Latin Centered Curriculum

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Is this a good book?  In another post, I saw someone mention that they use the LCC approach, and that this was fewer subjects with more depth.  I'd like to hear more about how this looks practically, how you narrow down your subject range, if you rotate from year to year, etc.  

Is the book worth ordering?  It doesn't appear to have a kindle version and dead tree books are pretty hard on my eyes due to text size, but I can do it if necessary.  Is there a good summary or blog about LCC?  

 

[serendipitous journey]

I found that, to me at least, it felt like less depth than our WTM: fewer subjects and a narrower focus, yes, but at the ultimate cost of a deep perspective and analytical ability.  For a more general conversation: this "Can we revisit Latin-Centered Curriculum" thread may be of interest to you. 

I agree that you can get, roughly, to the end result of what is used by looking at Memoria Press' accelerated curriculum path.   That doesn't give the philosophy behind it, though, and honestly their schedules result in much busier days than Campbell's with all the formal grammar, literature & other workbooks, and so on.  But the content books give a good feel. 

I was even less impressed with "Climbing Parnassus" as a real argument for classical education, though it is full of lots of inspiring examples.  Simmons' argument that classical ed is superior rests on a correlation between quality in Western thinkers/writers and classical education.  The trouble is, for so many hundreds of years the only  sophisticated education available was, more or less, classical and so naturally there's a correlation.  To begin to make a real argument for causality one would need to begin with lists of influential/excellent thinkers developed by people who do not know what the lists are being used for (that is, make sure that the people who come up with the names of "best Western thinkers/writers" don't know that classical education is the thing being considered) and then do some careful analysis: consider outliers and counter-examples, for example.  YMMV. 

I must say that I really like Andrew Campbell's (the author of the LCC book) "In Living Memory" which you can get as an ebook at Lulu. 

Edited July 6, 2019 by serendipitous journey

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

5 hours ago, mms said:

Well, if you know how MP structures their studies that is pretty much LCC.  I personally did not find the book all that enlightening, but when I finally got a hold of a copy I had already read up quite a bit on historical classical education.  I passed it on years ago but basically, Drew (who used to be a boardie back in the day) proposes doing Latin, math and a sort of great books type thing every day and then rotating the content subjects on a loop once a week.

There's also LCC, not the book, that Hunter used to talk about.  That was what some folks were doing in the 90s based on Tracy Simmons' Climbing Parnassus (I think you have read that one?).  

If someone is trying to keep one foot in the door of modern and neo-classical education (the way MP wants to do) LCC is not a bad approach.  There used to be a PDF version on the MP website but I'm not seeing it now, maybe there's one on Lulu?

Anyway, here's Drew's own explanation and here's an old thread, there are lots but that's the first one I came across in a search.

Personally, I find LCC to still be too much but I don't have a nifty name for what we do 🙂 

 

2 hours ago, serendipitous journey said:

I found that, to me at least, it felt like less depth than our WTM: fewer subjects and a narrower focus, yes, but at the ultimate cost of a deep perspective and analytical ability.  For a more general conversation: this "Can we revisit Latin-Centered Curriculum" thread may be of interest to you. 

I agree that you can get, roughly, to the end result of what is used by looking at Memoria Press' accelerated curriculum path.   That doesn't give the philosophy behind it, though, and honestly their schedules result in much busier days than Campbell's with all the formal grammar, literature & other workbooks, and so on.  But the content books give a good feel. 

I was even less impressed with "Climbing Parnassus" as a real argument for classical education, though it is full of lots of inspiring examples.  Simmons' argument that classical ed is superior rests on a correlation between quality in Western thinkers/writers and classical education.  The trouble is, for so many hundreds of years the only  sophisticated education available was, more or less, classical and so naturally there's a correlation.  To begin to make a real argument for causality one would need to begin with lists of influential/excellent thinkers developed by people who do not know what the lists are being used for (that is, make sure that the people who come up with the names of "best Western thinkers/writers" don't know that classical education is the thing being considered) and then do some careful analysis: consider outliers and counter-examples, for example.  YMMV. 

I must say that I really like Andrew Campbell's (the author of the LCC book) "In Living Memory" which you can get as an ebook at Lulu. 

 

 

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Thank you both for taking the time to write all that out!  I will get started on my research.  I like the idea of language, math, and literature, with content rotating once a week, but I need to give some more thought to how that looks, practically in my home.    

[Another Lynn]

Also, I think there were two editions of Drew's LCC book - maybe some of the older threads speak to the differences between the two.  When I first read it, I was more into Ambleside Online and it seemed like a lot of the same stuff, except rearranged so that some of the resources were moved to bed time reading or leisure reading.  Sure it's easy to look more streamlined when you move a third of the work load to "free time," lol.  

[Slache]

I was immediately sold on LCC as soon as I read it, but I think the actual application looks different in our home. I thought the book was really good but everyone I've recommended it to complained that it was basically an advertisement for Memoria Press and I can't really argue with that. I couldn't stand Climbing Parnassus.

I would say that in our school we do very few subjects very well, but do not adhere strictly to the Latin centered curriculum and don't even study Latin, but Greek. Lots of drill, a few workbooks, and lots of good books. We hit it hard, hit it fast and get done early, which leaves a lots of leisure time left for their passions which include writing and art.

What it looks like:

• Morning Time, 30 minutes: This begins over breakfast. I read from the Bible and go over our art of the day. We have done one piece of art everyday for probably more than three years now. If you show my children a piece of art they can probably tell you what country and century it's from. They know way more artists than I ever thought possible and will call them out if they see them in public. Then we do our long recitation. We memorize things like prepositions, poetry, and verb endings in big chunks throughout the morning and then review them later in ANKI. Then we sing.
• Seatwork, 90 minutes: ANKI, Piano, Saxon, Elementary Greek, IEW, Japanese drills. That's it. And the only reason we do Japanese is because he asked for it.
• Content, 60 minutes: This is where the books come in. We did Notgrass this year and I greatly regret it. We are also on our third apologia book and content from those goes into our memory work. Next year I will be creating a homemade geography study based on good books and mapping drills, and we will begin Teaching The Classics. They do lots of independent assigned reading.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by narrowing down the subject range. I chose Greek over Latin because I want them to be able to read the New Testament as soon as possible. I intend to have them reading Greek and Latin before high school and reading some of the great books in their original languages in high school. Writing and math are important and done daily. Science and History have been very interest-based. Next year we are beginning content subjects of my own design as I have been dissatisfied with anything that I've tried.

I do not have a decent summary of the book, I do recommend reading the book and I did get the PDF for free. I will try to find out where I got it so you can get your own copy.

[Slache]

I just scrolled through the book because I haven't read it in a few years. It covers the history of classical education, why Latin and Greek are important, and the philosophy of multum non multa, then it shows how to do it which may or not be buying and implementing all MP materials. The beginning is worth a read, the rest I ignored. I also recommend the free book put out by CAP and this series:

PM me your email and I'll send you what I can.

[Critterfixer]

I have it, and revisit it from time to time. But I never got the impression that it freed up more time for anything other than more time reading and studying that just wasn't listed as part of "school" as Lynn suggested. I'm all for reading and studying in free time, but I don't like my free time structured, or people handing me more books that I should read to occupy my time. I want to read what I want to read, study what interests me, paint, write, and explore things outside (gardening, hiking, or just sitting around waist deep in a stream and thinking). I happen to have a couple of kids who feel much the same way. So, while I love the idea in theory, the whole notion of limited school done the LLC way just didn't seem possible for me and for them. It didn't leave us enough free time for doing what we do best, which happens to be playing, but it's the kind of play that has resulted in my son building his own raft, and my other son knowing more about fishing tackle and fish than I ever could have taught him. 

Now, it's entirely possible I misread how to "assign" the books and how to do the multi-stream history thing, but my brain is only so big, and I had to do what I could do without losing my mind and taking the pleasure out of school at home, which for us happens to be the ability to get core stuff done and be free to explore on our own the things that interest us.

[8filltheheart]

If you google multum non multa you'll find more infor than you need.  In a nutshell it means doing fewer things at a deeper level.  You've been on the forums long enough to recognize the "lists" that people post for their yrly curriculum or in their siggies. You know the ones--the long lists with a gazillion subjects, resources, books that are meant to create little Einsteins. 

Multa non multa is the exact opposite. It doesn't take being LAtin-cenetered or using a Latin-cenetered curriculum. It takes doing what you are doing and doing it well vs skimming across the surface. It is the exact opposite of a textbook/workbook education (I will refrain from making comments about the irony of providers who tend to market it). It is more focused on making connections and deeper relationships about what is being learned.

I would never refer to myself as being Latin-centered. But all of my kids have been educated with my view of multum non multa.

Edited July 7, 2019 by 8FillTheHeart

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Thanks all, it looks like the essential message: Multum non multa really is the resounding take-home, so I won't purchase the book.  And I will give myself permission this year to go narrower and deeper, which is what my instinct is telling me to do for my oldest.