Courses for teens

Teaching philosophical principles to teens is no easy task. How do we do it? Lessons guided by Professor Hancock's Original Text provide insightful commentary and a high level of philosophical scholarship—all in naturally engaging ways.

The Western political, philosophical, and religious tradition has been called “The Great Conversation” for a reason, and we want your child to know what that reason is. Our carefully selected Primary Sources are taken directly from the pens of the greatest thinkers. We provide the tools to both analyze and synthesize those ideas, to understand the broad contours of “The Great Conversation” and, eventually, to participate in it.

No Wikipedia article or textbook summary of an author’s teaching can match the vigor, grace, force, or subtlety of primary sources.

We introduce the following authors, past and present: Alexis de Tocqueville, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Machiavelli, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, Rene Descartes, G.K. Chesterton, Seymour Lipset, C.S. Lewis, Irving Kristol, and Allan Bloom, to name a few.

Reading is the skill most essential to becoming self-aware. But reading well is more than scanning for information. It is actively engaging with the author, listening for clues to his or her intentions and assumptions, forming questions, and listening for answers.

To read actively is to think with the author. An author worth reading writes with purpose using specific devices to achieve his or her aims. To appreciate an author’s deeper meaning, Fathom approaches reading with four purposes:

1. Familiarize
2. Summarize
3. Engage
4. Articulate

Active reading requires reading a text several times and in different ways. Our curriculum integrates Reasoning Tools, including reading, writing, and discussion skills, to accomplish familiarity, summary, engagement, and articulation simultaneously and in ways that are simple to master.

Our engaging five-minute animated Mentoring Videos provide students with another layer of learning. These videos accompany each section of our Courses for Teens and provide additional insights regarding important or challenging ideas. This multi-layer approach to learning is what makes it possible for young people to engage with challenging but important philosophic ideas.