Lisa VanDamme, a frequent speaker at the ARI Summer Seminars, whose work focuses on the application of Objectivism to educational theory, will speak at the annual conference of the Maryland Home Education Association in Annapolis on April 1.
Ms. VanDamme will deliver the conference’s keynote address, “The Hierarchy of Knowledge: The Most Neglected Issue in Education.” She will also present two sessions: “A Conceptual Approach to Education,” and “Applying the Principle of Hierarchy in the Homeschool Program.”
In the first session, Ms. VanDamme will discuss the importance of understanding rather than just memorizing the learned material, by means of “requiring that in every subject, students not just recite or do rote exercises, but explain their knowledge in words.” In the second session, she will discuss the practical implementation of the principle of hierarchy, from the simple to the abstract, in all subject areas.
Ms. VanDamme is the owner and director of the VanDamme Academy, a private school in California, where she also teaches grammar and literature. She developed a curriculum that “emphasizes those subjects essential to fostering the child’s intellectual maturity, one that recognizes a necessary and inviolable sequence of knowledge in all subjects, and one that stresses the connections within and between subjectsâ??and between school and life.”
For more information and to register, check the MHEA Conference Page.
