7 Keys of Great Teaching

Thomas Jefferson Education, or TJEd, is based on principles of great teaching, such as that received by Thomas Jefferson and the other founding fathers, as well as many other great world leaders.  There are seven principles described in the book A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille.  I will write a post on each of the seven principles as we use them in our homeschool.

1. Classics, Not Textbooks

 Maria Montessori believed that the books children are given to read should be of interest to him/her, which would preclude most textbooks.  Although she did not have a specific term for the type of books she recommended, Charlotte Mason did: she called them "living books", or books that are written by someone who is passionate about their subject, so that the people, places, and events in the book come alive and it "touches your heart and mind". How else can we expect a person to develop a love of a particular topic, or for reading itself, if only exposed to dull, dry books?

A "classic" can be defined as a book/work that is timeless, uses beautiful language (in the case of a book), and speaks to you personally.  A book (or artwork, piece of music, etc.) may be a classic to me, but not necessarily to you, regardless of how many lists of classics it appears on.  In fact, most lists you find will likely have different books listed, for this very reason.

I try to find "living books" or classics for all the subjects we study.  You may have noticed, however, that I did mention back in my post on marine biology, that I bought a marine biology textbook (gasp!).  That is mainly to use as a guide to ensure that we cover all the important areas of marine bio - not to say that we won't read it at all, but it won't be our only source.  We will supplement with other books that will bring the subject alive, such as biographies of people like Jacques Cousteau, and books about specific marine animals.  We have also watched a couple of TED Talks by marine biologists and will continue to look for more of these, as well as other videos related to the ocean/ocean life.

Recently, Swimmah, Turtlegirl and I were waiting in line at a big box bookstore, looking at the display of bookmarks.  Turtlegirl noticed one with a timer on it for keeping track of minutes read.  With a horrified look on her face, she said, "What do you need that for?!"  I explained that often school kids need to read for a set amount of time every day.  She had surmised as much, and exclaimed, "Just give the kid a good book!" 

Exactly.