Other than genes, nothing contributes more to the character, decisions and lives of our children than their education. In fact, behavioral geneticists have determined that – unlike IQ which is determined almost completely by genes – character traits such as honesty and dishonesty are molded 50/50 by nature and environment.

This means that other than for a handful of congenital sociopaths, no matter the genetic legacy of the child, education can have a substantial effect on the character, values and work ethic of a child and thus assist with charting a successful path throughout life.

Everybody has a philosophy. In some cases, philosophy is consciously adopted; but in most cases it is absorbed implicitly throughout life. This philosophy gives people the tools that they use to ascertain reality and make decisions. In the absence of explicit philosophy, the implicit philosophy comes from books, movies, music and interactions with other people. It is important to understand that the human mind, when it comes to forming implicit philosophy, doesn’t distinguish between fictional sources like television shows or books and reality. Thus, the books we read form an inextricable part of our character and can either enhance or detract from the goals of education.

And what are these goals?

Well, there is the obvious. We want our children to be able to read and write fluently, perform mathematics and possess a base of knowledge that meets or exceeds the minimums needed for personal success. Moreover, such education will allow our children to ascertain the facts of reality, examine ideas critically, and thereby make good decisions throughout life that will build a better future for their own kids and preserve the gift of liberty bequeathed by our founding fathers.

But there is much more to it than that. Today, throughout the Western World, people are alienated, lost and adrift: lacking a sense of meaning, purpose and place in their lives.  Between 1996 and 2002 the number of children taking antidepressants tripled, and the number of boys taking prescription stimulants soared to 14% with no end in sight.

The underlying causes of poor psychological health among our people are inter-related, complex, and beyond the scope of this curriculum. It is sufficient to note that television viewing is a known cause of attention deficit disorder; and a home school curriculum that helps to imbue children with a sense of their place in the universe, sound character, and a sense of purpose and meaning in their lives will largely insulate them from the more caustic effects of an increasingly sick society.

So this is another purpose for education: to instill a philosophical landscape in our children that will provide character, meaning and purpose to their lives and a sense-of-life that is positive and gives them a sense of belonging in the world.

This crucial task cannot be left to the purveyors of television or the trendy author of “Heather has Two Mommies.” As a parent-educator you have the responsibility to “take the bull by the horns” and thereby give your child the best possible start in life. If you can home school, that’s great. If you can’t then use this as a supplement for activities you can do at home with your child with the TV off. You HAVE canceled your cable TV subscription, haven’t you? Good!

Ideas for the Parent-Educator to Keep in Mind

This curriculum and the materials that accompany it are specifically chosen to develop high achievement and implicitly create a positive philosophical landscape for the child. But implicit philosophy is not enough. At various stages – and the parent-educator will see when – it will be important to relate philosophical principles EXPLICITLY to the materials in which those principles are revealed implicitly. You don’t need to hit the child with a hammer every single day or force matters. Just bring these matters up naturally when the context of the curriculum makes it appropriate to do so.

Beyond character, a person has to have a sense of belonging — belonging to a family, a lineage, a heritage and a race. A person has to have a sense of pride in belonging to these things, and a desire to be worthy of the legacy she or he gains through membership. This gives a sense of history and a sense of himself/herself being a continuation of that history and having a role to play definable only by the individual but important nevertheless. The materials in this curriculum were selected with these goals in mind.

Also, every child is different. A story that could traumatize one child might invigorate another. You, as the parent-educator, know your child far better than the designers of this curriculum ever will. So it is up to you to be aware of any context you need to add to the curriculum to make it work well for your child.

Homeschooling can be quite intimidating at first. After all, teaching constitutes its own profession – so how could a mere parent hope to do as well as a professional? But the proof is in the pudding. Boston public schools now cost $16,000 per student – about the same as many elite private academies. Yet, even with their recently-adopted MCAS test, most students who graduate require remedial reading and math when they go into college. In Massachusetts, many graduates of teaching college (around 30%) fail tenth grade reading and writing exams. Among minority graduates from teaching college, about 50% can’t read and write at a high school level. You can be pretty much assured that Massachusetts is about the same as any other state.

What I’m trying to say here is that, in all likelihood, you are already more intelligent and better educated than the average public school teacher, even if you’ve never gone to college. (Maybe especially if you haven’t gone to college.) In addition, you aren’t working in an environment in which mediocrity is encouraged. Instead, you have the most powerful motivation on earth: the well-being of your child. Not only are you plenty qualified, the odds are that you’ll succeed far beyond your wildest imagination. That’s why home schooled students routinely score higher on a variety of important standardized tests.

The Wellspring of Success

There are a handful of factors that correlate so highly with successful (or unsuccessful) education that failing to mention them would be criminal. The factors that correlate most highly with success include:

• Both a mother and a father in the home. Numerous studies demonstrate that active involvement of both a mother and a father in the lives of children has a huge effect on educational outcomes, teen pregnancy, drug use, criminal behavior, and incidence of psychological problems like depression. In fact, lack of a biological father in the home has a larger adverse effect on a child’s well-being than even factors like poverty. If, for whatever reason, the marriage is already dissolved or simply cannot be preserved; then the next best thing is to make sure both parents spend as much time as possible with the kids. 70% of custodial parents freely admit that they withhold visitation from noncustodial parents in order to punish the noncustodial parent psychologically. This is not only petty, but it isolates children from the single most important environmental factor within parental control that can benefit them. If you are already married, learn how to stay that way — and happily so. If you are divorced or soon to be, cooperate NOW to make sure the parents live close enough to each other to permit co-parenting. Selfish concerns must be subordinated to the best interests of your kids if you want a worthwhile outcome, so bury the hatchet.
• Television is child abuse. Most parents make the mistake of believing that the good/bad of television lies in its content; and that as long as they limit their children to Barney, Sesame Street, the Discovery channel and other “good” programming, it won’t hurt their kids. Certainly, content matters, but with children of elementary school age and younger, the medium itself is damaging without regard to the content. It is a proven fact that the number of hours of TV that a child watches correlates to the risk of developing Attention Deficit Disorder. There is substantial evidence that, when TV is watched at an early age, the child’s mind is re-wired permanently — for life — in a less than optimum manner. The American Council of Pediatrics not only recommends that children under certain ages refrain from watching television at all; but has published dozens of studies demonstrating that television watching by children correlates to substantially lower academic performance, obesity, poor body image, and even violence. It can be understood that a busy parent who needs to get dinner on the table might plop a kid in front of the tube to provide entertainment. Unfortunately, this is a prescription for damaging a child’s ability to think in the future. If you love your kids, ditch the television and never — ever — put one in a child’s bedroom.
• Time dedicated to learning. Time dedicated to learning has two factors: the number of days out of the year invested in learning, and the amount of time invested on those days. Certainly, from age six onward a child should never go more than a few days without a learning activity, even if it is just a nature walk or reading a book. Kids need time to “blow off steam” and get the wiggles out of themselves to be sure; and one failure of the modern educational system is that it doesn’t accommodate this need. But the other failure is that only a small fraction of the time in school is spent learning. Children of all levels of ability are thrown in together, so the teacher has to cover the exact same material six times. Some children need all six; but some kids only need one or two, and for these latter kids the useless repetition isn’t time spent learning. It is far better for a child to spend 3 hours a day learning new material than 6 hours reviewing what was learned two days prior. Kids need active hands-on learning time, and they need learning time that they spend on their own through homework or supplemental study. Unless you own a farm and need your kids to help work it from dawn until dusk all summer; learning should continue throughout the summer, even if it is just a summer reading list.
• A love of reading. A child will only love reading if she is able to do so successfully. Kids who have difficulty reading, hate it. This isn’t a surprise, because it is human nature to avoid things that are difficult or painful. The trouble is that once a kid experiences difficulty with reading, he or she will tend to avoid it, thus making the problem even worse. Reading is the basis of practically all learning, so you must make sure to stay on top of it. There are a lot of methods to teach reading. None is perfect, but we have included the best phonics-based methods we could find in this curriculum. If you find you are hitting some walls, don’t panic — just slip out and get a program like Hooked on Phonics and try that. Sometimes it’s just a matter of presentation. Once a child not only knows how to read but enjoys it, the sky is the limit. The parent educator must read to the child, and quality time should be set aside for this endeavor. Also, a fine note for the parent educator is to ask the child to read aloud.

Parenting

Doctor Spock doesn’t work here, and perhaps that’s a good thing. At the same time, remember that you know your kids, love your kids and have a larger investment in your kids than the authors of this curriculum; so unlike the other information in this introduction, you can feel free to ignore us if you think we’re putting our nose in the wrong place.

1. Never abuse a child. Period. Not only is child abuse illegal, but your children are the way YOU live forever. Abusing your children is thus self-abuse, and furthermore will adversely affect any child’s education and future prospects. If you were abused as a child, you must commit yourself to break that cycle.
2. Your child must never doubt that you love them completely and unambiguously. Never convey anything that could be construed as a wish on your part that you didn’t have kids; or that you in any way resent the sacrifices entailed in having kids. Remember — children have no choice about coming into this world; so if you can’t love ’em, don’t have ’em. They aren’t fashion accessories.
3. Sometimes a kid will say “if you really loved me then …” That’s manipulative behavior and shouldn’t be tolerated. Manipulative behavior takes many forms — including tantrums, crying and so forth. It cannot be permitted, so challenge it accordingly.
4. Maintain your credibility. That means telling the truth, and keeping your promises. This includes, incidentally, promises regarding rewards or punishments; so think before you speak. Be consistent. Consistency doesn’t mean stupidity. Sometimes your kid will be right and YOU will be wrong. Lead by example in correcting your own errors. This will create a child who, when grown, will correct his or her own errors.
5. Obedience is never conditional; but make sure to explain the reasoning for your decisions to your kids. A child should always be able to ask why or why not — after — you have been obeyed. It is important that obedience come BEFORE the question, as the hesitation to ask questions can be a matter of life and death. This is not about being a tyrant. Kids don’t need drill sergeants, they need parents. But when a parent tells a kid to stop running so they don’t get hit by a car, obedience must be instantaneous.
6. Punishments and rewards should be proportionate and just. Never feel bad about providing a just punishment — you are doing it for a very good reason.
7. Reserve time for kids to just be by themselves and left to their own devices. Kids need unstructured time to think and put the world in perspective.
8. Have kids help you with household chores and responsibilities; and with any charitable work your family undertakes.