Getting Off of the Conveyor Belt

I have been asking my husband to read A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver Van DeMille ever since I finished reading it earlier this week. We plan to homeschool Drew and Gracie, and this book describes the kind of education I would like for them to have, so I thought it an important book for him to read. He finally picked it up this evening before dinner, and has barely set it down since. I'm sure he'll finish it tonight.

Near the beginning of the book, Van DeMille describes three systems of schooling: conveyor belt education, professional education, and leadership education. To describe these systems briefly, a conveyor belt education teaches a student what to think and emphasizes conformity to textbooks and standards; a professional education teaches a student when to think, applying knowledge in specialized situations; and a leadership education (what the author calls a Thomas Jefferson education) teaches a student how to think.

I am a product of a "conveyor belt" education. As a student, I was very good at memorizing the textbook and repeating it back for exams. I rarely had to think or form opinions for myself. I wish I had learned how to think instead.

I have long forgotten much of what I learned in school, and I know there are huge gaps in my education. I always excused these gaps before by claiming that the ability to look up information was more important than the knowledge itself. Now I'm not so sure that's true. If I'm not constantly learning about the world around me, about history and human nature, and making that knowledge a part of myself, a part of my life, I won't have a strong basis for any decisions I am called upon to make. This kind of education takes time. I can't look into a book to find out what I should think. If I don't work on my own education now, it won't be there to call upon when I need it, and I won't be able to set a good example for Drew and Gracie.

I am in the middle of reading a few books, but once I'm finished with them I plan to dive into the classics to see what I can learn from them. Stay tuned ...