The Dioskouroi, also known as the Gemini Twins, as they ride off to war. The Romans believed that the Dioskouroi would arrive at a battle's pivotal moment to turn the tide in favor of their supplicants.
Welcome
You've reached the homepage of Dr. Nicholas F. Russell, an academic mentor who specializes in training young adults to read, reason, and write at the collegiate level.
I learned advanced reading and reasoning techniques at Hillsdale College, one of the finest liberal arts schools in the world. Later, at graduate school, I mastered the art of writing owing to the guidance of one of the globe's best-acclaimed authors. Under his direction, I earned a PhD from Tufts University, a Little Ivy.
My services are unique. No other instructor with comparable expertise will be available to your student outside of a tier-one institution.
Classical Education with Global Reach
Since 2007, I've provided academic mentoring services to young adults, first in Boston and later in Traverse City. I began at my graduate school, Tufts, where I studied history – which is, as I like to say, the "Science of Everything." History is a special discipline whose practitioners use evidence and logic to make truthful, plainly expressed, written claims about the world we live in. As historians, we teach our students to ground themselves in reality, to think independently, and to form meaningful opinions of their own.
Global historians like me – those among us who examine the history of the world, as a whole – are uniquely positioned to prepare your student for his or her future. This is because of the range and scope of inquiry that is available to us. We can study anything, at any time, in any place, for any reason. No other discipline has this flexibility, and it is because of this specific background that I can offer to your student a kind of general preparation for college – and life – that he or she will not find elsewhere.
Indeed, this is the essence of the liberal arts: to provide a broad enough education as to produce a free man or woman, capable of intellectual achievements of his or her own, who is not enslaved to falsehoods and half truths.
Where 3 Roads Meet
Ancient Greek philosophers divided the liberal arts into two sequential stages of learning. In the first and foundational stage, students mastered the Trivium: the arts of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. This is the stage in which I specialize.
The art of grammar, referred to colloquially as "knowledge," is the underlying background data about a specific subject. Students gain knowledge by means of their five senses and by reading documents and books. The art of logic, or "understanding," is the science of correct inference. It enables students to gain meaningful insights from the facts they imbibe. The art of rhetoric, or "wisdom," is the capstone and requires students to combine grammar and logic with techniques of persuasion. Only after students have experimented at length with this volatile and heady admixture will they become effective writers and compelling public speakers.
To train my students in these arts, I prefer to cultivate the practical skills of professional-level reading (which serves grammar and logic) and writing (which requires proficiency in the entire Trivium).
What I offer
I educate my pupils to read and write at the proficiency levels expected at elite academies like Tufts, Hillsdale, and the Ivies. The quality of my instruction is far superior to what students will encounter in the high school system and at least equal to the best-quality teaching they will receive at university. In fact, I can offer a better learning experience than most college professors are able to provide: this is both because I will be working with your student one on one (which is nearly always the best way for a student to learn) and because I combine several unique, powerful modes of bespoke teaching that in spite of their efficacy are not well known and not usually employed, even by college instructors.
Your student will begin to realize immediate benefits when he enrolls in my system of learning because he will be treated as an individual. I recognize that every student is a distinctive person with unique talents, aspirations, and aptitudes. My time-proven techniques, such as the tutorial, the Socratic Method, and the guided academic research paper are all easily adapted to each individual student's way of learning. I use these methods as ways of cutting to the chase and rapidly bringing my pupils to expert proficiency in the Trivium.
If you permit me, I will use my special methods to better educate your student and to prepare him to meet the trials he will face when he goes away to a four-year institution. I am also capable of guiding your student through his studies while he is at college. I can help him to better understand his assigned primary source readings, to improve his grades on written assignments, and to ace important academic tests like the senior thesis (as long as the thesis falls within the humanities). If your student falls in love with history and wants to earn a graduate degree in that discipline, I can even assist him with gaining entry to a graduate school of his choice.
My Teaching Style
Writing
I teach writing as a discipline centered on the pupil's personality and aptitudes. I start where he or she is – at whatever skill level he possesses – then take his arm (for a novice author is like a blind man) and gently support him as he charts his own hobbling course. Over time, we will together experience the joy of the opening of his eyes and the awakening of his inner voice. This process differs markedly from student to student, follows unpredictable timelines, and can only be completed face to face. I have seen fantastic results and have never had a charge who failed to progress far past what had been possible in the classroom.
Reading
I impart advanced reading techniques via the Socratic Method and use sophisticated chains of questioning to sharpen each pupil’s acumen to a razor’s edge. The pupil will gain deductive and inferential capacities a good deal beyond what he otherwise might have acquired. He will begin to learn with greater alacrity and broader understanding, and he will ascertain the right questions to ask – which is the most valuable aptitude of all.
My Methodology
The Tutorial
My technique derives from the United Kingdom's tutorial system. Instructors who follow this way of teaching regularly meet with their students either individually or in small groups of two or three for intensive discussions of readings and written assignments. In my own practice, these encounters always will be one on one and ideally will take place on a weekly or semimonthly basis. At the start of each lesson, my student and I will choose from among two activities: first, we might engage in an in-depth, Socratic discussion of previously assigned at-home readings; second, I might provide the student with an on-the-spot, oral critique of written work that the student is in process of preparing. The lesson might also be bifurcated, with a separate allotment of time for both tasks. In our earliest encounters, however, the student will always focus on reading assignments because the ability to analyze and deploy the sources effectively is a necessary prerequisite to embarking upon written adventures.
Stage 1:
The Sources
Serious persons who wish to have accurate knowledge about anything whatsoever must rely upon primary sources: documents, images, auditory recordings, and other paraphernalia that were produced by firsthand witnesses. My students evaluate these sources at home, taking careful notes, before meeting me for guided discussions. Using primary sources in this way – sources taken from deep in the past – affords the opportunity to visit alien worlds and will augment the pupil's perspicacity in profound ways. I use the sources to challenge my students to understand why events turned out as they did and how past peoples envisaged reality. The work that we conduct during these meetings lays the foundations for the subsequent construction of students' research papers.
Stage 2:
The Research Paper
Humanities scholars prize the written word. It was at Tufts, in my mentor Felipe's classroom, that I first had the opportunity to guide students through the task of writing research papers – an enterprise that unfolded much like a science project conducted in a laboratory. It begins with asking a question, of the pupil's own choice, that he or she would like to explore. He then commences the search for evidence, a journey that tests and refines his acuity at actively observing the world, as it truly is. Finally, he must use his discoveries in a systematic, well-conceived, and rhetorically pleasing way, committing his thoughts to writing and making a persuasive argument trending one way or another. I will meet with each student as many times as necessary for the paper to reach its most exquisite state of perfection.
The Great Journey
The research paper is the supreme test of a student's mastery of the liberal arts and has the potential to incorporate all forms of non-fiction, including narrative, expository, persuasive, and descriptive writing. No other mode of expression – including those available to practitioners of the hard sciences – will more rigorously assess your student's overall intellectual competence. We will repeatedly transit the pathway from sources to research paper as many times as necessary for the student to become truly proficient at navigating it. Once that proficiency has been earned, the student will have gained one of the most important capacities he ever might aspire to reach: the ability to make a well-reasoned, well-grounded argument that resonates with the sound of truth.
