Education

Not "School" ~ Education!

Series Review: Raising Children for Greatness by Britton LaTulippe Book 2, "Education"
Coming off the 450+ page, fully annotated, scathing take-down of the public school system presented in book 1 of the series (see "Revealing School" review) Britton LaTulippe offers a succinct beginning to the conversation around the natural question that follows. "What do we do instead?"
Dedicated to his descendants and to Christian parents who want their children to be great, "Education" lays out a road map for the academic aspect of a child's training when one is actually aiming at a goal of greatness, rather than the common, "keeping up with public school" or "getting into a good college" mindsets that so often plague the homeschool community. Drawing from his own experiences in prep school, college, jobs, military special forces training, and parenting his own children, the author richly illustrates how the leaders of societies throughout history have been trained, and contrasts them with our current society's assumptions about education. In this section, readers who have been around the homeschool block will find a few familiar concepts, such as not re-creating public school at home, the excellent advantage of private tutoring compared to class instruction, and the concept of students taking the burden of education largely upon themselves. What will be surprising and refreshing are the clarifying details and the laser focus on what really needs to be done to raise up a "great"man or woman. Activities and ideas that have become icons of youth in America (sports, high GPA's, the tooth fairy, etc.) are exposed as the potential derailments that they are, while logical alternative suggestions are offered for wise handling of a child's short growing up years.
One "aha" moment for me was the assertion that common knowledge is cheap. If all students receive the same basic training, they have nothing to offer the world that every other student can't also offer. "And this is a major problem because, ultimately, we don't get paid for what we know but for what others don't know. We don't get paid for what we can do, but for what others can't do."
Another major contrast between this book and the usual homeschool model is the section on student motivation. While fun is acknowledged, several other, more powerful motivators are discussed at length with a logic that might make you wonder why you never thought about that before.
I came away from this book with a level of inspiration that few other educational philosophy books have offered. (I can think of two that came close.) Even more helpful than the inspiration, however, was the amazingly doable level of clarity and simplicity that "Education" triggered for my often over-thought/under-accomplished goals as a mother and teacher. While other systems are inspiringly overwhelming, the formula for raising children for greatness is ultimately doable, by regular people like me, if only we are willing to shift our perspective and follow the map... inspiringly straightforward.