7 Keys of Great Teaching

There are seven principles of successful education. When they are applied, learning occurs for any learning style or interests. When they are ignored or rejected, the quantity and quality of education decreases.

1. Classics, Not Textbooks
2. Mentors, Not Professors
3. Inspire, Not Require
4. Structure Time, Not Content
5. Simplicity, Not Complexity
6. Quality, Not Conformity
7. You, Not Them

The idea of these seven keys is taken from The Thomas Jefferson Education ideology. These seven keys of teaching are beautiful in there simplicity yet I have seen profound results from seasoned families who have chosen to break away from modern day compulsory schooling.

 

These children exhibit the opposite of what the author of Dumbing us Down, John Taylor Gatto has witnessed in compulsory schooling. Rather than indifference to the adult world that traditional students show, homeschooled children who are taught with these seven keys/principles show a respectful interest and regard to that world they soon will enter.

 

This touches on another symptom of compulsory schooling that John Taylor Gatto addresses in his book, and that is that such students “have a poor sense of the future, of how tomorrow is inextricable linked to today” (pg. 27, p. 4), where homeschooled children show signs of just the opposite.

One last symptom of compulsory schooling that John Gatto illustrates for the readers that I wish to speak to is his witness of how “children [he taught over the years were] cruel to each other; they lack compassion for misfortune; they laugh at weakness; they have contempt for people whose need for help shows too plainly.” (pg. 27, p. 6). On the contrary, children who are administered to in love, longsuffering, consistency and tenderness by an individual who has a significant place in regard to relationship, (rather than a stranger who holds not noteworthy relation) the effect on the child is notably different. The child/adolescent is genuinely kind to others, what an interesting concept for our adolescent social norms.