The Academy

The Rule 2 · The Daily Rule of the Order

The four Gospels say who he was. This book says how we live.

2.1Children are not given doctrine. They are given the method of asking.

2.2We do not teach children answers, because answers expire. We teach them how to test an answer.

2.3The Academy has three stages.

2.4Infancy, under seven: no lessons. Only one commandment — when a child asks "why", you may not answer "because that is how it is".

2.5If you do not know, say I do not know. That is the first true thing they will learn in their life.

2.6Childhood, seven to twelve: geometry, and questioning.

2.7Geometry means not only triangles and circles, but this: a thing has a reason, and the reason can be checked.

2.8Show them three accounts of the same event, then ask: how could each of these be wrong?

2.9Youth, twelve to eighteen: the forum.

2.10Learn to speak before others. Learn to be refuted without shame.

2.11The first rule of the Academy: a child may refute a teacher.

2.12A teacher who cannot be refuted is not a teacher. That is a priest.

2.13The Academy does not reward the fastest answer. It rewards the best question.

2.14Whoever shames a child for being wrong is expelled from the Academy.

2.15What shame teaches is silence, not thought.

2.16We are not raising obedient children, nor difficult children. We are raising children who can say clearly why they think what they think.