Additional Remarks and Supporting Material for The Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach Review
Examples from the book on the non- standard approach to the comparison and contrast of Hebraic and classical educational models
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She implies that ancient Greece adhered to a single educational model. While she briefly says that Sparta and Athens held different educational ideals (p.77-78), this is never mentioned again. Through the rest of the material, she talks about Greek education as the single monolithic model (p. 78, 82-100).
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She equates classical education, as practiced by the homeschool community, with Ancient Greek education and classical education in other eras (p. 99-100, chapter 6, p. 117-127).
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She makes the leap in logic from classical homeschool education = Medieval classical education = Ancient Greek education = pagan education (chapter 6).
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The standard approach to a comparison/contrast is to show items of equal value about both sides and then draw well-reasoned conclusions supported by the information given. She fails on all three counts. Her comparison isn’t based on equal research and is clearly documented only on the Hebraic side. Her conclusions aren’t well reasoned. Lastly, her conclusions aren’t supported by the information given. I concluded that this was propaganda, a biased comparison taken to further a specific agenda. (See Format Writing, by Frode Jensen, for details on writing comparison essays.)
Additional Remarks
Most of the problems with this book occur in Chapters 5-10 and 16. Starting with the statement “Studying from our Western/American/Greek view is looking for gold in a dark mine with a pen light—you can see enough to stumble around but you need more light to see clearly” (p. 62), and continuing on. Mrs. Sampson writes about balance (p. 62, p. 252), but she doesn’t actually fulfill that goal. Mrs. Sampson presents the Hebraic educational model in a well-researched and thorough manner. Her treatment of the Greek/Classical educational model stands in stark contrast as biased, superficial scholarship. I wouldn’t accept the imbalance in resources from either of my high school age students, and I certainly expected better from Mrs. Sampson. A great deal of these chapters amount to a thinly veiled attack on what the author perceives as the evil of classical education. Her campaign runs into problems with the details.
The first major problem is her assumption that the Hebraic educational model is superior to all others (p. 62, 66, 100, 120-127, chapter 9-10). This assumption rests on her assertion that this method was used to educate Jesus (p. 131-132). She ignores the fact that the Sadducees and Pharisees, those who put Jesus to death, were also educated by this method. The Hebraic educational model is based loosely on scripture and firmly on Jewish tradition and the Torah.
The second problem is her assumption that her sources are reliable. In many cases, she quotes renowned Bible scholars and Christian education specialists. However, other sources have little or no apparent expertise in the matter at hand, for example a newspaper columnist with a background in acting and political activism is quoted as an expert in the history of American education (chapter 6, end note # 24). Another source has a background in marketing and market research. He may very well know his subject well, but he certainly isn’t an expert that should be considered the sole authority (chapter 6, endnote # 16). You will not find in her discussion of classical or Greek education references to experts in either subject. She seems to have found all of her information on these subjects second-hand from other sources, some of which seem very questionable. The note at the end of Chapter 5 (p. 75) suggests that a lot of her information came from Far Above Rubies: Wisdom in the Christian Community by David Mulligan. I couldn’t find any specific information about Mr. Mulligan to lend credibility to his opinions on the subject.
The third problem arises from her selective use of only part of the definition of wisdom (p. 66). “The Random House Dictionary definition for wisdom states: Wisdom is “…the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.” This definition consists of three equal clauses. Mrs. Sampson describes the third clause as the “key phrase” and goes on to equate it with the modern definition of wisdom and education. She continues on the same page to contrast the Hebraic concept of education (note-she’s using her ‘key phrase’ definition of wisdom/education not the dictionary definition) with this definition of wisdom.
The fourth problem consists of the author’s own faulty reasoning. Her repeated use of poor logic antagonizes the very people (classical homeschoolers) she’s trying to convince. Her classical education bashing rests on the unstable foundation of a number of logical fallacies. For example, she asserts that pagan ideas are bad ideas (p. 77-80, 99-100, 101). How did the Greek classical method’s focus on “shallow and superficial knowledge based on pride” (p. 101) manage to produce the great, innovative thinkers it did? What about Euclid in geometry, Pythagoras in algebra, Aeschylus in medicine, or Homer in literature? These men were likely pagan, but few would dispute the value of their ideas. The idea that the Greek educational model is a single monolithic model is discussed by John Mark Reynolds at The Scriptorium Daily and shown to be false.
I hate to see a book that has some innovative and potentially far-reaching ideas, such as Dr. McCarthy’s 4Mat system and the author’s four steps to learning, wither away because of the controversy over Mrs. Sampson’s anti-classical education agenda. I’d probably caution people about the book solely based on the fact that I don’t care to have someone speak for me (as Mrs. Sampson purports to do) with the poor grammar and spelling errors this book uses. I think any book by a homeschool parent should strive to be as error-free as possible. The other annoyance is that she assumes that other homeschool parents can’t recognize the propaganda in these chapters. Perhaps this is because she doesn’t recognize that it IS propaganda.
Information about the Biblical Scholars Quoted
We have created a pdf of the end notes sections for chapters 5-10. We have not corrected any errors found. A MS Excel file is also available that shows how each source was used as an implied expert and their actual area of expertise from information the reviewer was able to find from her research.
End Notes (24 KB - pdf)
Sources File (30 KB - xls) or Sources File PDF (14 KB - pdf)
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