This Study Guide is prepared as a companion to the Mentoring in the Classics Audio Series. For more information, visit http://tjed.org/MIC

Copyright © Oliver & Rachel DeMille, TJEd.org “An Education to Match Your Mission”

           

Study Guide:

Louise L’Amour: The Lonesome Gods

Prepared by Rachel DeMille

This Study Guide is prepared as a companion to the Mentoring in the Classics Audio Series. For more information, visit http://tjed.org/MIC

Copyright © Oliver & Rachel DeMille, TJEd.org “An Education to Match Your Mission”

 This month’s reading is available in most libraries and booksellers, and on Amazon.

The Introductory Mentoring Audio for this book (provided via links in your course email) is presented by Oliver DeMille. Please take a moment to download your audio content to your computer immediately so you have uninterrupted access to it!

The Debriefing Audio that follows at the end of this month will consist of a group discussion of the Mentoring Prompt (below). Contributions from subscribers who share their responses on the Facebook Discussion Group are welcome and expressly invited!

Graphic referenced in Oliver’s Introduction:

This Study Guide is prepared as a companion to the Mentoring in the Classics Audio Series. For more information, visit http://tjed.org/MIC

Copyright © Oliver & Rachel DeMille, TJEd.org “An Education to Match Your Mission”

Ideas for Writing or Discussion: Part 1: Conceptual Analysis

• Is education mostly knowledge-based, or is it mostly skill-based? • Is it measured by influence? Application in the real world? • What is the right balance? • What is education for the various characters in the book? • What is great education for each of these characters? • How does the terrain/land influence people’s education?

o Their knowledge? o Their skills? o Their relationships? o Their connections? o Their fulfillment?

• How does reading form a core of education in The Lonesome

Gods? • Is it possible to have a great education (in L’Amour’s view, as

portrayed in this book) without being a great reader? • Letter to the editor from The Atlantic: “The problem with math

education, and perhaps with education in other fields, can be summed up by this quote from Peg Tyre’s article, ‘The roots of this failure can usually be traced back to second or third grade. In those grades instruction is provided by poorly trained teachers, who are themselves uncomfortable with math. I have long thought that teachers in the lower grades particularly should not only love and understand young children, but should also be broadly knowledgeable, broadly curious, and unafraid of any subject. They should be as comfortable moving between and linking what we too often consider separate subjects as young children are. In short, our most highly qualified teachers should be those in the lowest grades. But until we make elementary school teaching an honored career that attracts those who could be our most talented teachers and rewards them adequately with pay and respect, we will continue struggling to fix or remediate problems of student interest and competence in the higher grades.’” Discuss.

This Study Guide is prepared as a companion to the Mentoring in the Classics Audio Series. For more information, visit http://tjed.org/MIC

Copyright © Oliver & Rachel DeMille, TJEd.org “An Education to Match Your Mission”

• Letter to the editor from The Atlantic: “An educator now myself, however, I find it’s the teachers I envy. They are allowed to use their expertise, intelligence and imagination to create these deep learning experiences. Perhaps the students’ success is due to what these programs do not have: a focus on data regarding student achievement, where kids play with kids they know.” Discuss.

• 1) Punctuality; 2) Obedience; 3) Rote, repetitive work. Is this the value system of institutional America? Discuss.

• What is the difference between scholarship and a love of knowledge? Discuss.

• In what ways is this a classic on… o Family? o Community? o Friendship? o Freedom? o Education? o Coming of age? o Romance? o The Hero’s Journey? o Survival? o An economy, a society, a world in transition from a

declining form or model to an emerging new one?

Part 2: Interacting with the Text

It is recommended that you look up and read the following quotes in context in order to apprehend their full meaning and intent.

• P. 2: “People only talk about how wonderful youth is when they have forgotten how hard it was.” Discuss.

• P. 7: “Fightin’s something you do when you’ve tried everything else.” Discuss.

• P. 24: “Each of us does as he can,” Papa said. “We are traveling together.” “You are a hero,” Miss Nesslerode said positively. Papa smiled at her. “It is an empty word out here. It is a word for writers and sitters by the fire. Out here, a man does what the

This Study Guide is prepared as a companion to the Mentoring in the Classics Audio Series. For more information, visit http://tjed.org/MIC

Copyright © Oliver & Rachel DeMille, TJEd.org “An Education to Match Your Mission”

situation demands. Out on the frontier we do not have heroes – only people doing what is necessary at the time.” Discuss.

• P. 25: “Your little boy loaded your pistols. How does he know to do such things?” “I taught him, ma’am. I have also taught him to respect weapons and handle them with care.” Discuss.

• P. 25: “We wish there was no violence in the world, but unhappily, there are those who use it against the weak. I would not be one of those.” Discuss.

• P. 25: “Men and civilizations are alike, ma’am. They are born, they grow to strength, the mature, grow old, and die. It is the way of all things.” Discuss.

• P. 28: “I come and go, son, but you all just remember – you got a friend in Jacob Finney. You need anything, you come to Jacob. Or send word, and I’ll come to you.” He finished the last crumbs of his beef and bread and added, “Folks out west stand by one another. It’s the only way. And you pa surely didn’t waste no time unloading from that wagon when I went down.” Friendship on the frontier: Discuss.

• P. 28: “Look yonder – that’s desert. Real, old desert. But let me tell you something, it’s been called hell with the fires out, but there’s life out there, boy. Life. You can live with the desert if you learn it. You can live with it, live in it, live off of it – but you got to do it the desert’s way, and you got to know the rules.” What are the rules of living in the frontier where you and/or your children will hope to thrive?

• P. 50: “One does not need education to be intelligent. And these men might be short on what educated men use in the way of information, but their wits were sharp, their minds were alert, they were prepared to move, to change, to adapt at the slightest need.” What kind of “intelligence” is L’Amour describing here? Is this valued in today’s society? Will it be valuable in the coming times for you and/or your children? What attention do you/should you pay to such skills and aptitudes? Discuss.

• P. 50: “All about them were conditions and circumstances to which they must adjust. They lived on the very knife-edge of reality, and when this is so, the mind becomes a beautifully

This Study Guide is prepared as a companion to the Mentoring in the Classics Audio Series. For more information, visit http://tjed.org/MIC

Copyright © Oliver & Rachel DeMille, TJEd.org “An Education to Match Your Mission”

tuned instrument. They did not fall into patterns or ruts – there were none. Each day was different; each brought new problems. Whatever else you could say of these men, they were intelligent in the finest sense.”

o L’Amour puts a great deal of time into communicating the value of worldly knowledge, books, scholarship and broadmindedness. How does this quote expand your view of his ideal educational model?

o Of his view of ideal educational outcomes? o How might these skills be cultivated in yourself or your

children? • P. 115-116: “People, I think, read too much to themselves.

They should read aloud from time to time to hear the language, to feel the sounds.” Discuss.

• P. 116: “I do not know what else I shall leave my son, but if I have left him a love of language, of literature, a taste for Homer, for the poets, the people who have told our story – and by ‘our,’ I mean the story of mankind – then he will have legacy enough.” Discuss: What riches would you leave your children, that would be “legacy enough?” What can you, and they, live without, if only you assure them of _______?

• P. 129: “She had what my father would have called a well-ordered mind. I mean, it was uncluttered. She seemed to have an ability to isolate a problem and examine it without anything else intruding, and above all, she could make decisions.” How are these skills cultivated or refined? Must everyone have them? Discuss.

• P. 134: “Many people know how to get money, but few know how to keep it.” Discuss.

• P. 138: “He does not read. He can, but he does not. There are many who assume that once they become men, there is nothing to be learned from books.” Discuss.

• P. 160-161: “Miss Nesslerode had asked me what I wished to become. I suspected that it was not only that she wished to know, but that she wished me to start thinking of it. She wished me to be making up my mind.” Why did Miss Nesslerode want to direct Johannes’ thoughts in this way? What would having

This Study Guide is prepared as a companion to the Mentoring in the Classics Audio Series. For more information, visit http://tjed.org/MIC

Copyright © Oliver & Rachel DeMille, TJEd.org “An Education to Match Your Mission”

such a question (or answer) in mind have done for him? Discuss.

• P. 165: “Actually,” he said one morning, “all education is self-education. A teacher is only a guide to point out the way, and no school, no matter how excellent, can give you an education. What you receive is like the outlines in a child’s coloring book. You must fill in the colors yourself.” Discuss.

• P. 172: “I believe that soon Johannes will have learned about all Fraser can teach him, and an adventure like this would do him good.” Why is it important to have a goal in mind for a certain mentoring relationship, and to know when it has been completed – or when it is time to move on to the next opportunity? Discuss.

• P. 173: “Neither age nor size makes a man, Johannes. It is willingness to accept responsibility.” Are the individuals you mentor eligible to be counted as mature, and worthy of responsibility – without regard for their age or size? Discuss.

• P. 209: “When you go into the wilderness, or out upon the sea, keep your mind open. Much can be learned from books, but much remains about which no book has been written. Remember this: the poor peasant, the hunter, or the fisherman may have knowledge that scholars are struggling to learn.” Discuss.

• What quotes would you turn in to a writing or discussion prompt? Share them on the Facebook Discussion Event! >>

Resources for Additional Study:

• Bendigo Shafter by Louis L’Amour • The Walking Drum by Louis L’Amour • Last of the Breed by Louis L’Amour [PG – violence] • For more on “Liber,” see: The Four Lost American Ideals by

Oliver DeMille • The Atlantic, “The Math Revolution” • Paradigm Shift by Life Leadership Essentials • A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille • A Thomas Jefferson Education for Teens by DeMille and Brooks

This Study Guide is prepared as a companion to the Mentoring in the Classics Audio Series. For more information, visit http://tjed.org/MIC

Copyright © Oliver & Rachel DeMille, TJEd.org “An Education to Match Your Mission”

Level 5* Mentor Prompts for The Lonesome Gods:

• What is “education?”

• What is great education?

• What is education for the emerging

economy?

*Levels 1-5 of reading are discussed in the Mentoring content for Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea. We highly recommend that you review that Audio and Study Guide to gain the full benefit of this course.