Traditional Logic I with 6th grader??

[profmom]

Normally I would wait, but some of dd's friends are getting together to do this class (DVD & book) and have invited her to join. They'll be in 7th & she'll be in 6th (about 11.5 yo), and they plan to spread the class over the school year, mixing in Know Why You Believe by Paul Little. She's smart, but isn't "logic-readiness" more of a developmental thing?

 

What do you think? :confused:

[cajun.classical]

Normally I would wait, but some of dd's friends are getting together to do this class (DVD & book) and have invited her to join. They'll be in 7th & she'll be in 6th (about 11.5 yo), and they plan to spread the class over the school year, mixing in Know Why You Believe by Paul Little. She's smart, but isn't "logic-readiness" more of a developmental thing?

 

What do you think? :confused:

 

My understanding is that TL is pretty abstract. Generally, the recommendation is to *not* begin formal Aristotelian logic before algebra. It's the same sort of abstract thinking involved, and yes it is a developmental thing.

 

She may be an exceptional child; and girls *do* mature faster, but it is likely that she would soon be in over her head. In fact, the seventh graders will probably find it pretty tough too.

[profmom]

Thanks, Angelina!

[Peela]

Agree with Angelina. I had my dd try it almost a year ago at 13, and although she could technically do the work, it was dry and going over her head. I fail to see the point when she wasn't really engaging, and was just going through the motions of doing it. I am not sure she will get to do it at all, now.

However, a friend of mine had her dd13 and a couple of other girls, one barely 13 and one 15, do it together, after doing Art of Argument the previous year. They seemed to do ok, but her 13yo is very analytically minded, wheras my dd13 (and they are best friends) is not. She is more creative.

I intend to do Art of Argument next year when my son is 13 and my daughter 14. I am waiting for his maturity rather than hers, because it seems more efficient to have them do it together. Then if all goes well, the following year they will do the sequel, I think it is called Dance of Deception.

 

It is worth having a look at Trad Logic 1 and seeing what you think. I dry up just thinking about it, personally, so maybe I am not the best person to be commenting!

 

However, you never know, in a group situation your daughter may well get something out of it, particularly if they are going at such a slow pace. It is very abstract.

[Mostlyamom]

I have a 13yo, and purchased and looked at the DVDs in thinking about doing Traditional Logic this year. However, they seem awfully dry. Obviously, it depends on the teacher that will be doing this class, but I think it would be hard slogging based on the kids I see at that age, those in our co-op.

 

Pat

[Myrtle]

Normally I would wait, but some of dd's friends are getting together to do this class (DVD & book) and have invited her to join. They'll be in 7th & she'll be in 6th (about 11.5 yo), and they plan to spread the class over the school year, mixing in Know Why You Believe by Paul Little. She's smart, but isn't "logic-readiness" more of a developmental thing?

 

What do you think? :confused:

 

I did some mathematical logic with my fifth grader last year. I think he was ready for it because we used logic as a tool long before he formally studied it. I used Singapore bar diagrams as our problems, I tried to make it a point to use the language of logic when discussing the solutions.

 

Did the logic stick? He has spontaneously recalled that if he wants to prove a theorem he can use a proof by contradiction or prove the contrapositive and has demonstrated his skill in this, so I think he's making a lot of progress. He certainly didn't have any difficulty with the actual logic lessons that I wasn't able to overcome by simply moving slower and giving more examples than what would be required of a 14 year old.

 

I don't know how mature he is. He has a tested IQ of average and still plays with bionicles ;-)

 

I have looked at some of the informal logic books, there's not a lot of them, and whenever I thought that one was not "doable" it wasn't so much that the logic itself was too abstract, but that the problems were about more adult issues that my son doesn't appreciate at his age. And while I appreciate the fact that logic doesn't in theory depend on the actual propositional content, younger kids are bound to find it difficult to concentrate when the topic isn't something they are interested in.

 

I may postpone teaching informal logic until the 8th grade simply because of the nature of the topics in the books (I'm thinking specifically of Nance and not Traditional Logic, to be clear) more so than the abstractness of it, if that makes any sense. In other words, if someone published a book on informal logic in which the content was about Star Wars and bionicles rather than theology and political science I think he'd do just fine right now.