My New Book, >Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education<, as an Exemplification of the Parallel Structure of the New Salem Educational Initiative

Please scroll on down to the next article on this blog to understand the full context for this article.


My expanding activities in the New Salem Educational Initiative to provide a parallel structure to the Minneapolis Public Schools, from which officials of that school district can extrapolate important principles, gain exemplification in the presentation of my new book Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.  In this book, I provide in highly efficient format a fully realized K-12 education, and for that matter cover topics in such a way as to consolidate and complete the education that most university graduates wish they had had.


Hence, as one of the two most important principles of the New Salem Education, I provide in this book the curriculum that the Minneapolis Public Schools should be imparting to their students as recipients of a truly excellent education.  And in the September 2014 editions of Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota I detail the other most important component of an excellent K-12 education:  teacher training, for the production of the quality of teacher needed to deliver such a challenging and knowledge-intensive curriculum. 


Subscribers to my Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Vol II., No. 4, October 2015, will recall from the immediately preceding September 2015 edition that my motivation for writing the book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education (for which I offer three additional chapters in the October edition), concerns the following:


Whenever I am reading a newspaper or journal article with a student, or training that person to take the SAT or ACT, I always end up giving mini-courses in economics, political science, psychology, history, literature, English usage, the fine arts, or natural science. This is in addition to teaching them most of what they know about math and the skill of reading at advanced levels of comprehension. I give these mini-courses and teach these skills because the education that students receive in the Minneapolis Public Schools is so insubstantial, a circumstance that pertains to locally centralized school districts in general.


Even in the areas of math and reading, for which student assessments got so embarrassing that even the education establishment started giving belated attention, the United States fares poorly by comparison with other nations on the highly regarded PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment).


Subscribers to the journal will recall, too, that when reading a substantive article from the newspaper or an ACT practice reading, all kinds of topics are likely to arise. Such topics give rise to questions to my students, as in these examples for the world, American, and African American history chapters included in the most current edition of my academic journal (Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Vol. II, No. 4, October 2015):


>>>>>  You do know essentially what the European Renaissance was about, right?


>>>>>  You have some idea what the Cold War was, and what made it different from conventional wars, don’t you?


>>>>>   You know that the lands along the eastern United States coast were once British colonies don’t you?


>>>>>   You’ve heard of the New Deal and the Great Depression that induced Franklin Roosevelt’s policies--- correct?


>>>>>   You know the basic circumstances of the Great Northern Migration, right?


To these questions, as with those mentioned in the September 2015 edition of the journal, I get blank stares that lead me to take a long time just helping students to understand subjects that they should be learning in school.


I mentioned in the September edition of the journal the example of the words “liberal” and “communist” that are layered with meaning:


In the context of the examples given above, how would a student know that the New Deal was the precipitate of contemporary American liberalism--- so very different from the liberalism of Adam Smith--- without my setting the historical context and explaining the many different meanings of the term?


How would a student know that the communism espoused by Karl Marx was distorted under the rule of Joseph Stalin and other Soviet leaders, if I did not provide huge amounts of 19th and 20th century historical and philosophical information needed to comprehend the actual dispute behind the Cold War?


Students should have learned the terms, “liberal” and “communist,” in school, and discussed these words in their different meanings and contexts. But I can never depend on a student of the Minneapolis Public Schools knowing such things, nor can I depend on them knowing those topics given under the arrow-designated questions above: The European Renaissance, Cold War, British colonialism, New Deal, Great Depression, and Northern Migration are deep mysteries to knowledge-starved students of the Minneapolis Public Schools.


So all of this got so old that I decided just to haul off and write a book, to be entitled, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education:


This book is now becoming the chief reading text for my students, who are successively moving through the chapters already written, those focused on economics, political science, psychology, world religions, world history, American history, and African American history, literature, English usage, and fine arts (visual and musical)--- with mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics due to follow quickly. That will be fourteen chapters covering the subjects most important to an excellent liberal arts education, of the sort that will send students forth into the world culturally enriched, civically informed, and prepared to pursue specialized training for lives of professional satisfaction.


Readers of the whole book will gain that education that most high school and even most university graduates wish that they had received.


And now my students will know the answers to the questions posed above--- and many more. In the October edition of Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota I offer to subscribers an advanced look at the three additional chapters of the forthcoming book, those for world history, American History, and African American history--- to go with the chapters on economics, political science, and psychology provided in the September edition of the journal.


Subsequent editions of the journal will feature the eight other substantive chapters. My intention is to give my most avid readers an exciting journey into a world of knowledge not likely discovered very comprehensively or deeply along educational pathways traversed in the United States--- certainly not in K-12 experiences, and most probably not even at the college and university level, where even good liberal arts colleges leave much untaught, unlearned, and therefore not received as the cultural inheritance that all human beings deserve.


Those of you reading this blog who would like to subscribe to Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota may give me your email address in the “Comments” section below, and I will be in touch.