Novelist Mark Helprin on Learning, Curiosity, and Revitalizing Education

‘Do it the hard way.’ Mark Helprin explains how to fix education—at home and in schools.

Novelist Mark Helprin emphasizes the importance of fostering curiosity in children. Biba Kayewich

Mark Helprin once got fired from tutoring a high school girl because she lit a cigarette at the kitchen table and refused to put it out. When he insisted, her mother stormed in and showed him the door.

It’s a story he tells to illustrate why so many schools fail today.

“If a school can’t remove disruptive students, it will fail,” he said. “You’re sacrificing the many for the one.”

The acclaimed novelist—author of classics such as “Winter’s Tale,” “A Soldier of the Great War,” and the recent “The Oceans and the Stars”—has lived a life that could fill several books: Born in Manhattan in 1947 to a Broadway-star mother and an Office of Strategic Services veteran/journalist father, he studied at Harvard and Oxford, served in the British merchant marine and the Israeli military, and became a sharp commentator on foreign affairs.

The Epoch Times asked him for his unfiltered thoughts on education. Drawing from his own childhood, his parenting, and a scene in his upcoming novel “Elegy in Blue,” Helprin offered a no-nonsense blueprint for parents, teachers, and a system that has lost its way.

Curiosity Starts on the Sidewalk

In “Elegy in Blue,” a father walks with his young son through the city, patiently answering endless “What’s that?” questions about water tanks, storm drains, and other objects. The father answers patiently, turning ordinary sights into lessons.

It’s straight from Helprin’s own playbook as a dad—he turned everyday walks into a classroom.

“That’s what I did with my own children,” Helprin recalled. “Toddlers are information sponges. If you spend hours with them that way, you ignite curiosity. Curiosity is the one thing that absolutely guarantees intellectual development. A lot of people just aren’t curious.”

He added another essential: Read aloud to them every day. “We did an hour before bed. The kids sat between my wife and me, following along,” Helprin said.

As they grew, he also taught practical skills—riding a bike, sailing, shooting a rifle, balancing a checkbook. “It’s the most satisfying thing we do: teach our children. That’s why we exist,” Helprin said.

The tragedy? Modern families are fractured. “They watch separate television programs in separate rooms,“ he said. ”Return to traditional family structure—eating together, talking, teaching. That’s a key part of any solution to education problems.”

Don’t Underestimate Kids—Demand More

Helprin said he sees “secondary” education (everything outside the home, from kindergarten on) as too soft. He rejects the binary debate: academics versus trades.

“What you have is this destructive polarization,” he said. “One side saying we need an academic curriculum—and this is most of what we have. The other side says we need people in the trades and vocational schooling.”

Helprin pointed to his own school experience, with both demanding vocational and academic tracks: “If you’re learning both academic and practical things, that’s very, very good because one reinforces the other, and both are a great boon to forming character.”

He also noted that 19th- and early-20th-century English public schools taught teens Greek, Latin, advanced mathematics, and history at levels matching or even surpassing those of today’s college undergraduates. “Children and adolescents are enormously capable of learning,” Helprin said. “We just don’t demand enough of them. If I founded a school, it would be rigorous—very demanding.”

Zero Tolerance for Disruption

Despite massive U.S. spending per pupil (second only to Luxembourg), many schools fail basic standards. Helprin said he blames teachers unions’ “predatory” behavior, prioritizing their own interests over those of their students.

But he hit harder on something rarely said. “Schools don’t work because they’re disrupted. It’s like prisoners running the prison,” Helprin said.

That cigarette incident isn’t ancient history—it’s the symptom. Without authority to remove chronic disruptors, the class suffers, he said. “You can’t teach if one kid derails everything. Sacrifice the whole class for one student, and education fails,” Helprin said.

College: Four Pillars for Real Learning

Universities, too, need repair. Helprin proposes dividing a student’s program into four clear parts:

– Humanities (languages, literature, music, philosophy) to appreciate truth and beauty. – How the world works (history, economics, military history). – Science and technology. – Trades and physical work for grit.

The Bottom Line

Helprin’s vision isn’t gentle. It starts at home—with endless questions answered, books read aloud, skills taught, and families reunited. It demands rigor in classrooms: Blend academics and trades, raise expectations, and eliminate chaos. A college should be built on four solid pillars.

Through it all runs the hard transmission of real knowledge—because that’s what sustains civilization and lets individuals thrive.

Helprin’s final word cut straight through: “Do it the hard way. That’s what makes for character, civilization, and survival.”