The Lombard Lyceum

By Douglas W. Lombard

In 1826 Josiah Holbrook created a program of adult education he called the Lyceum. It spread rapidly and in its most active years from 1830 to the 1860s it was an important factor in public education. It was needed then because the population wasnt being provided adequate educational opportunity. Today, in at least in one respect for one critically important segment of society, history is unfortunately being repeated. The education of my grandchildren and everyone elses children and grandchildren is at risk because of a combination of a variety of causes. Those causes include, but are not limited to, attacks upon the tenure system, shrinking school budgets, soaring class sizes, and the proliferation of standardized testing. All of these factors combined have produced a situation in which children will not be instructed on how to think for themselves. This lyceum done in print is an attempt to mitigate the damage from that lost opportunity.
This work is titled the Lombard Lyceum because it is written for and directed toward the education of my grandchildren: Douglas, Alex, and Emma. My hope is that through this format I can have an influence on how and how well they are educated. If this volume proves to be of value to others that would be gratifying.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477208137

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© 2012 Douglas W. Lombard. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/16/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-0813-7 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

INTRODUCTION

In 1826 Josiah Holbrook created a program of adult education he called the Lyceum. It spread rapidly and in its most active years from 1830 to the 1860s it was an important factor in public education. It was needed then because the population wasn’t being provided adequate educational opportunity. Today, in at least in one respect for one critically important segment of society, history is unfortunately being repeated. The education of my grandchildren and everyone else’s children and grandchildren is at risk because of a combination of a variety of causes. Those causes include, but are not limited to, attacks upon the tenure system, shrinking school budgets, soaring class sizes, and the proliferation of standardized testing. All of these factors combined have produced a situation in which children will not be instructed on how to think for themselves. This lyceum done in print is an attempt to mitigate the damage from that lost opportunity.

This work is titled the Lombard Lyceum because it is written for and directed toward the education of my grandchildren: Douglas, Alex, and Emma. My hope is that through this format I can have an influence on how and how well they are educated. If this volume proves to be of value to others that would be gratifying.

Chapter One

Notice that the title of this work identifies it as an analysis not a history. It is also not a history because it is intended to be provocative. It is intended to help and encourage you to think for yourself. The work isn’t intended to be an accounting of what took place in the past and shouldn’t be viewed as such an effort. That effort would be ludicrous to attempt, because the American experience is much too vast a subject for that undertaking in one volume. It is an essential assumption that you will read multiple sources on each of the subjects considered in the pages to follow because no single source can ever approach being complete.

Remember that every history or historical analysis produced is very selective in its content. The author, or perhaps a ghostwriter, and in many instances many authors decide not only what is to be included, but equally important what is to be excluded from the space that is available. The space is finite for the author to reach the goal of determining what beliefs you are ultimately to embrace. Many histories are written to aggrandize and justify the actions and decisions of some preferred actor while ignoring, minimizing or attacking the decisions and actions of others. As a novice to the skill of critical thinking, you should practice trying to discern what agenda the author you are reading is trying to promote. The better you become at making a judgment about the real intent of what you have been and are being exposed to, the better will be your comprehension about what your nation did in the past and is doing in the present. The better you become at discerning the prejudices that are inherent in what you are asked to learn and believe, the better will become your skill at thinking for yourself.

As an example, if you have been indoctrinated to believe that the U.S.A. never does anything but good for the whole population of the globe and is motivated only by the purist of noble intentions, you will never understand how it is possible that some other nation could possibly behave differently than what we would anticipate. The belief that those that disagree with us are evil and therefore must be wrong, inevitably leads to acceptance of the demonizing of an opposition’s leadership and distortion of another people’s intentions. Accepting inaccurate characterizations of others’ motives can lead you to support politicians and endorse proposals that can lead all of us into disasters that profoundly affect all of our well being.

Another example concerns the career of Abraham Lincoln. In most instances we have been taught to believe that Lincoln was very nearly a perfect human being. Most middle and secondary school textbooks never hint that, like all human beings, there was a portion of Lincoln’s life and Presidency that was far from perfect or enlightened. The act of training people to view some Presidents with near reverence conditions one to accept uncritical perceptions about whoever happens to hold that office when you read these words. Having belief in the magnificence of a President simply because he is the sitting President is a prescription for disaster.

If you have absorbed the first lesson of this book, it is legitimate for you to ask what is it I am attempting to get you to believe? It is imperative that the question be answered. It is to that task this work now turns its attention.

The short answer to the question proposed is--nothing. My goal is to impress upon you the need to learn a process, not to endorse a conclusion. As a teacher, it was generally acknowledged that I was a master at teaching, encouraging and nurturing critical thinking skills among my students. History is the ideal subject to learn the skills of how to think for yourself, express your opinion in a appealing format, accumulate data on which to base a conclusion, and question the truth and value of everything. It is ideal, because the relevant skills can be practiced and mastered in an environment less contentious than exists for contemporary, controversial issues. It is less contentious, because the events happened long enough in the past that passions have cooled. When you have become sufficiently competent and confident in your ability, you can consider current controversies. When enough experience has been accumulated, you will be able to do the research, form a coherent opinion, articulate convincingly, and defend yourself when your ideas are assaulted. Simultaneously you must learn that expressing divergent views often has grave consequences. It is only prudent to consider the consequences before expressing unpopular or dissenting opinions. As an example, when unemployment is high and job mobility limited, it is probably stupid to have frequent or intense disagreements with a boss that can fire you. It is irresponsible to be in the previously noted situation when there are others dependent upon your income for their sustenance.

Perhaps a personal experience is required at this juncture to emphasize this absolutely critical point about being responsible as noted above. Having an intensely held, well-informed opinion doesn’t automatically mean it is prudent to express it. Decades ago, I wore a black armband in the classroom while teaching in a private school. It was worn to show solidarity with those protesting about something associated with the opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War. At days end, I was summoned to the principal’s office and told not to wear the armband in the classroom tomorrow or ever again. Further the principal made it perfectly clear that if his directive were ignored, it would be considered an act of insubordination. Under the existing labor contract, insubordination was grounds for immediate dismissal. Because I needed the job and was the sole support of my wife and infant son, I complied with the demand. Even though at the time of the incident, the issue was extremely important to me the responsible and prudent course of action was taken. So whatever it is you might think you would do in this incident, don’t do something stupid. It is important to learn that in you personal life and the life of the nation, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should

So what are the skills histories can teach you to utilize to think for yourself? Actually there are several. They will be presented in the order of their importance in cultivating critical thinking skills. Some instructors, for a variety of reasons, place almost total emphasis on one or two of them while ignoring the rest. Among those critical skills are learning to answer the questions of who, what, where, when, and why? Of these questions the "when’ meaning endless memorization of dates is the least important. Conversely learning why something happened and why a historical figure did or didn’t act is very important. If a lot of tests you take are based solely on measuring your competency in memorizing dates, you aren’t being taught a critical thinking skill. Likewise, where something occurred isn’t of much significance in developing critical thinking skills unless the events are connected together to illustrate some profound geographic connection. There certainly do exist profound geographic connections such as the North and South dispute and the urban and rural conflict, that are worthy of consideration by a critical thinker. If you find yourself in a class in which your grade is dependent upon your memorization skill you had better memorize. You need to do it because you must have your ticket punched to authorize you to move on to another level. You shouldn’t allow yourself to be deceived into believing you are being taught to think for yourself.

So why doesn’t your teacher teach the skills required to engage in critical thinking? Why doesn’t your teacher promote and nurture critical thinking? Actually there are multiple reasons why that wasn’t being accomplished. To illustrate some of those reasons I will provide examples of observations from my long teaching career. Many teachers simply aren’t qualified to teach critical thinking skills, because they haven’t become proficient at them, or they don’t know the material very well themselves. Teaching with me one year was a young woman who had just graduated from college. This was her first job. Her College major was art education. She had a college minor in history. Only one of her college level courses was in American History but none the less had been assigned to teach a couple of classes in the subject. At the time under consideration, the usual college minor involved passing fifteen credit hours, which was five classes. She was a young, energetic, charming young woman that worked very hard, because she didn’t want to fail in her first year of teaching. She generally awarded higher grades than the other history teachers in order to cultivate student praise and avoid parental unhappiness that might be drawn to the principal’s attention. Her real interest was in art, so that is where she placed most of her attention, but she had to agree to teach history, so that she could have a full time job. She didn’t teach critical thinking skills to her history students, because she just couldn’t do it. So her students memorized lists of dates, events, and names from the textbook. Her students watched lots of movies and videotapes. Every week included a current events day, which often included watching video taped segments of a program called Twenty Twenty. She got along o.k.

In another instance a teaching colleague was the head basketball coach. He and the community desperately wanted not just a winning team, but also a tournament successful team. In fact, the major reason he had been hired was that, at a previous school, he had produced winning teams. His interests were hoops and his athletes. He had gotten the job not because of what he might accomplish in the classroom, but instead, his employment was based on what his athletes did on the hardwoods.

So in his classes many days were spent reading the textbook paragraph by paragraph-out loud-moving sequentially around the classroom. Students also spent many hours doing the questions at the end of each chapter of the book, drawing maps, making lists, and memorizing the state capitols and other things. He also showed lots of movies and videos and awarded high grades especially to both male and female athletes. When he coached and later moved into the assistant principal’s position, he did have a well-deserved reputation as a class disciplinarian and as an administrator supportive of teachers. When coaching if a student was disruptive in class he didn’t play. As an administrator, when any athlete in any sport was disruptive in a class, they didn’t play. Of course, his record was uneven. In one well-known incident his athletes were drinking alcoholic beverages on the school bus returning home from a first round tournament victory, but they continued to play in subsequent games. On one occasion, he faced criticism for being inappropriately interested in the cheerleaders that often rode in the same bus as the team to distant away games to save transportation costs. At no time did the situation become serious enough to warrant any action other than not allowing the cheerleaders and the team to ride to away games together on the same bus. When his teams won, as they usually did, he was adored. As you would expect, when the team lost the level of admiration dramatically diminished. He didn’t teach critical thinking skills, but he was a great coach.

Another reason that both teachers and learners don’t engage in critical thinking is that it is risky behavior. Neither the teacher nor the learner should accept at face value the admonition to think for him or herself. The truth of the matter is that almost everyone that asks you to think for yourself, or encourages a teacher to teach critical thinking skills, is disingenuous. Does the parent that orders a youngster to do something Because I say so want the child to think for itself or think critically? The answer to that question is obviously not. At best what they really mean is that you can say, believe, or do whatever you want as long as it’s not much different from what they say, believe, and do. Any serious divergence from parental beliefs is an open invitation to disagreements and repercussions. How could anyone expect it to be different then that. Your critical judgments are probably going to be interpreted by your parents as a rejection of their rearing of you.

A couple of examples may be useful at this point to illustrate the above truth. If your mom or dad is active in the Right To Life organization and you decide to advocate that a female has a biological right to have an abortion for whatever reason she has you can expect to have difficulty. If your parents are dedicated active Republicans, they will probably not be pleased if you become a supporter of any Democrat candidate or the Democrat Party. Something like eighty percent or more of youngsters hold nearly identical political, religious, and philosophical views as are held by their parents. The more intensely your parents cherish their beliefs, the more likely they are to view any teacher asking you to question those beliefs as a dangerously corrupting influence upon America’s youth.

Yet another deterrent to critical thinking can be peer pressure. The cultivation of peer acceptance is very important to almost every youngster, or for that matter, adult. Expressing divergent views, no matter how well thought out and eloquently expressed, can lead to social isolation, ridicule, intimidation and occasionally violence.

An example from my own youth should serve to illustrate this point. While in a high school history class, the teacher was trying to stimulate interest by asking questions about events in the news. He asked whether or not black college aged students who were engaging in a sit in covered on television somewhere, were justified in their activity. The sit in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter had provoked a hostile reaction from the white crowd that had assembled. The teacher asked whether or not the student’s protestors deserved the hostile treatment to which members of the