A couple of weeks ago we were hanging out in Barnes and Noble and I gravitated toward the education section. I found the book “The Well Trained Mind” by Jesse Wise and Susan Wise Bauer. Susan is Jesse’s home schooled daughter. I was impressed by Susan’s dossier – entered college at 17 as a Presidential Scholar, earned her Bachelor’s degree in 5 semesters, visiting student at Oxford, earned 2 Master’s degrees, is now a professor at the College of William and Mary and has published numerous books… .
Anyway, one of my fears has been that my kids would not be prepared to enter college because they have been home schooled. Susan’s success is encouraging to me.
A couple of weeks ago we were hanging out in Barnes and Noble and I gravitated toward the education section. I found the book “The Well Trained Mind” by Jesse Wise and Susan Wise Bauer. Susan is Jesse’s home schooled daughter. I was impressed by Susan’s dossier – entered college at 17 as a Presidential Scholar, earned her Bachelor’s degree in 5 semesters, visiting student at Oxford, earned 2 Master’s degrees, is now a professor at the College of William and Mary and has published numerous books… .
Anyway, one of my fears has been that my kids would not be prepared to enter college because they have been home schooled. Susan’s success is encouraging to me.The further I read through “The Well Trained Mind,” the more excited I became about the Classical approach. I’d heard about it before, I just never took the time to understand what it meant.
The Classical model consists of 3 stages: Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric – each stage being 4 years long. In the Grammar stage, children are building their knowledge foundation and so the object is to fill them with information. They learn all the basic Mathematic skills, as well as Language Arts. History and Science are taught during each stage and in the following sequence: Ancients, Pre-Renaissance and Medieval, Late Renaissance and Early Modern, Modern; each time on a more complex level. Science follows a similar pattern, beginning with Biology, Classification and Human Body, then moving on to Earth Science and Astronomy, then Chemistry, completing the cycle with Physics and Computer Science. Writing and reading quality literature are paramount, as well as Art and Music appreciation and foreign languages, beginning with Latin.
By 5th grade, children are able to think analytically. Their ability to reason is maturing and they are able to make logical connections between the information they are learning.
By the 9th grade, kids are able to apply their knowledge and logic skills to write and speak confidently and compellingly.
Reading and comprehension skills are developed through memorization, drills and experiential learning. Quality literature is used, ‘twaddle’ (a term coined by Charlotte Mason referring to junk books) is avoided. TV and video learning are minimal. The process of reading without benefit of visual stimulation engages the brain and forces it to work, rather than remain passive. I’d never required my kids to memorize much aside from a few math facts and Bible verses. However, it does make sense that the more the brain is exercised, the stronger it becomes.
This is a far different approach to education than I’d taken with the boys. I’d bought into the unstructured, almost ‘unschooling’ approach which, while hands-on and fun, hasn’t been providing the cohesive building blocks of education I believe are essential to their academic success.
So, our syllabus this year looks quite a bit different than it has in the past. In past years, it looked something like this:
- Math workbooks
- Language Arts program
- Konos units to provide everything else
- Reading and read-alouds from library to supplement Konos unit
This year, it looks like this:
- Math daily
- Phonics (Chris), grammar (Alex), reading and writing for both daily
- Latin 1 for both 1 to 2 days/week
- History (beginning with Ancients) 2 to 3 days/week
- Science 2 days/week
- Art/Music – 1 day
- Sports – 2 days (practice and games)
Konos will continue as our source for Science as we study creation and plant, animal and rock classification, as well as provide for all other subjects (health and safety, practical living, etc.)
We’ll be using Saxon Math and Susan Wise Bauer’s “Story of the World” as our History text. For Latin, I’ve ordered Prima Latina (with instructional DVD ‘cause I need to learn it, too!)
I’m looking for a good deal on a used piano for music lessons, and sports will probably be through the YMCA as they’ve got a great selection of team sports from which to choose.
We’ve got leads on some home school co-ops that I plan to get involved in so that the boys have a chance to interact with other kids.
I’m still awaiting the arrival of our materials and working out scheduling details, but I can’t wait to get started!