RD: Have you ever thought about going back to college?
Smith: The things that have been most valuable to me I did not learn in school. Traditional education is based on facts and figures and passing tests — not on a comprehension of the material and its application to your life. Jada and I homeschool our children, because the date of the Boston Tea Party does not matter.
RD: But there are some basics in education that need to be taught.
Smith: Of course there are. Reading, writing and arithmetic, because those are the languages of our country.
RD: When you say you homeschool, do you mean you actually teach them?
Smith: No, we have hired teachers who teach what we feel is important. For example, Plato’s Republic — kids need to know that. Why is that not taught in first grade?
RD: You think kids in elementary school should read Plato’s Republic?
Smith: Yeah. You cannot be an American without reading it and Aristotle’s Politics. That is what the forefathers of this country read, and they used them to create what I believe is the finest system of government that has ever existed.
RD: So, you don’t see any reason to go back to a formal education yourself?
Smith: I know how to learn anything I want to learn. I absolutely know that I could learn how to fly the space shuttle because someone else knows how to fly it, and they put it in a book. Give me the book, and I do not need somebody to stand up in front of the class.
RD: They put physics in a book, but I know I could never be a physicist.
Smith: The first step is you have to say that you can.
Reader’s Digest
Maybe I am old school, but I think a kid needs to know the basics?
