My past experience as a college professor caused me to wonder why my students who were home educated were always superior to their public school counterparts. When I asked these students what was their homeschool curriculum, without exception, their studies centered on a classical form of education. In other words, the students enjoyed primarily reading classical literature augmented with rhetorical writing and speaking. Math and science courses were minimal and not much time devoted to them. At least the parents of these students did something right. It seems as though they followed my guidelines in Critique of Pure Education, which the third edition will soon to be published (please forgive the shameless promotion). These students were educated in the truest sense. Instead of being prepared to merely make a living to consume stuff, the students were prepared to live a life with purpose.
If the home educator is merely using textbooks and objective tests for her students, then she is not educating anyone. The central mark of the educated in any society of every generation is their love for reading. I am not talking about reading the latest magazine, comic book, and cheap pulp novel, but rather what the educated class calls the classics. Along with reading classical literature, the educated individual can write and speak intelligently on any number of topics. What takes place in all public schools and most independent schools is not education, but training to give a student enough instruction to find a job. Also regarding the governmental schools, these camps continue to be the training ground for producing useful idiots to be used for the Woke/Marxist agenda. Frankly, this is sanctioned child abuse and grooming, approved by politicians, educationalists, and sadly, even many parents.
There is a good reason why the Woke mafia hates classical education. Recently Governor Ron DeSantis simply stated that he supports classical education in Florida’s schools. Predictably the Woke rainbow mob could not help but demonstrate its typical insanity. The usual sound bites were heard and seen throughout the media; chiefly, classical education ignores women and minorities, is too Eurocentric, and not relevant for the current generation of students. In addition to this, classical education ignores issues like racism, gender identity, and the perils of climate change. But worst of all, classical education is too connected with the Judeo-Christian worldview. In other words, classical education is not revolutionary enough for Marxists.
However, since the morons and devotees of Wokeness failed to get an education at all, being locked up in a detention cell called a public classroom throughout their childhood, they cannot possibly understand that most classical literature of the past was revolutionary, often containing radical ideas. How about Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, a total restructuring of society, where everyone shared all things in common? Or Julius Caesar’s Commentaries of the Gallic War, leading to a revolution and the overthrow of a republic, transforming it into an empire? Or the poetry of Oliver Goldsmith and Thomas Gray, pointing out the evil of oppressing the common people and their being forced to move off their farms and into the overcrowded cities, where crime, sickness, and filthiness prevailed?
Classical works like the above remain because of the consensus of millions of people throughout the centuries who recognize in unison that these are timeless, pointing out not only the good, but also the bad in humankind. Indeed, I suspect the actual issue lurking behind the Woke mob’s madness is classical education has the noble ability to produce an endless assortment of ideas for students to ponder, ideas about right and wrong, justice and injustice, truth and error. Ideas require thinking, and politicians, journalists, and other self-centered gangs tend to become paranoid about any thinking individual. When Caesar says concerning Cassius, “He thinks too much: such men are dangerous,” Shakespeare is acknowledging the fact that a thinking people will always be a danger to tyranny and corrupt government.
THE DUNCE'S CORNER 