Follow Up Q: Did SWB ever say what curriculum she used?

[Teach05]

I’ve read the Well Trained Mind.  She provides several examples of programs you can use.  I am still that person that begs to ask, “But what did you use with your own kids?” Or perhaps, “But, really. If you were choosing curriculum today which ones would you pick.”

Another question- I wonder if because she publishes Math With Confidence if that’s the math she would choose or if it’s just one that she recognizes as filling a niche in the market.

Anyone ever come across any interviews where she’s given personal opinions?

Edited September 16 by Teach05

[8filltheheart]

I can't answer for SWB, but I know she started homeschooling back when there weren't many options for use, just like me.  (I started homeschooling yrs before her first book was published.) Prepackaged curriculum options were pretty much limited to private school curricula providers who were willing to sell to homeschoolers.  Most homeschoolers I knew used whole books for subjects, not textbooks or workbooks.  Other than for a limited number of subjects (math, spelling, and some grammar/writing and high school science), I have never used a curriculum.  I would still never opt to use a prepackaged curriculum.  Most homeschoolers I know who put things together themselves continued to do so.  Packages are limiting and feel confining when your kids thrive on progressing at their own pace/interests.

Edited September 16 by 8filltheheart

[HomeAgain]

The first edition of the WTM has many less examples of curriculum.  It was mostly a how to when using the library and using packaged curriculum sparingly.  Saxon Math was definitely encouraged, and I wouldn't be surprised if she used it. But for the rest?  No clue.

[Clarita]

In my reading of the book I would say it sounds like a lot of things she had to piece together because they didn't exist. 

According to my MIL back in the day (circa 1990's) she had a choice between Saxon and Miquon. She's been absolutely floored by the choices I have today. Some of them she wished were available to her back when she homeschooled. 

In terms of what she would choose today, reading between the lines of Rethinking School it would be dependent on the student she is faced with. In that book she stated (totally paraphrasing from memory - I borrowed it) some of the things she wrote in WTM bombed a bit for her son (?). I don't think it negate any of the things that were said in WTM, but it's just a reminder to teach the child in front of you first rather than just do what was best for someone else. 

[ScoutTN]

I would expect that the first edition of TWTM reflects some of her preferences among what was available then. 

[Resilient]

And I would expect that MWC snd the writing and grammar curriculum she wrote/commissioned were created because of dissatisfaction with the available options.  They probably were created in part by the way she taught her children.  

[EKS]

There is a video where it shows one of her kids using Saxon for math,  IIRC.

[PeterPan]

On 9/16/2023 at 9:00 AM, Teach05 said:

Anyone ever come across any interviews where she’s given personal opinions?

She used to speak at homeschool conventions, though I don't know if she still does. We had some small group meet ups at conventions, which were a charming way to hear from her in person. I would say the way @Clarita summarized it is pretty spot on. WTM first edition (which I still have and like) reflects where they were at at the time. Her children grew, the resources grew, and like any rational person she LOOKED AT THE CHILD. That's it. 

She also pulled back from being quite so personal as her kids grew just to give them some form of space/privacy. 

For your trivia, there were points where JW (Jessie Wise) also helped with the homeschooling significantly. In that kind of collaborative setting you have a blend of what is efficient for that dynamic and the strengths that a very experienced homeschooling parent brings to the table. 

The most interesting question is not what SWB would use with a theoretical child (since you aren't teaching a theoretical child) but what she would suggest to you if she met your dc and met you and heard a bit about your situation. 😀 We got to do this at a convention one year, when I had my oldest with me. It's not like we went through every single thing, but there was ONE ITEM that particularly bugged me and she listened, looked at my dc, and gave us some chaste advice. That advice stood very well, and it was more about HOW TO USE the materials than it was WHAT materials we were using. 

You have access to all kinds of people here on the boards who have been around a long time. If you want chaste advice, if you want someone to listen to your situation and help you see your dc a fresh way and think about how to use materials in innovative ways, if you want some MAGIC PIXIE DUST TO SAY YOU'RE DOING THIS RIGHT, it's here. But if it makes you feel better, print a picture of SWB, paste it on a glass ball, and rub and chant "What would SWB do, what would SWB do..." 

😀

Edited September 17 by PeterPan

[PeterPan]

On 9/16/2023 at 9:00 AM, Teach05 said:

I wonder if because she publishes Math With Confidence if that’s the math she would choose or if it’s just one that she recognizes as filling a niche in the market.

Well she clearly liked it enough to publish it, and she clearly thinks that it fits a swath of the homeschooling community well. 🙂  That doesn't mean she'd use it rigidly and unswervingly with a specific child (grandchild?) in her own instruction. 

It's helpful when you finally wrap your brain around what your dc is like and how they differ from other kids or are the same. Some kids could learn with ANYTHING, which means how you roll is about YOUR COMFORT as the teacher. Some kids have more challenges which means the teacher has to be much more flexible, changing materials or methods or both. 

You will come to a point where you could probably teach with ANYTHING. You're not there yet, and that's fine too. Look at your child type advice means really look at how much flexibility they have to learn different ways and see if something needs to be very particular to them. Then teach to your child, modifying and stepping it up to make whatever you chose work well for them. It's not just what you chose, because that's always the starting point. The magic is always you as the teaching parent. 

[Teach05]

But what’s curious to me in reading through the threads and the lack of SWB’s participation in the forum anymore is that so much of the conversations don’t seem to skew outwardly classical to me. Which is totally fine, but it does make me curious if that’s because products that aren’t as outwardly classical in nature/ are being adapted for use in classical ways, or if it’s because folks are coming to a realization that their child’s unique interests or needs may not always be suited to classical products or styles of teaching.  
 

I say this as a person doing some serious soul searching with regard to whether classical is what I’m really aiming for. I want rigorous and excellent, but I feel as if I’ve become too regimented and too strict. Perhaps an all MP curriculum will do that to a person, but I’ve been on the classical train from the beginning and before using MP.  
 

Sooo, it’s just sort of a, “Where are we with this in 2023?” I do appreciate SWB’s new podcast and she mentioned even classical as we know it is just an imitation of an imitation of classical. (episode 2 Well Trained Mind podcast)

Edited September 18 by Teach05

[8filltheheart]

1 hour ago, Teach05 said:

But what’s curious to me in reading through the threads and the lack of SWB’s participation in the forum anymore is that so much of the conversations don’t seem to skew outwardly classical to me. Which is totally fine, but it does make me curious if that’s because products that aren’t as outwardly classical in nature/ are being adapted for use in classical ways, or if it’s because folks are coming to a realization that their child’s unique interests or needs may not always be suited to classical products or styles of teaching.  
 

I say this as a person doing some serious soul searching with regard to whether classical is what I’m really aiming for. I want rigorous and excellent, but I feel as if I’ve become too regimented and too strict. Perhaps an all MP curriculum will do that to a person, but I’ve been on the classical train from the beginning and before using MP.  
 

Sooo, it’s just sort of a, “Where are we with this in 2023?” I do appreciate SWB’s new podcast and she mentioned even classical as we know it is just an imitation of an imitation of classical. (episode 2 Well Trained Mind podcast)

 

I can do classical as it’s been branded by MP.  My kids can do it.  I’m just looking up and looking around at my friends doing the nature studies and the poetry tea times and the art and realizing that I cannot actually do all of it, so it’s a matter of figuring out which ones to keep. I’m finding that I do actually want to look back on their childhoods and have those memories that our current curriculum isn’t giving us space to make. 

First, SWB has never participated on the forums except for the odd post once in a blue moon.  (And I have been posting on these forums since my 34 yos was in 6th grade.  (too lazy to figure out what yr that was.)  Second, MP does not provide a classical education.  At best, it MIGHT be labeled as neoclassical.  Classical education was never workbook focused!  It didn't start in K.  The WTM does not provide guidance on creating a classical education, either.  They are all buzz words for marketing.  Classical education did not categorize children into grammar, dialectic/logic, or rhetoric stages.  Those were SUBJECTS, not ages/stages. Including Latin as a subject does not a classical education make.  Nor does reading the Great Books.  They might provide a solid academic education, but classical education was far more about methodology and imbuing the mind with foundations of Western civilization than check boxing subjects.  (If you want excellent commentary on classical ed, search for posts by Ester Maria.)  Dorothy Sayers's  Lost Tools of Learning discussed those subjects as ages/stages and it has been twisted into marketing "classical education."  (Ironically, the more something proclaims classical the more I suspect it isn't!  Classical education was built on the premise of master teachers.......I would never claim the ability to provide my kids an authentic classical education at home.)

I will share my POV as a mom whose goal has always been to inspire my children to be internally motivated to master whatever they want to learn.  Young children develop higher order critical thinking skills by using their imaginations, exploring, playing.  Knowledge is the absolute lowest level of critical thinking.  Yes, higher levels of critical thinking require knowledge as the base, BUT creative thinking is the crux of critical thinking.  Young children who are regimented, controlled, dictated to....they do not learn to self-regulate nor do the have the time/ability to nurture the creative thinking aspects of learning that allow for the expanse of higher order thinking when they are older.  My kids never did a single day of preschool.  Life as we live as a family was far more important to their mental development than "academic knowledge."  When they were younger, academic seat work was limited to approximately 1 hr per grade level.  So, K was about an hr, 1st grade an hr to an hr and a half, 2nd 2-2/1/2 hrs, etc.  Middle school is anywhere to 6-8 hrs (but that includes reading, music practice, etc).  High school 7-9 hrs.  

Even with that approach, I have had a child who graduated from high school having completed the equivalents of math and physics minors, another who taught herself to fluency in French and represented the US in an international olympiad.  It isn't that my kids are geniuses.  Trust me, they aren't.  They are internally motivated and when they want to learn something, they know how to do it.  (That is something that they have all said that kids on campuses lack the ability to do.  The majority of kids need someone to tell them exactly how to do something.  Independent learning is not a skill widely possessed.)  And when I say "independent learning," I don't mean my kids spent their time off learning on their own.  It means that when we don't know the answers to something, we research until we find them.  If they want to learn something, finding a way to accomplish that goal is what we do.  They have been able to take those "life lessons" and apply them to their adult lives. 

Edited September 18 by 8filltheheart

[Malam]

18 hours ago, PeterPan said:

but there was ONE ITEM that particularly bugged me and she listened, looked at my dc, and gave us some chaste advice. That advice stood very well, and it was more about HOW TO USE the materials than it was WHAT materials we were using

Can you explain what the situation was?