Thomas Jefferson Education

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2014-11-28T11:12:26-05:00

Those who follow us on our FB group know that we're sort of -- Crazy? -- when it comes to giving away our stuff for free from time to time.

Just a quick note to urge you to get all your family and friends to subscribe to our mailing list TODAY. Not only will you get our acclaimed [free!] Weekly Mentor newsletter, not only will you get resources and opportunities delivered right to your inbox...

...on Monday, December 1st, we'll be sending to our valued subscribers several products from our store FREE...

...and we'll be announcing some DEEP discounts on others of our premium products - just in time for those who are ready amp up their family education culture for the new year!

These offers will not be advertised generally - only as a "thank-you" to those who subscribe to this list, and participate on our Facebook group - so please, if you want to help friends and family benefit from these offers, urge them to subscribe HERE >>

http://tjed.org/bonus-gifts

And watch for our Cyber Monday email, early Monday morning!

CYBER MONDAY TJEd-STYLE is going to knock your socks off!!

You Have to See This: The Weekly Mentor

2013-06-04T15:51:41-04:00

You Have to See This!

By Oliver DeMille

"Wow!"

"Excellent!"

"So true!"

"Right on!"

Sometimes you experience something so excellent you just have to share it.

For this week's issue of The Weekly Mentor, I want to share a TED speech by Ken Robinson...

Click here to continue reading>>

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Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.

He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom, and FreedomShift: 3 Choices to Reclaim America's Destiny.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Four Letter Words: The Weekly Mentor

2013-05-28T00:49:22-04:00

Four Letter Words: The Weekly Mentor

By Oliver DeMille

At the beginning of the year I wrote two articles suggesting that the most important thing parents can do during the winter months to help their kids' education was to read important books as a family in the evenings (or in classrooms, during the afternoons).

For parents and teachers in the Southern Hemisphere, now is the time to read and apply those articles!

As the weather warms in the Northern Hemisphere, it is time for a shift.

Family reading is a great year-round project, but the focus in summer weather turns to TJEd's four-letter words.

These words include WORK, PLAY, READ, TALK and LOVE.

There are few things that teach the important lessons of Core Phase as well as working, playing and reading together as a family.

These are all opportunities to show and share love with each child.

And note that everyone is always in Core Phase--we don't ever graduate from a phase, we just add new ones.

That said, it's important to remember that telling our children to "Go work," "Go play," or "Go read," doesn't do the job...

Click here to continue reading>>

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For more ideas on developing your mentoring skills, see The Student Whisperer.

Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Lessons From the New Feminism: The Weekly Mentor

2013-04-10T21:16:09-04:00

Lessons From the New Feminism: The Weekly Mentor

By Oliver DeMille

Once again in 2013 we have a new focus in feminism.

Years ago, feminism stood for the rights of women, and later an emphasis on women being treated the same as men.

Then came the time when feminism was all about career options for women, and finally in the 1990s and 2000s the focus was on how women can "have it all," meaning fulfillment from both career and family.[i]

A big shift occurred in 2009-2011, when a host of articles showed that there are now more women than men in college, that women did much better than men financially in the Great Recession from 2008 to 2010, and that if current trends hold, the economic future for women in the United States is much more promising than for men.[ii]

For a time, authors suggested that maybe the feminist fight was over because women have won.[iii]

Now, for some reason, in the second decade of the twenty-first century the whole thing has taken a strange turn....

Click here to continue reading>>

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For more ideas on developing your mentoring skills, see The Student Whisperer.

Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Read it Backwards!: The Weekly Mentor

2013-04-03T03:58:20-04:00

Read it Backwards!: The Weekly Mentor

By Oliver DeMille

"Oh, no!" Emma said. "Another long quote from Lao Tzu. It's so hard to understand. Are you sure you want to include this in your book?"

We were editing a manuscript for a book I am working on, and I often ask my daughter Emma to read aloud with me because she is extremely good at getting all the grammar and punctuation correct.

I wish I'd had the benefit of her talents when I started writing years ago--but of course she was very young at that point.

Anyway, I was surprised to hear her concern with Lao Tzu.

"Wait," I responded. "I know you read the Bible, Shakespeare, Jane Austen and other older-language books, and you understand them without a hitch, so why is Lao Tzu hard for you?"

"I'm not sure. It just doesn't make much sense. I find it tedious."

I'd seen this before, but I was surprised to find that Emma had the same concern.

"Do you feel the same way about the writings of Dante?" I asked.

"Yes! Absolutley."

"What about Milton?"

"Yes!"

"Sun Tzu?"

"Yes."

Now I knew what the problem was. Like I said, I've seen this before, but I thought I had taught Emma how to get around this....

Click here to continue reading>>

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For more ideas on developing your mentoring skills, see The Student Whisperer.

Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Too Big, or Not Too Big? That is the Question...: The Weekly Mentor

2013-03-21T12:03:28-04:00

Too Big, or Not Too Big?

That is the Question...

By Oliver DeMille

Years ago, we took our kids to a Fourth of July party with some family friends.

My parents seldom went to such events with us when I was young, so Rachel and I make a point of it.

The mom of the other family was frustrated that dad didn't want to give the kids some money to spend at the events.

Actually, he gave them all a few dollars, but she wanted them to have enough to "really enjoy themselves," as she put it.

The kids begged her to go to the races with them, to sit and watch the theatrical reenactment with them, and to eat the free watermelon with them.

She kept telling them they didn't need to waste their time with their "old parents," and sending them off with more money to enjoy themselves--emphasis on the "selves," not being with the family.

Our family had a great time with all these "together" events, and finally one of the mom's daughters broke down and cried because she really just wanted to spend the fun time with her parents.

A little exasperated, the mom turned to us and said, "Well, I just wanted her to do the fun things I never got to do as a kid...

Click here to continue reading>>

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For more ideas on developing your mentoring skills, see The Student Whisperer.

Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Careers Get Off the Conveyor Belt: The Weekly Mentor

2013-03-13T11:10:15-04:00

Careers Get Off the Conveyor Belt: The Weekly Mentor

By Oliver DeMille

For years I've promoted the idea that conveyor-belt education is seldom great education, and that if anything should be great in a young person's life it's his or her education.

Therefore, I've said to anyone who would listen, let's help our young people get off the conveyor belt to engage a truly superb, world-class, Jefferson-level education.

A lot of people have listened.

I get notes every day from people thanking us for teaching about Leadership Education and the idea that all education should really be great education.

They share amazing stories of how TJEd has blessed their families, kids, marriages and lives.

I'm always so humbled when I read these notes, because even though they thank us I realize that their successes are mostly the result of their own work and courage to aim for something better.

Lately I'm starting to get the same kind of notes from people who have turned from the corporate grind to an entrepreneurial lifestyle.

This is a little surprising, because while the benefits of truly great education can show up in a few weeks or even days, the shift to entrepreneurship or intrapreneurship can take a lot longer to bear fruit.

For some people, it never does....

Click here to continue reading>>

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For more ideas on building an entrepreneurial mindset and a business of your own, see The Coming Aristocracy and The Center for Social Leadership.

Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

The Most Important People in the World Right Now: The Weekly Mentor

2013-03-06T04:31:23-05:00

The Most Important People in the World Right Now: The Weekly Mentor

By Oliver DeMille

Three quotes really made me think this week. Here they are:

1. John Dewey said: "Perhaps the greatest of all pedagogical fallacies is the notion that a person learns only what he is studying at the time." He goes on to show that how a student learns, the environment where he learns, who he learns from, why he is told to learn, and many other things about his learning--have more impact on his education than the actual topic he studies.

This is deep. Montessori taught this same thing, and suggested that Dewey-style classrooms weren't the best environment for learning.

The second quote builds on this and takes it in a profound direction.

2. As Neil Postman taught, "...we learn what we do. Television educates by teaching children to do what television-viewing requires of them." Which boils down to sitting around and doing nothing except being passively entertained. In other words, Dewey's quote above is right on, and in the electronic age this is having a drastic impact on education.

Postman continued: "Although one would not know it from consulting various recent proposals on how to mend the educational system, this point--that reading books and watching television differ entirely in what they imply about learning--is the primary educational issue in America today."

Children and youth who read books get a very different education than those who don't--no matter how long they sit in class, how many assignments they complete, or how many projects they finish. Reading books trains leaders. The other methods, however good they may be at training for various careers, don't.

But there is even a deeper point...

Click here to continue reading>>

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For more ideas on developing your mentoring skills, see The Student Whisperer.

Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Share What Moves You: The Weekly Mentor

2013-02-27T18:05:07-05:00

Share What Moves You: The Weekly Mentor

How to Recognize a Moving Reading
and what to Do with It

By Oliver DeMille

I finished reading the article, and I was deeply moved.

It was profound, important, and taught me a number of new things on a topic I had already studied in great detail.

I loved it.

It was one of those learning experiences where you forget time, get lost in a flow of learning, and feel wonderful when you finally finish reading and realize an hour or two has passed while you were lost in learning.

I had experienced this before (e.g. Les Miserables, The Law by Bastiat, Phillip Bobbit's Sheild of Achilles, and others), so I knew what I needed to do...

Click here to read the whole article>>

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For more ideas on developing your mentoring skills, see The Student Whisperer.

Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

What do they want from us?: The Weekly Mentor by Oliver DeMille

2013-02-20T10:27:36-05:00

What this Generation of Children
Really Wants from Its Parents

By Oliver DeMille

In a survey conducted by Ellen Galinsky of the Families and Work Institute, over a thousand children were asked, "If you were granted one wish about your parents, what would it be?"

What would your children say if they were asked this question?

Think about it for a minute or two. This is a profound idea.

I asked our thirteen-year-old son Ammon this question, and his immediate response was, "I don't know."

Many thirteen-year-old boys use this as a pat answer for a lot of questions.

When I pressed him further, he said, "I guess, um, I would wish you guys to be less intense about things, just relax more and have fun."

I was shocked by his answer, not because it didn't make sense, but because it also happens to be the number one answer of the children in Galinsky's poll...

Click here to read the whole article>>

****************

For more ideas on developing your mentoring skills, see The Student Whisperer.

Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Thomas Jefferson Education

Get your friends to subscribe today. Our Cyber Monday Deals are not to be missed!

You Have to See This: The Weekly Mentor

You Have to See This!

Four Letter Words: The Weekly Mentor

Four Letter Words: The Weekly Mentor

Lessons From the New Feminism: The Weekly Mentor

Lessons From the New Feminism: The Weekly Mentor

Read it Backwards!: The Weekly Mentor

Read it Backwards!: The Weekly Mentor

Too Big, or Not Too Big? That is the Question...: The Weekly Mentor

Too Big, or Not Too Big?

That is the Question...

Careers Get Off the Conveyor Belt: The Weekly Mentor

Careers Get Off the Conveyor Belt: The Weekly Mentor

The Most Important People in the World Right Now: The Weekly Mentor

The Most Important People in the World Right Now: The Weekly Mentor

Share What Moves You: The Weekly Mentor

Share What Moves You: The Weekly Mentor

How to Recognize a Moving Reading and what to Do with It

What do they want from us?: The Weekly Mentor by Oliver DeMille

What this Generation of Children Really Wants from Its Parents

How to Recognize a Moving Reading
and what to Do with It

What this Generation of Children
Really Wants from Its Parents