Should you buy a phonics book and teach your child to read, or should you hand the task over to your computer?
Read MoreWhat Key Trait Do Independent Thinkers Possess?→
/It's easy to adorn oneself according to the latest fad, but it’s not so easy to stand in one’s truth when it goes against mob rule.
Learning to think and act independently requires courage: the courage to do what's right and just even in the face of ridicule, the loss of friends, or a loss of income.
John Taylor Gatto was an excellent example. He quit teaching when he was in his 60s, because he discovered that schools were causing more harm to children than good.
As a public schoolteacher, he believed that he was a part of the problem.
John sent an op-ed to the Wall Street Journal and announced his decision to quit teaching in schools. When you are a couple of years away from retirement and a pension plan, it takes a lot of courage to walk away.
Sporting purple hair and nose rings is not a sign of an independent character. People who dye their hair crazy colors and fill their bodies with tattoos and rings are following a group-think fad in spite of their belief to the contrary.
We should teach our children to dress well and to conform to outward standards of propriety but to be nonconforming in their attitudes, beliefs and values.
Because the greater independence of the mind is not manifest outwardly; it's an inward state.
To raise our children to be independent in mind, we need to foster courage in their characters.
People often mistake courage for the absence of fear, but the absence of fear can lead to rashness. Courage is not an absence of fear, but the ability to act in spite of one’s fear.
For example, my children performed at piano recitals, recited poetry to small audiences, and attended public speaking classes. Through these kind of activities, they learned to develop their courage muscle.
Permitting your child to run into a local grocery store alone, to climb a tree, or to ride a bike for the first time are all activities that will strengthen his courage.
Every day there will be opportunities to let our children strengthen their courage.
As we know from Aristotle, and as we can observe in our own lives, our daily habits add up to the quality of our characters.
Children like to challenge themselves, and we need to encourage them to do so. The more they learn to face challenges in spite of the difficulty or discomfort, the more courage they develop.
Having courage will also help to preserve their moral integrity, because having moral integrity requires us to stand in our truth both privately and in public.
Someone once told me that I needed to develop a “public” persona. In other words, I should have two selves; one for the public and one for my private life.
But I believe the goal is to have one self.
As Shakespeare said in Hamlet:
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"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
A Phonics App vs. A Phonics Book: Which Should You Choose?→
/Should you buy a phonics book and teach your child to read, or should you hand the task over to your computer?
Read MoreA Mom's Comment on Reading Classics
/I always recommend educating children with the classics, so I'm going to share a comment with you from one of my Lost Tools Curriculum moms, that made me really happy to read. But, first let me say that if your children grow up reading classic literature, they will always be able to read difficult literature, and all doors to great literature and knowledge will be open to them. Not to mention that they will be able to think, speak, and write at higher levels, too. Reading the classics also trains us in understanding human nature; why people do the things they do and how to recognize the good person from the bad person, to put it simply. Shakespeare was the all-time master of this. Here is the comment from my customer, especially for those of you who fear the classics might be too difficult:
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