The Well-Trained Mind

A friend of mine recently gave me the book The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise (a mother and daughter duo). I started reading it and it has some fantastic ideas for homeschooling and just general teaching of your children. It makes me so excited every time I read it.

They explain that there is a three part process of training the mind:

[1] The Grammar Stage
These are the years in which the building blocks for all other learning are laid, just as grammar is the foundation for learning language. During Grades 1 to 4 the mind is ready to absorb information. Children this age find memorization fun. The authors suggest that there is little self-expression and self-discovery, but rather focus on learning facts: phonics, spelling, grammar rules, poems, vocabulary of foreign languages, stories of history and literature, descriptions of plants, animals, and the human body, the facts of mathematics, and so on. Young children are described as sponges, soaking up knowledge. But, if you squeeze a dry sponge, nothing comes out. First the sponge has to be filled. During the elementary years, the child is supplied with knowledge and skills that will allow the child to overflow with creativity as the mind matures. Too close a focus on self-expression at an early age cripples a child later on. So during this phase the child accumulates masses of information: stories of people and wars, names of rivers, cities, mountains, and oceans, scientific names, properties of matter, plots, characters, descriptions, mastery of basic math facts, and so on.

[2] The Logic Stage
During these years the student's capacity for abstract thought begins to mature. They begin to pay attention to cause and effect, to relationships between different fields of knowledge, and to the way things fit together in a logical framework. They begin thinking analytically. They begin to have the ability to construct paragraphs and support of a thesis, as well as being able to critically analyze texts, not just absorb the information.

[3] The Rhetoric Stage
At this point the student is able to write with force and originality. They apply the rules of logic to the foundational information learned in the grammar stage and begin to express their own conclusions.

A classical education is more than just a pattern of learning. It consists of the following:

• It is language focused -- learning is accomplished through words, written and spoken, rather than images (pictures and video). Written and spoken words require the mind to work harder and to be active.
• It follows a three-part pattern -- the mind is first supplied with facts, then given the logical tools for organization of those facts, and finally equipped to express conclusions.
• All knowledge is interrelated -- Astronomy, for example, is learned along with the history of scientific discovery, which leads to the church's relationship to science and the intricacies of medieval church history.

A classical education uses history as the organizing outline, beginning with the ancients and progressing forward to the moderns in history, science, literature, art, and music. The authors suggest that the twelve years of education consist of three repetitions of the same four-year pattern:
*the ancients (5000 BC - 400 AD)
*the medieval period to the early Renaissance (400 - 1600 AD)
*the late Renaissance to early modern times (1600 - 1850 AD)
*the modern times (1850 - the present)

The child studies these time periods in a very simple way at first, learning the stories of key figures, progressing towards beginning to read original sources, and finally taking on a more complex approach. So, for example, a first grader will begin with listening to you read a picture book containing the story of the Iliad. Four years later, the fifth grader reads one of the popular middle grade adaptions of the Trojan War. Finally, the ninth grader, begins to read Homer's Iliad. The goal is mastery of the subject over a period of time.

The other subject areas are linked to history studies. The student working on ancient history will read Greek and Roman mythology, learn Latin/Greek, read the Iliad and the Odyssey, early medieval writings, Chinese and Japanese fairytales, the classical texts of Plato, Herodotus, Virgil, Aristotle, reading Beowulf, Dante, Chaucer, and then later Shakespeare (when studying early Renaissance history), and so on.

The sciences are studied in a four-year pattern that roughly corresponds to the periods of scientific discovery: biology, classification, and the human body (subjects known to the ancients), earth science and basic astronomy (early Renaissance), chemistry (early modern period), physics and computer science (modern era).

The Preschool Years
Birth to Three: The key is to immerse the child in language. Talk and read constantly. Ask the child questions about the plot and the characters as you read. Teach them the names and the sounds of the letters in the alphabet. Teach them what the vowels are. Help your child learn to write letters with chalk and crayons (E,F,H,I,L,T first, followed by A,K,M,N,V,W,X,Y,Z, and then the rest). Work on dot-to-dot pictures. Count objects constantly, backwards and forwards. Then begin to work on basic sums.
Three to Five: Read constantly to them, books with pictures and books without pictures (such as The Jungle Book, Peter Pan, and so on). Ask more complex questions as you read. Work on the beginning sounds of words. Use a simple primer to teach reading (We use Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons). Teach sight words. Continue to practice writing. Continue teaching addition and subtraction with manipulatives. Play games like Uno.

As I read about this, I was so excited because I have felt kind of overwhelmed by the idea of teaching my children and I didn't feel like I knew how to do it. But, I realized that I have done exactly as they have suggested for the preschool years and my children are doing really well. The book has now given me ideas for how to continue. We're still going through the reading primer that teaches them to read and I am also now reading more advanced stories to them, such as The Secret Garden, Alice in Wonderland, and The Just So Stories. I recently downloaded a bunch of free e-books on my phone. Yesterday we started reading Charlotte's Web and they enjoy it. I want to get more books on CD (since they enjoy those and listen to them over and over). I want to introduce them to some key characters from history too from the various periods. Once we move I will have a room that will be solely the school room which will be great. It will help them focus more on their work and I won't have to keep packing it all away. I'm really excited about this!