From the time I started my adventure in homeschooling over a decade ago, I have wanted to collect some of the most inspiring words spoken by American leaders since our founding — eloquent and soaring words, rooted in the wisdom of the ages. The desire emerged from reading those great words of American history aloud with my daughter, contrasting them with the words we heard daily all around us, and realizing that something priceless had been lost.
American education, not long ago the envy of the world, has become a corrupt, bloated, and failed institution. This has been happening for over a century and there is no sign of recovery. The loss can be summed up in one sentence: We have lost our words. We no longer read the greatest spoken and written words of all time in the fields of history, literature, poetry, philosophy, and politics, and so we have lost the understanding of words that our ancestors lived by. More critically, however, we have lost what those words have represented. //
Third, when we read extraordinary works, we encounter words which we might be able to understand in context but not define. To build our vocabulary, we need not to dread the “hard” words but look forward with hope to acquainting ourselves with them.
For this subject, the English word “vocabulary” is lackluster. I prefer the German word for vocabulary: Wortschatz. Wort means “word” and Schatz means “treasure”… word-treasure.
The pen is mightier than the sword, and words are a greater treasure than diamonds and pearls. Do not leave your treasure scattered among the pages. Gather your words as you go and store them in your treasure chest. //
Including the entire sentence has done more than just help us to remember the word; it has shown the word at the pinnacle of its career. It is exasperating and essentially a waste of time to use pre-made vocabulary card sets that usually cast strong and noble vocabulary words into the dungeon of absurd, illogical, and demeaning sentences. Adorn your own word-treasure cards with sentences from the greatest works of all time. //
Fourth, elocution was once a standard part of school curricula. It has not been so for the last hundred years or more, and we hear the results all around us. Finding Our Words is not an elocution course, but a few tips can get us started. When having children read aloud, encourage them to incorporate a manner of expression appropriate to the text. Encourage them to project their voices. A favorite word we have used in reading the speeches in this book is “stentorian.” In the days before microphones and speakers, a stentorian voice was required if one wished to be heard.
