Why?

Why Follow a Classical Model and Method?

 Teaching the Trivium (pg. 41)

Academics

Results

Methodology

Academics. Certainly, some parents choose a classical style of schooling because they are attracted by the academic achievement. They want their children to achieve high academic goals in classical languages, in logic, and in communication skills. They want them to study a very high level of material. Perhaps some of this is driven by a sort of academic snobbery, but much of it is driven by a sincere desire to see their children challenged and excel for the glory of God." (Page 41)

Results. The classical Trivium-Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric-is a very effective means to prepare to serve God in the world.  By mastering these basic tools of learning, the classical method creates self-teaching students who are able to move forward and master any area of learning on their own.  Whatever our goals may be, the classical approach lays the broadest and most solid foundation for achieving them. 

Methodology. The best reason for choosing the classical style of schooling is simply because this is actually the Biblical model written into reality.  So what if the pagans stole it? We simply take it back and clean it up and put it to our own use. The classical style has been successful for millennia because it matches reality.  If we ever learned anything, then we learned it by the Trivium method- whether we knew it or not.

School at Home or Homeschool?

There is so much that I could say about this photo that is in the book, Teaching the Trivium, however it's late and I do not have the time right now.  Honestly, the photo might just say it all... Do you school at home or do you homeschool?

"The great advantage of tutoring your own children at home is that much of what goes on in classroom schooling is rendered completely unnecessary."
Teaching the Trivium

Dayspring Used Curriculum Sale

I'll be at the Dayspring Used Curriculum Sale tomorrow. 

Come to White Plains UMC in Cary from 10 am to 1 pm to find some curriculum and visit me at the Classical Conversations table! 

I think that this quote nicely sums up the Grammar stage of learning...

"What that material is, is only of secondary importance; but it is as well that anything and everything which can be usefully committed to memory should be memorized at this period, whether it is immediately intelligible or not. The modern tendency is to try and force rational explanations on a child's mind at too early an age. Intelligent questions, spontaneously asked, should, of course, receive an immediate and rational answer; but it is a great mistake to suppose that a child cannot readily enjoy and remember things that are beyond his power to analyze--particularly if those things have a strong imaginative appeal (as, for example, "Kubla Kahn"), an attractive jingle (like some of the memory-rhymes for Latin genders), or an abundance of rich, resounding polysyllables (like the Quicunque vult)."

A quote from Dorothy Sayers' The Lost Tools of Learning ...