of the entire TJEd model, this would be it: reading and discussing great books as a family. Andrew Pudewa has outlined many reasons that this is so powerful for the future academics of each member of the family. Rachel and I have found that it is also the most important part of our family’s emotional and relationship development. I can’t imagine trying to raise or educate young people without this.
In fact, this very format—reading and discussing good and great books as a class—was my most impactful experience as a student in public school. In fourth grade, my teacher made this a part of every day’s experience, and it was during this year that I fell deeply in love with learning. My Scholar Phase started in a class with a superb public high school teacher who had us read great classics and then discuss them in depth in class.
As a professor, the best educational experiences came in classes where we discussed great books for long hours during class. Students learn from each other, and from themselves—in most discussions of classics, participants experience listening to themselves sharing ideas they didn’t know they had before the discussion. Mentors learn from students and students from mentors. And everyone learns from the classics themselves. Moreover, each reader learns more each time she reads and re-reads a great book.
Indeed, one reason the great classics are so valuable in learning, as Mortimer Adler taught, is that they are so far above most of the readers that all of us learn a great deal each time we read them and discuss them with others. Robert Hutchins called this ongoing dialogue between all who have read the classics “The Great Conversation,” and it deals with the most important topics in any generation.
Literature and history is replete with teachers and students who read a great work and then discuss it in depth and detail. For example, the stories of Plutarch were widely used in the American founding—and formed many of the source materials for comparisons, contrasts, arguments and ideals in early American writing. Likewise, Shakespeare pulled from many of the Greek and other historical poets and playwrights, just as educated people in our day use references from the great writers, artists, scientists, leaders and statesmen of history. E.D. Hirsch argued in his bestseller Cultural Literacy that to be ignorant of the great stories and commentaries from the classics is to be uneducated.
But while most people today still agree that reading is part of great education, the idea of discussing what we read with each other, at home and in the workplace as well as in schools, is in decline. The key to great education is discussion, and in fact the deep discussion ideally comes before the deep reading—because children who experience family reading and discussion are more likely to read, read, read.
Consider the following dialogues between learners, mentors and other learners:
• “Why do you wish to learn? Do you seek power? Riches?”
“What I shall seek tomorrow, I do not know. Today, I seek only to know. My mind asks questions for which I have no answers. Within me there is a loneliness for knowledge. I would know what is thought by wise men and what is believed in other lands, far from here. I would open the dark and empty avenues of my mind to the brightness of a new sun and populate it with ideas.”
“Please get down. My house is yours.” —Louis L’Amour, The Walking Drum
• “Is survival, then, the first thing? Is there not something else?”
“Honor first, then victory, but if a man is to learn, first he must live.”
“You would be wise,” he agreed, “to go to Cordova or to Toledo. The best of all things is to learn. Money can be lost or stolen, health and strength may fail, but what you have committed to your mind is yours forever.” —Louis L’Amour, The Walking Drum
• “You lost much in the attack of the Cumans. I do not think you lost all.”
“The goods of this world, Phillip, are soon lost. Fire, storm, thieves and war are ever with us, but what is stored in the minds is ours forever. I have lost even my sword. All that remains is what I have learned and some discretion in how it is to be used.”
“It would be dangerous to deceive Andronicus.”
“I shall not deceive him. Perhaps he will receive a little more than he expects, and a little less.”
We sat silent, and I said, “The man is brilliant, but a dilettante. He would have my knowledge in capsule form to be swallowed with one gulp. He wants the magic, Phillipe, but not enough, not enough.” —Louis L’Amour, The Walking Drum
• She listened when I told her of John Sampson’s talk of a school.
“Of course, we must have a school, but the building is less important than the teacher. It is the teacher who makes the school, no matter how magnificent the building. A school is wherever a man can learn, Mr. Shafter, do not forget that. A man can learn from these mountains and the trees, he can learn by listening, by seeing, and by hearing the talk of other men and thinking about what they say.” —Louis L’Amour, Bendigo Shafter
• Will gestured at the book. “Read that—and then read Byron’s Manfred. That’s the only Faust who acted as if he had any guts. The rest of them were a pack of sniveling weaklings who learned nothing that was of any help to them?”
Val never knew why he said what he did, but he knew his friend was in trouble. “Have you learned anything of any use to you?” the boy asked.
Will gave him a quick, hard glance. Then he chuckled. —Louis L’Amour, Reilly’s Luck
Aristotle put friendship among the greatest virtues party because friends naturally discussed the great and most important things together. In a world where our friends are often determined by our jobs and where many people don’t even know the name of their next-door neighbors and aren’t inclined to learn them, friendship and discussion are needed more than ever.
Without deep and detailed discussion about important things, education is mere training at best and frequently just shallow. The greatest books are a key of great education, but great discussions are the key of keys.
Parents hold most of the power in this—the classics are on the shelves, and there are couches and chairs in the living room. Diminished access to seductive and addictive distractions (read: too much technology/entertainment media) facilitate a natural appetite for this. All that is needed is for families to sit with the books, read and discuss. Then repeat several days a week. This is the key of keys to leadership education.
Oliver DeMille is the founder and former president of George Wythe University, a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership and a co-creator of TJEd Online .
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Allan Bloom wrote in The Closing of the American Mind that, “People sup together, play together, travel together, but they do not think together. Hardly any homes have any intellectual life whatsoever, let alone one that informs the vital interests of life. Educational TV marks the high tide for family intellectual life.”
The great solution to the closing of the American mind, and any other mind, is reading together as a family. When parents, youth and children sit together and read through a book, especially an important or great book, something happens deep within all who participate. If the parents frequently stop reading and openly discuss what is being learned, ask questions, and listen as well as share their thoughts, the thinking is often profound. This is, in fact, the high point of thinking, since the practical sense and unbridled intuition of the children often fixes any learned misconceptions of the adults. Wisdom flows out of the mouth of babes, but it is only really valuable if the adults are listening.
Youth naturally learn from adults in this setting, and the children learn from the youth. As mentioned, the adults learn a great deal from the children—as any parent who has consistently read with the family can attest. The youth are surprisingly open to listening to adults in this environment, and the adults are uncharacteristically likely to be taught by their children and youth. In fact, this educational setting is nearly a cure-all for family education dysfunction—and it often addresses non-educational challenges as well. Unfortunately, this type of learning is much too infrequent in the modern world.
But it is so simple! Set a time and read something together as a family every day or nearly every day. Discuss as much as you read, and gently invite everyone to participate. And keep at it year after year. If busy times result in you dropping the habit for a time, resume it when you realize how much your family misses and needs it. You don’t have to be perfect on this, just keep trying. It will literally upgrade everything about your family’s educational success—and it will have a lot of other positive consequences as well.
Diann Jeppson wrote in A Thomas Jefferson Education Home Companion: “In the evenings, around 8:00 p.m., we gather in the children’s room to read. The stories fill our minds and hearts, but equally wonderful are the discussions we have with each other. Sometimes I will read just two sentences and we will discuss them (along with a dozen or so interesting tangents) spontaneously for the next twenty minutes. These discussions have been some of the most sublime hours our family has spent together….
“Some books are so engaging that we do not want to stop for discussion. While reading Call of the Wild, my husband put his finger to his lips to shush the children’s comments as he listened in rapt attention. When we came to the part when worn out ‘Dave’ refused to ride in the sled, and attempted unsuccessfully to resume his place in the traces with the other dogs, I looked out of the corner of my eye to see tears in my husband’s eyes. Sometimes I have to stop reading, too, because I am so choked up. My oldest daughter will take the book out of my hands and continue reading.”
If I had to pick the Key of Keys, the Keystone of the entire TJEd model, this would be it: reading and discussing great books as a family. Andrew Pudewa has outlined many reasons that this is so powerful for the future academics of each member of the family. Rachel and I have found that it is also the most important part of our family’s emotional and relationship development. I can’t imagine trying to raise or educate young people without this.
In fact, this very format—reading and discussing good and great books as a class—was my most impactful experience as a student in public school. In fourth grade, my teacher made this a part of every day’s experience, and it was during this year that I fell deeply in love with learning. My Scholar Phase started in a class with a superb public high school teacher who had us read great classics and then discuss them in depth in class.
As a professor, the best educational experiences came in classes where we discussed great books for long hours during class. Students learn from each other, and from themselves—in most discussions of classics, participants experience listening to themselves sharing ideas they didn’t know they had before the discussion. Mentors learn from students and students from mentors. And everyone learns from the classics themselves. Moreover, each reader learns more each time she reads and re-reads a great book.
Indeed, one reason the great classics are so valuable in learning, as Mortimer Adler taught, is that they are so far above most of the readers that all of us learn a great deal each time we read them and discuss them with others. Robert Hutchins called this ongoing dialogue between all who have read the classics “The Great Conversation,” and it deals with the most important topics in any generation.
Literature and history is replete with teachers and students who read a great work and then discuss it in depth and detail. For example, the stories of Plutarch were widely used in the American founding—and formed many of the source materials for comparisons, contrasts, arguments and ideals in early American writing. Likewise, Shakespeare pulled from many of the Greek and other historical poets and playwrights, just as educated people in our day use references from the great writers, artists, scientists, leaders and statesmen of history. E.D. Hirsch argued in his bestseller Cultural Literacy that to be ignorant of the great stories and commentaries from the classics is to be uneducated.
But while most people today still agree that reading is part of great education, the idea of discussing what we read with each other, at home and in the workplace as well as in schools, is in decline. The key to great education is discussion, and in fact the deep discussion ideally comes before the deep reading—because children who experience family reading and discussion are more likely to read, read, read.
Consider the following dialogues between learners, mentors and other learners:
• “Why do you wish to learn? Do you seek power? Riches?”
“What I shall seek tomorrow, I do not know. Today, I seek only to know. My mind asks questions for which I have no answers. Within me there is a loneliness for knowledge. I would know what is thought by wise men and what is believed in other lands, far from here. I would open the dark and empty avenues of my mind to the brightness of a new sun and populate it with ideas.”
“Please get down. My house is yours.” —Louis L’Amour, The Walking Drum
• “Is survival, then, the first thing? Is there not something else?”
“Honor first, then victory, but if a man is to learn, first he must live.”
“You would be wise,” he agreed, “to go to Cordova or to Toledo. The best of all things is to learn. Money can be lost or stolen, health and strength may fail, but what you have committed to your mind is yours forever.” —Louis L’Amour, The Walking Drum
• “You lost much in the attack of the Cumans. I do not think you lost all.”
“The goods of this world, Phillip, are soon lost. Fire, storm, thieves and war are ever with us, but what is stored in the minds is ours forever. I have lost even my sword. All that remains is what I have learned and some discretion in how it is to be used.”
“It would be dangerous to deceive Andronicus.”
“I shall not deceive him. Perhaps he will receive a little more than he expects, and a little less.”
We sat silent, and I said, “The man is brilliant, but a dilettante. He would have my knowledge in capsule form to be swallowed with one gulp. He wants the magic, Phillipe, but not enough, not enough.” —Louis L’Amour, The Walking Drum
• She listened when I told her of John Sampson’s talk of a school.
“Of course, we must have a school, but the building is less important than the teacher. It is the teacher who makes the school, no matter how magnificent the building. A school is wherever a man can learn, Mr. Shafter, do not forget that. A man can learn from these mountains and the trees, he can learn by listening, by seeing, and by hearing the talk of other men and thinking about what they say.” —Louis L’Amour, Bendigo Shafter
• Will gestured at the book. “Read that—and then read Byron’s Manfred. That’s the only Faust who acted as if he had any guts. The rest of them were a pack of sniveling weaklings who learned nothing that was of any help to them?”
Val never knew why he said what he did, but he knew his friend was in trouble. “Have you learned anything of any use to you?” the boy asked.
Will gave him a quick, hard glance. Then he chuckled. —Louis L’Amour, Reilly’s Luck
Aristotle put friendship among the greatest virtues party because friends naturally discussed the great and most important things together. In a world where our friends are often determined by our jobs and where many people don’t even know the name of their next-door neighbors and aren’t inclined to learn them, friendship and discussion are needed more than ever.
Without deep and detailed discussion about important things, education is mere training at best and frequently just shallow. The greatest books are a key of great education, but great discussions are the key of keys.
Parents hold most of the power in this—the classics are on the shelves, and there are couches and chairs in the living room. Diminished access to seductive and addictive distractions (read: too much technology/entertainment media) facilitate a natural appetite for this. All that is needed is for families to sit with the books, read and discuss. Then repeat several days a week. This is the key of keys to leadership education.
Oliver DeMille is the founder and former president of George Wythe University, a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership and a co-creator of TJEd Online .
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
