How to Use The Fallacy Detective in a Homeschool

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by Hans Bluedorn, Copyright May 03, 2008, all rights reserved. 4967 views

(Some of this page is taken from the introduction to The Fallacy Detective.)

The picture we had in mind when we wrote this book was of a father or mother sitting beside the children and working through this book together. Parents and children all read the chapter, they all discuss it, and they all do the exercises together. In our experience, most children learn logic best when they are thirteen years or older. Therefore, we have designed this book for students age thirteen and above. There is no maximum age, so grandparents have no excuse.

We know that logic is a new subject to most people, so we wrote this book to be your teacher. We designed the lesson format to contain many concrete examples, and we included exercises for many levels of difficulty. In this way, the concepts are easy to understand, and the skills are easy to learn. Actually, we like to think of it this way – our book helps you to discover the logic which is already written in your mind by God. We only make you more aware of the logic which you’ve been using all of your life.

What Is the Lesson Format?

Each lesson begins with a section for you to read, and ends with exercises for you to answer. As we hinted at before, there are different ways you can use our book to fit your situation. Here are a few suggestions. We recommend that you work through this book in a group of two or more people. There is something about multiple people discussing their agreements or disagreements which brings out so much more in the lesson. You may wish to have each person read each lesson independently, then have everyone go through the lesson together.

As you read each exercise and give your answer, you can check each answer with the answer key provided at the back of this book. As you follow this three-step sequence (first read the exercise, then give your answer, then check your answer), you will have your answers immediately corrected if you happen to miss the point.

If you have trouble understanding a lesson, then do the exercises for that lesson anyway. We designed the exercises to be a teaching tool, so you may catch in the exercises what you did not understand in the lesson itself. If you miss many of the exercises, and you do not know why, then you may need to repeat a lesson until you understand it. If you still don’t understand something taught in this book, then try discussing it with other people.

You may find more ideas at How to Use The Fallacy Detective in a Classroom.

Here Is the Challenge

Remember, most people never study good thinking skills. So people who take on this quest of learning logic are breaking out of the mold, and thistakes courage. It also takes humility. But most of all, it takes self-discipline.

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