Core and Love of Learning Seminar Highlights
“Core and Love of Learning: A Recipe for Success” is a 5-hour audio series consisting of highlights from a two-day seminar presented by Oliver and Rachel DeMille in 2007.
This mp3 download will help you develop and expand your vision of how the TJEd model can work in your home. Oliver and Rachel’s spontaneous, candid, intimate, touching, humorous and profound commentary on Leadership Education in the home includes:
- Daily and Weekly Scheduling
- Organizing Space in your home to support Thomas Jefferson Education
- What to simplify and what to beef up
- What to say “No” to, and when to say “Yes”
- Music and other lessons and how to best integrate them
Highlights include:
- Which books work best for what ages
- Organizing a big family with students at different ages and Phases
- Separating discipline from academics
- Using outside activities without letting them take over
- Tips for making mornings work
This unique recording is informal, sensitive and interactive, as Rachel and Oliver share from the heart and dialog about how TJEd works in the home. While the content in this seminar is based on information published in Leadership Education: The Phases of Learning, these excerpts were specifically chosen for audio distribution because they are not available elsewhere in any format; this is a deeper and more detailed presentation with personal anecdotes and insights from the most successful TJEd seminar ever presented.
Please note that the complete list of 55 ingredients is included, with explanations and ideas for implementation, in the book, Leadership Education: The Phases of Learning.
About the Presenters
Oliver DeMille is the founder and former president of George Wythe University, a founding partner of The Center for Social Leadership, and the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century.
As a university student, Oliver went on a search for a truly great education — experiencing private and public universities, technical and religious schools, corporate and international educational institutions, prestigious colleges and worthless diploma mills; he literally sampled the best and the worst that modern education has to offer, and virtually everything in between.
As a result, he found a small Bible school where he worked closely with mentors and studied the Bible and the great classics in many fields. Although Coral Ridge Baptist University was not regionally accredited, he was so excited by the quality of his studies that he left a large, well-respected university to focus full time on his classical education. He earned the B.A. in Biblical Studies (May 1992), M.A. in Christian Political Science (December 1992), and Ph.D. in Religious Education (May 1994) at Coral Ridge Baptist University.
He has written and spoken extensively about the traditional education system versus his intense mentored-classical experience with Coral Ridge and his mentor–Dr. W. Cleon Skousen. After his Coral Ridge studies, he returned to Brigham Young University and completed the B.A. in International Relations with a minor in Aerospace Studies, graduating Magna cum Laude (1994). He then devoted his time to refining the educational design and curriculum of the liberal arts school he founded, George Wythe College (now University).
Oliver is a popular author, keynote speaker, and business consultant. Presently, he devotes a majority of his time to writing. He and his wife Rachel are raising their 8 children in southern Utah.
Rachel DeMille
Rachel Pinegar DeMille is the wife of Oliver DeMille and his frequent collaborator. Rachel is the owner of TJEdOnline.com and the author of “This Week in History” educational supplements for the home and classroom.
Rachel’s educational history was rather the opposite of Oliver’s, but with similar outcomes: whereas he had learning disabilities that hindered his early progress, she began playing the piano at age three, and was reading fluently by the age of four. Her facility with learning extended from math and science to foreign language and the arts, and she spent her early years in gifted programs. However, as she grew, she found it difficult to “fit in” to the system, and increasingly found that her best educational experiences were outside of the classroom, either through personal study, or with the guidance of caring and challenging mentors.
The youngest of six children, Rachel observed the upbringing of her nieces and nephews, and was deeply affected by the philosophies of her next oldest sister and her husband, who were homeschooling their children through the classics. She recognized the pattern of classics and mentoring that had been her own ideal, and determined to pursue a similar course in raising her own family.
Rachel is the co-author of A Thomas Jefferson Education Home Companion, Leadership Education: The Phases of Learning and the audio series Core and Love of Learning: A Recipe for Success. She is an accomplished musician, writer, literary editor, public speaker, consultant and momschool organizer.
Together
Since their marriage in 1989, Oliver and Rachel’s educational experiences and philosophies have combined and developed into a dynamic, wholistic worldview, evolving into what is now popularly called “Thomas Jefferson Education,” “Leadership Education,” or simply, “TJEd.” They are the parents of five daughters and three sons, one of whom has multiple disabilities, and several with varying degrees of dyslexia and giftedness, making their experience as home educators both broad and varied. The DeMilles’ insights are informed not only by dealing with the unique needs, learning styles and gifts in their own home, but through their experience in mentoring and consulting with schools and families on virtually every level, and around the world.
