bry's-gal Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 I've been doing some searching and trying to hammer out the big picture of what we are doing with the few years I have left with the kiddos! So the questions I have for you, what makes an education classical? What does this look like in your home? Does what it look like change over the years? I'm hoping this become a good discussion! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mama Anna Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 I'll make a first answer to this, but I know there are many better prepared and more well-spoken people on the board who will hopefully join the discussion and answer more fully. We pretty much follow the WTM only and are still mostly in the Grammar Stage, so that's what I know well. For us, that means a lot of "rigorous" academics in the skill subjects; detailed grammar instruction, being careful about handwriting, continually attacking math facts, etc. I think our grammar school looks a lot more "school-at-home-ish" in that respect than many homeschools. We have done Latin with dd10 but I think we'll hold off on it for a couple years with dd7. For content, it means a broad base, working in an understanding of different cultures and perspectives. I love the experiments in science and can get somewhat carried away with them. (Yes, there are household stories about that . . . :) ) There's beauty to see and hear. Poetry, art, music, the stories that make your throat catch when you read the last few lines - these are sprinkled throughout. Most of all, it means books. Books, books, and more books! We have limited space in our home and have to share bookcases with dh's PhD studies so most of ours come from the library. But when I see look around and see my dc reading/looking through Tolkien, Myths and Legends, and a Chinese fable all at the same time, I think "Yessss! This is where it's at!" (Not that it happens all the time. But sometimes it does.) As we're moving further into the Logic Stage, I'm so excited to see who dd10 is becoming intellectually. How can I help her further develop her strengths? Where are her weaknesses and how can we work on them? To have the discussions with her and see that she's beginning to think on her own (even though she's so compliant I've wondered if she'd ever dare) - that is exciting to me. I'm so privileged to be able to teach my dc like this!! What Logic Stage is looking like so far is a lot of independent work that I have to keep up with checking. It's less teaching and much more guiding. It's a lot of work (taking more time than Grammar Stage did), but if I balance things well there's still not too much complaining because there's always something interesting to look forward to. Of course, with dh doing a PhD, our household is very academic/learning-focused. It is the main priority. This means that social stuff and sports are a lower priority. Dh and I are musicians, so we can include that in the girls' lives, but not really in a group setting. We live in the city, so our outside/nature opportunities (while there) are more limited than they are for others. I'm not sure but that I'd rather change the balance a bit if I could, but this is where God has placed us at the moment and we're doing our best to bloom here. I'm not sure how well this answers your question, but it'll bump your question back up to the top. :) Mama Anna Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bry's-gal Posted March 2, 2014 Author Share Posted March 2, 2014 Mama Anna- Thank you for your response! I love hearing how others do things and their thoughts! It helps me clarify my thoughts and figure out what is best for us! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 When I was most classical was with my youngest during his early high school years. We were a very rigid type of LCC before the book was written. We were more Bible and skills based before the classical phase, so I was used to a VERY lean literature list and a skills focus, so TWTM when it came out just didn't resonate with me. I felt it was too content and literature driven. The Devil Knows Latin, Climbing Parnassus, Quintilian, the Bluedorn book, and Composition in the Classical Tradition were my books. Bible, math, Greek, and Latin were our core. Our reading list was just the KJV, a few bilingual Loeb Classics, and a very few Great Books. We did not keep or follow a timeline. We were heavily skills focused and content was just a few library books and DVDs, studied in no particular order. We used Saxon math. We did just general science and then AP environmental science and did NOT do high school science texts. I use TWTM now more than I did then, but now I don't consider myself classical. I'm still using the 1st edition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SarahW Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 I'm just teaching a 1st grader, but - I've come to understand the Grammar stage not in terms of "poll-parrot" or "memorization" but in terms of extended vocabulary building. Small children learn vocabulary by being exposed to it. Eventually, they acquire most of the vocabulary which is spoken in everyday conversation. The Grammar stage is where you introduce the vocabulary of things beyond normal everyday conversation. So, the vocabulary of good literature (reading), the vocabulary of things in the world (science), the vocabulary of what has happened (history), and the vocabulary of numbers (math), and many other things. What is a reptile? What is an amphibian? What is the difference between them? It's not something that will usually come up in normal conversation, so I take the time to introduce it. I don't want to accidentally miss anything important, or forget anything I'm not sure about myself, so I use curriculum to guide us. I hope that a student who has a solid basis in the language of knowledge will then be confident to interact and analyze with that knowledge. That's my long-term goal, anyways. Others add on another level, that you should encourage wonder and beauty. I agree, but I don't see those in opposition. Good knowledge is wonderful, and true things are beautiful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NASDAQ Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 Classical education is an education grounded in the classical languages. In our house it doesn't look like anything, because my eldest is not ready for Latin, let alone Greek. She does Hebrew. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 http://www.susancanthony.com/ws/_pdf/phlhdn.pdf http://www.susancanthony.com/ws/philtrans.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 One of my goals is to have my children be able to participate in what Mortimer J. Adler called "The Great Conversation". They may not read *EVERY* volume in the Great Books of the Western World or the Harvard Classics, but I'd like them to be familiar with the authors and have read the most important of the works. Historically, the literary classics would've been read in their original languages, but to me that's a "nice to do" rather than a "must do". There is only so much time and effort that can be spent on schooling, and to me, a rigorous STEM education is a higher priority than mastering Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and French. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amy M Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 Here was my attempt to define it: What Is Classical Education? And here's what it looks like in our home (at the young stage my kids are in), or what I want it to look like: Our Philosophy of Education and 2014 Curriculum. Also the tag on my blog "weekly report" will give somewhat of a picture of what it looks like for us in the grammar stage. I'm still growing and learning though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NASDAQ Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 I agree that I'd probably pick rigorous math and science over Latin and Greek if I had to. Probably not French and Hebrew, which are important here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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