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Lisa VanDamme's Articles
Arts & Culture
Enrich Your Life with Poetry
Lisa VanDamme February 20, 2020
What the sun can do for reality, poetry can do for life. It can inspire us with ideals, reveal the depth beyond the surface, burnish our lives with beauty, turn the simple into the sacred, and make us aspire past what things are to what they might be.
Arts & Culture, History
The Life and Poetry of John Keats
Lisa VanDamme November 21, 2019
Keats’s life was cruelly short and marred by tragedy, unrequited love, and ill health. But his frail body held a formidable soul. That soul lives on through his poetry and inspires us to make the most of our own opportunities for joy.
Education & Parenting
Does My Child Know Grammar Better Than Me?
Lisa VanDamme April 3, 2009
I would say that a debate is raging in our culture over whether or not we need to preserve the formal rules of grammar, but the sad truth is that there are too few defenders of grammar for a debate to rage. I am lonely in my fervency. Nevertheless, a…
Education & Parenting
Life After VanDamme Academy
Lisa VanDamme January 13, 2009
The following is an interview with Evan Storms, a VanDamme Academy graduate currently in the process of applying to college. Perhaps my favorite part of the interview was his answer to my request for the interview itself: "Considering what I gained from your school, I would write a doctoral thesis…
Education & Parenting
'A Pygmalion of the Soul'
Lisa VanDamme October 9, 2008
"It is a beautiful thing to mold a statue and give it life; it is more beautiful to shape an intelligence and give it truth." —Victor Hugo The first work of literature read in Room 4 this year was Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw. The musical My Fair Lady was…
Education & Parenting
Math Magic
Lisa VanDamme September 26, 2008
Most math curricula are an absolute pedagogical mess. I have long known that math programs treat children like human calculators, programming them with processes they use to input numbers and churn out results. But this became poignantly clear to me when I tried to teach my daughter long division this…
Education & Parenting
Yesterday's Highlights: Stories From Home
Lisa VanDamme November 30, 2007
We at VanDamme Academy love hearing stories about things the students do or say at home that reflect their VanDamme Academy education. I recently asked parents to share some stories from home. Here are a few highlights: Calvin (5): I was talking to Calvin about the upcoming trip to Schoolhouse…
Education & Parenting
Yesterday's Highlights: 'Success'
Lisa VanDamme October 6, 2007
In a letter called "Yesterday's Highlights," I periodically describe my observations of classes to the VanDamme Academy parents. I have decided to share these highlights with readers of this newsletter as well. I hope you enjoy your glimpse into a VanDamme Academy classroom. Dear Parents, This week and last, I…
Education & Parenting
The First Day of School: VanDamme Academy Style
Lisa VanDamme September 25, 2007
I have often been told that, when asked what was special about their VanDamme Academy education, graduates say, "We always understood why we were learning what we were learning." This important effect has many causes, the most significant among them being that what the students are learning is, in fact,…
Education & Parenting
The VanDamme Academy Field Trip
Lisa VanDamme May 29, 2007
In my recent newsletter "The Failure of Field Trips," I explained what is wrong with traditional school outings. The typical field trip is irrelevant to the students' education, either because they have been unprepared to appreciate it by their schooling (e.g., City Hall or the opera) or because it is…
Education & Parenting
The Writing Process: One Step at a Time
Lisa VanDamme May 22, 2007
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (or NAEP), the average high school student is an incompetent writer. To evaluate their writing ability, testers asked high school juniors to write a paragraph based on notes they were given about a haunted house. The performance of half the students was…
Education & Parenting
The False Promise of Classical Education
Lisa VanDamme May 20, 2007
Examines the allure of classical education, considers both its religious and secular forms, and shows that—although its advocates claim it to be the solution to today's educational wasteland—classical education only contributes to the crippling of children's minds.
Education & Parenting
The Failure of Field Trips
Lisa VanDamme May 3, 2007
Many educators stress the importance of field trips: opportunities to get students out of their desks and away from their books, and to give them direct, vivid, sensory experience with the world around them. Reflecting on my own education, these excursions off campus are indeed some of my most memorable…
Education & Parenting
The VanDamme Academy Curriculum...On One Foot
Lisa VanDamme April 1, 2007
First, I highlight the fact that ours is a core knowledge program. Nowhere in our schedule will parents see the array of time wasters that clutter a typical grade school curriculum, classes that range from the traditional Phys Ed, Home Ec, and Wood Shop to sundry modern incarnations like Tech…
Education & Parenting
Rex Barks
Lisa VanDamme February 4, 2007
I began my career as a private teacher for a few families committed to providing their children with a real education. These parents had abandoned a fruitless search for a school in which their children would read the classics of literature, learn the story of history, grasp the fundamental principles…
