A couple years ago, I began adding one item per week to the list below. As one of their assignments, I asked our older kids (9 and 11) to read and think about each newly added idea.
Later, I began requiring them to write a one-page essay on each idea. They would then read their essays to me on the way to and from the gym, and we would discuss what they wrote.
I share this list with you now on the off-chance that there are those out there who might like to incorporate some aspect of this practice into their own home ed routine.
The list of ideas follows no particular pattern or plan. Rather, I simply include the gems I have come across, with an eye to helping my kids understand salient perennial themes in human life.
Our deepest questions can only be answered in faith (not religiosity, not credulity, but deliberate belief). But we have been conditioned into a dependence on “proof.” Our deepest questions, therefore, have become unanswerable—our existential foundations have been erased by our so-called enlightenment.
P.S. Because I initially spoke only Spanish to our kids, they all call me “Papa.”
“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties—but right through every human heart.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
If you win by mistreating others, you are still a loser. Papa
Would you rather be the dumbest man in a smart society, or the smartest man in a dumb society?
Don't try to be good; you will end up serving opinions and appearances. Instead, try only to keep in step the Spirit of Life. Papa
“Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.” Alexis de Tocqueville
Never be afraid to question what I tell you. But when you question me, be prepared to LISTEN. Papa
Let another praise you, and not your own mouth—a stranger, and not your own lips. Proverbs 27:2
He who tries to shine dims his own light. Tao Te Ching #24
“If you don’t fail, you’re not even trying.” Denzel Washington
The desire to be better than others makes the whole world one’s enemy and one’s only source of esteem. Papa
Do not rebuke a mocker, or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man, and he will love you. Instruct a wise man, and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man, and he will increase his learning. Proverbs 9:8-9
In any field of human interest, the conversation has been going on for years—in some cases, thousands of years—before you arrived. Therefore, listen first.
In examining your life and thoughts, look for the fingerprints of God. Papa
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Upton Sinclair
What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
When you think of the distant past, you should be asking, “What happened (on this planet) before I got here?”
That which has no substance enters where there is no space. Tao Te Ching #43
“Every nation has a central ideal from which all of its minor thoughts radiate.” Abraham Lincoln
“It is better to remain silent [and be] thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt…” From Mrs. Goose, Her Book by Maurice Switzer
You should learn to play chess. Not because it will make you smart, but because it can help you develop an appreciation for causation, complex systems, and ineluctable outcomes. Papa
Each person is born with special gifts that have the power to change the world. What are your special gifts and how do you plan to use them? Papa
“The only real mistake is the one from which you learn nothing.” Henry Ford
Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every evil practice. James 3:16
Does the past determine the future? If so, how does it do so?
There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. Proverbs 16:25
Debt is a time machine. It enables us to take, borrow, and steal resources from the future. Using this time machine, we pull vast amounts of energy into the present. This financial magic can, and often does, possess and harm those who conjure it. Papa
Make a list of everything we depend upon for our survival. Then expound on two or three of those things.
Boys: Realize that you are aiming toward becoming men. Today, you are still boys, but with each day that passes, you are one step closer to manhood.
What is the hardest part about having me for a dad? What is the best part?
“Learn how to see. Realize that everything is connected to everything else.” Leonardo da Vinci
“Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.” Laroche Foucault
The purpose and power of a hypothesis is the ability to render accurate predictions. Papa
“Commitments are the school of moral formation.” David Brooks
You will have to choose which kind of freedom you want: the freedom to pursue your desires or the freedom to serve your commitments. Papa
Have we already come up with names for everything that exists? Or are there subtler phenomena that have fallen through the cracks—realities that yet remain hidden in the wrinkles between our words? Papa
“No one has ever gotten away with anything.” Jordan Peterson
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams to the Massachusetts Militia, October 11, 1798
“The chief illusion of modern political activity is the belief that you can build a system so perfect that the people in it don’t have to be good.” T.S. Elliot
Would you rather be right or be curious?
“If you choose a lie as your principle, then you must use violence as your method.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
A stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet—although they probably don't know that. So you will have to hold that space long enough for them to walk into it. You have to believe before they can believe. Papa
“The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of every day to, for the rest of your life. And most important thing is: it must be something you cannot possibly do.” Henry Moore
Humility is the antidote to humiliation. Papa
“Whoever is faithful with little will also be faithful with much, and whoever is dishonest with little will also be dishonest with much.” Jesus, Luke 10:16
Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is the slacker to those who send him. Proverbs 10:26
“Your certainty about your opinion should not exceed your certainty that you have ALL relevant data.” Scott Adams
No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:11
“If you believe in God, you allow the Spirit of the Logos to take up residence within you.” Jordan Peterson
All learning begins with imitation. Therefore, choose whom to watch carefully. Papa
If the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! Jesus, Matthew 6:23
Heroes aren't people who win. Heroes are people who get up when they're knocked down. Winning is a byproduct of getting up over and over again. Papa
What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet lose his soul? Jesus, Matthew 16:26
Which is more impressive: that God created matter or that he formed it into living systems?
Chemical reactions are simply the rearrangement of atoms.
“The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention over and over again is the very root of the judgment, character, and will.” William James
“Married love as a source of life crashes on the rocks of human depravity.” Paul Miller
“A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.” William Blake
Fear is an opportunity to learn faith, a practice deeply foreign to the human heart. Papa
“All one’s research and understanding is explicable as the pursuit of justifying one’s presupposed conclusions.” Joseph Campbell
“Your memory creates your future. That’s because you imagine your future through the neural networks created by your past.” Dr. Curt Thompson
It would be better to be a perfectly loving person with a potty mouth than to be a miserly, hateful person who never said a swear word.
Food is not just calories. It’s also information: information that calls forth or suppresses the expression of your genes.
“From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and from him who has been entrusted with much, even more will be demanded.” Jesus, Luke 12:48
Listen to your feelings. They are trying to tell you things. Sometimes they’re trying to tell you where you’re out of alignment with your needs and values.
“The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Managing the feelings and opinions of others is a prison. Choose freedom.
Beware of speakers that redefine terms on the fly. In doing so, they are attempting to commandeer both language and logic.
Consider your amazing gut. It performs the indispensable task of separating nutritious biological building blocks from waste. How does it do this?
“People who have never looked backward to their ancestors will not be able to look forward and plan for the future. People who look backward and see the heroism and struggle see themselves as debtors who have some obligation to pay it forward… What we receive, we hold, cherish, enjoy, and improve for others. Respecting our ancestors, we learn to respect ourselves.” Edmond Burke
Stories calibrate our moral compass, and most of them point no where near true north.
The activities and pursuits that make you feel most alive are probably a good indication of what you are made for. They are also probably the strengths through which pride and pleasure will attempt to destroy your life.
Which vitamins and minerals do your body systems need, and where do they get these nutrients?
“We know what a beautiful body looks like, but we no longer know what a beautiful soul would look like.” Alan Bloom
You can get a good idea of the spirit of a thing by noticing what it urges people to do, want, or believe.
Boys, you must begin to earnestly explore the question, Who am I? Sophisticated liars will try to answer this question for you, because identity is the high ground of our existential battles. Everything we do flows from who we think we are. Control identity and you control the person.
Why is covetousness a breach of God’s ways?
Science doesn't prove things. Rather, it generates laws and theories based on observations. Although it can be easy to forget, these laws and theories are always provisional: they are vulnerable to being overturned by new observations.
“People don't have ideas. Ideas have people.” Carl Jung
Develop the ability to read between the lines, to see what’s missing. This is useful both in detecting deception as well as making new discoveries.
Dopamine is very hard to turn down. Video game designers (and demons of other stripes) are specifically trained in how to trigger and manipulate dopamine. While the players play one game, they themselves are being played by others.
Realize that entertainment is programming for your heart and mind. Ask yourself it's good programming.
Calculate how long it would have taken to construct the Great Pyramid.
“If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it. Blame yourself. Tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call fourth its riches.” Rainer Maria Rilke
Journalism, the unelected “Fourth Estate,” is an indispensable stopgap in the politics of a free people. Its whole purpose and only value is the continual restoration of truth to the public discourse no matter how much elected officials may want to exclude it.
“If your ultimate goal is total control, you need a population that has no identity.” Whitney Webb
“Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.” Heinrich Heine
In a capitalistic environment, price stability is synonymous with currency devaluation. Explain what this means.
What if our planet is an incubation chamber for the children of God? Relatedly, what if God's timeless New World is already a reality? And what if the better you fit in here, the worse you will fit in there?
It is one’s sense of purpose that carries one through the upheavals of life, and the stronger that sense of purpose, the larger the storms it can weather.
The meaning of one’s life is correlated with purpose, and purpose is correlated with responsibility. Therefore, the impulse to shirk responsibility is the beginning of the path to destroying the meaning of one’s life.