Another Open Letter to Home Schoolers

Another Open Letter to Home Schoolers

Logic & Analysis

by Jon Rappoport

December 22, 2016

Home-schooling parents do what they do for different reasons. For some, the main thrust is getting their kids out of public schools. Others want to give their children specific religious education. In some cases, what actually happens in the home-school classroom is secondary.

I’m interested in the fact that home-schooling parents can give their kids a far better education on their own. It’s possible. It’s happening all over the world every day. The standards of some home schools are extraordinary. In those cases, the parents have a passion about knowledge and achievement, and the children do, too.

If you are one of those parents, for whom what happens in your classroom is of paramount importance, I’m talking to you. I’m also talking to parents who want to strive to make their classrooms reach new levels of accomplishment.

I wish to point out that the subject and discipline called logic is a foundation stone of a superior education. It can’t be ignored.

Unfortunately, it has been ignored. Why? Because logic as a distinct pursuit has become invisible in almost every culture. It has been forgotten to the point where most people don’t even know it exists. So how could they remedy the problem?

Most children who learn something about logic find it peripherally through other subjects, like mathematics and chemistry. They sense its presence lurking in the background.

However, a true and specific study of logic is much more powerful than what can be surmised through related subjects.

Logic is its own territory with its own knowledge. That became true for the first time in history, 2400 years ago, in ancient Greece, when Aristotle wrote about it.

In those sections of his massive work where Aristotle took up logic, he wasn’t writing about science or mathematics or history or literature. He was carving out a singular path.

There was a more recent time, a hundred years ago, when logic still had some life left in it, in public schools. Young students were taught the so-called logical fallacies. These fallacies were errors that could occur in any presentation on any subject, in any debate or argument.

The understanding of logical fallacies was a durable tool one could use for his whole life.

It still is.

However, to make the tool work, we need to present young students with realistic passages of text, the sort of material they encounter in real life, not just in some abstract little fantasy world.

Students need to chew on these passages and learn how to find the logical fallacies contained in them. This is called work. It isn’t meant to be a walk in the park. This isn’t about winning gold stars for “being you.” It isn’t about pouring endless “positive messages” into children’s heads with the hope that you can force them to have “self-esteem.”

When kids learn logic and learn how to use it well against real articles and press releases and political-speak and subtle sales pitches, they gain a tremendous confidence that is a true version of self-esteem. They become strong and very, very smart.

When I designed my course, after 25 years of experience as a journalist, I wrote passages that resemble very closely what you read in newspapers, magazines, books, and on the Net. I embedded logical fallacies in these pieces, so students could root them out and examine them and realize what was going on.

We live in an age of propaganda. Smearing one’s opponent, using innuendo, making statements solely calculated to bring out emotional responses in the audience, building vague circumstantial arguments, repeating the same half-truths over and over, distorting history—these tactics are just the beginning of what often passes for truth in our time.

Students (and adults) need to be able to see through such nonsense, and they need to have the ability to take it apart piece by piece, like a clock that runs on the wrong time.

Students need to have the power to see what basic principles a person is arguing from—to see through the obscuring haze of emotional appeal to the heart of the matter.

Students need to be able to differentiate between good evidence and flimsy evidence, when they are considering an argument that is trying to win their support.

These are not small matters.

For example, many years ago, I interviewed a rather popular politician in depth. I asked him a number of questions, aimed at trying to find out what his basic principles of government consisted of. It was like pulling teeth, but I finally got through the operation and discovered…nothing. He was a rank opportunist, and the slogans he floated were no more than attempts to maintain support from his constituents, so he could stay in office.

When I pointed this out to him, he smiled. He said, in an unguarded moment, “What do you think politics is about?”

This was early in my career as a reporter, and I thought to myself, “I’m on the right track.”

I had spent several years, as a student, studying logic, and without it, I never would have been able to dissect this hoaxster and penetrate his defenses.

Somewhere along the line, we need to make a stand. We need to deal with information and people, when it’s important, by using real logic in real situations. There is a great deal at stake.

Young people can learn logic with tremendous enthusiasm. They can discover an essential tool for approaching information in all forms.

A home school with logic as part of its curriculum can become a powerhouse.

Logic is a great adventure. A person can embark on the adventure at any time, by deciding to.

Here is the syllabus of my Logic and Analysis course.

* The course is taught in 18 class sessions.

* The first two sessions are filled with short examples of logical fallacies.

* The third and fourth sessions examine slightly longer passages of text that contain multiple logical errors.

* Sessions five through 16 take up, in great depth, long passages that read like newspaper articles, political statements, PR, and internet journalism. Students learn how to identify and explain, in specific terms, the logical flaws these passages contain.

* Sessions 17 and 18 are the final exam and the teacher’s dissection of the exam.

* The teacher’s manual and an accompanying audios lay out each session’s lesson plan. The lesson plans include my explanations of the passages and the errors they illustrate.

The sessions do not challenge faith or personal conviction. They are designed to enable a bright student to take apart a written text, an argument, a visual presentation — and discover whether it is valid, whether it truly makes sense, whether it has holes in it.

The sessions teach the traditional logical fallacies, offer many sample passages and exercises, quizzes, tests, and simple teacher’s manuals and daily lesson plans.

The Logic and Analysis course is included in my Matrix Revealed collection (complete details below). I have seen other people offering school courses that are amazingly expensive.

I undercut those levels by a wide margin.

Let’s face it. We are living in a world where the notion of individual freedom and power are under attack. Sustaining that freedom involves knowing how to deal with propaganda designed to make us into confused collectivists. When young people possess the know-how and the confidence to see through these shams, they are equipped to succeed.

Jon Rappoport has worked as a free-lance investigative reporter for over 30 years. http://nomorefakenews.com/