My Opinion on 5 Works about Education, Teaching, and Learning - Volume 1

There are hundreds of good books and essays on education, teaching, and learning, going back almost 2,000 years. I keep a list for myself to reference back to. It's been growing. Here I'm going to start giving my opinions on some of them.

'Raise a Genius!' by Laszlo Polgar

This book is amazing. Polgar and his wife were both teachers in Eastern Europe during the Soviet Union. Polgar had a theory that most kids could be trained to be a genius in most things if given the proper environment. Him and his wife married to do this experiment with their own kids.

They had three daughters, all three of them became great at the board game of chess. One is considered the greatest woman ever. The daughters have written memoirs as well, I've read one, and the mother included a short comment in her husband's book. Essentially, you follow interest with heavy intensity, do it as a family unit, bring in outside tutors. Even though the focus was on chess, all three of the girls ended up learning multiple languages as well, and being well versed in many other subject areas. Essentially, he proved his thesis. It showed me how powerful homeschooling and tutoring can be, and how much intensity goes into that type of success.

'Standing and Delivering' by Henry Gradillas

There's a famous movie called 'Stand and Deliver' about a math teacher in a horrible school in Los Angeles, California. Drug dealers and gangs and everything you would expect. The movie doesn't show much about the principal, and what it does show isn't great. But, the principal was actually one of the key people, probably the key person, in turning the school around. The teacher was essential too, and said the principal was key in the intro to the book.

It turns out Gradillas made a career out of turning around bad schools. But, after he left, within a few years the school went back to being bad, after so much immense effort. He had to fight gangs, parents, teachers, students, the school board, the education department, everyone. Strict intensity is what turns around a bad school like that. His life's work showed that it's possible. Unfortunately, his life's work also showed that it's pointless because you're fighting against a system that wants to and will fail. It showed me that working within the system is not a good way to create change, and that strict standards can turn around even a bad group of people if applied well.

'The Rape of the Mind' by Joost Meerloo

Meerloo was a psychiatrist who worked with the Dutch resistance against the Nazis in WW2, helping them prepare themselves to resist brainwashing and interrogation. Then he was captured and went through it himself. Then he escaped and worked for the Dutch government in England helping collect information, I assume through interrogation, for the rest of the war. It's a great book on how minds break.

Meerloo includes a section specifically on education and how it can help or hinder brainwashing. I wrote an entire article on it where I quote heavily from that chapter. It's a common joke to compare government schools to prisons. Meerloo compares schools to military units, because they are also similar and that's what he was working with. (John Milton, the poet, even proposed designing schools as military units, which I'll write about another time.) When you read through Meerloo's book you see how government schools do more to break kid's minds than to make them strong and independent. Probably the only things that helps to somewhat reduce the damage that schools do to kids mentally are the extracurricular activities like sports and various clubs. It helped me realize that government schools aren't just "not good" like many people think, they are actually a bad thing (for the people that would like a healthy and free society). 

'Institutes of Oratory' by Quintilian

Quintilian was a lawyer and teacher in ancient Rome, and wrote this book on education almost 2,000 years ago. I've read several chapters, but not the whole thing. The copy I have is 730 pages long. It's good. Good enough that I realized education and teaching haven't improved in any significant way, and possibly not at all, in the last 2,000 years. Most education is way worse.

Our society usually thinks that because of science and technology all things have been getting better and will continue to get better. But, especially in the the humanities, that isn't true. We don't have better teachers, or sculptors, or philosophers. It's like an open secret, because anyone can get this book and read it, but how many teachers do you think have actually done that? Probably none that you've ever met. So they don't even know that things haven't improved. It helped me realize that we need some of the old ways.

'A Defense of the Bible as a Schoolbook' by Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Rush was a medical doctor and an important American Founding Father. He knew and helped Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, George Washington, and others in significant ways. Many think this debate about Bibles in schools is new. It's not, it was in full swing in the 1700s.

Rush makes the case that education is important for developing character, virtue, and morality. Everyone serious about education over the last couple thousand years makes that same case. Anyone saying different is lying in some way, probably to covertly install their moral teachings. Rush was primarily arguing against deists at the time.

I know the history of the separation of church and state. In US politics it come from Roger Williams in Rhode Island, who wanted it not to protect the government from the church, but to protect the church from the government. Then James Madison and Thomas Jefferson helped support it as an idea during the formation of the United States. Before that the Baptists and Anabaptists in Europe made the case for the separation, based on Jesus in the New Testament. You don't want religion based on politics, but you need politics based on morality, which is usually based on religion.

Rush's book got me thinking about other things at that time concerning schools and religion. Looking into it I found that Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, and the College of William and Mary were all founded as religious schools. The first taxes for public schools were passed in the 1600s in New England. It was called the 'Old Deluder Satan Act' and was made to have schools teach literacy so people could read the Bible to resist Satan.

Reading the American Found Fathers is always good. In this case it helped me to realize that this history isn't taught, for obvious reasons, and that the idea of keeping religion out of schools isn't just a corruption of their intended purpose, but a complete reversal of it.

Conclusion

This is just a small sampling of my favorite books on education. You can see how reading just these five would completely change your perspective about teaching, learning, and schools. It's an amazing experience to be able to get such a wide perspective on the subject. Each book has helped my understanding tremendously.

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