Are the seven liberal arts the way God has designed children to learn? This is a claim made by many in the Classical movement.
Several things happened in my life to make me question this assertion. One is the information I learned from my daughter. She was a student at Hillsdale and took a class called Artes Liberales. In it, she read about Maritanus Capella. I read the papers and booklets she received in this class and was surprised to find out that, essentially, we got the specific seven liberal arts in Western education from Martianus Capella. He can be read about: here, here, and here. He seems to be drawing from many previous Roman writers, but his book appears to be the one that was used extensively and became the authoritative word on the subject. Gregory of Tours called it a school manual.
This is less than thrilling news to me.
As an Orthodox Christian, I would like to know more about the education that was practiced in the Eastern Roman Empire, in Byzantium. Here is one article. (Yes, I know it's just a wiki article, but the prejudice against wikipedia is just intellectual snobbery.)
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Term 2 and CC
Well, we are well into Term 2 of Bryna's school year. I never did get Jared's posted. He did Classical Conversations this year with a fabulous group near us.
I did not expect to love Classical Conversations. Bryna did their Foundations program last year. I thought I would give it a try. Rote memorization. I've always hated that. But now I am seeing that I only hated it because I went to school in the 60's and was taught to hate it.
Bryna memorized a lot of bald facts last year. Knowledge without its informing ideas, and it didn't hurt her one bit. In fact, she would memorize a history fact, or a geography fact, and then afterwards come across the word or place name in a book or movie and a light bulb would blink, the zing would come into her eyes, and she would say, "I know that person." or "I know that river." She already knew it because she knew its name, knew its location. That's all. And some new information about this friend would come along, and all at once she knew him better. But she knew the friend before.
I learned a lot from that experience too.
But this year, she was too old for Foundations and, realizing that this was my last student, I couldn't give up going through Ambleside Online Year 7 one last time.
But Jared is in 10th grade, and I liked the Challenge II program so in he went. It's been a great year too, and he's learned a lot. He's been able to learn it with some fantastic kids and a great Mother-Teacher. One more child to watch and learn from Francis Schaeffer's How Should We Then Live? thrills me. I may have changed my views on some things, but Francis Schaeffer will never be irrelevant to me - even if the videos were made in the 70's. Jared also studied more Latin (his third and best year), Logic (which he said was his favorite subject), Chemistry (no worrying about doing experiments around here for the 3rd time), Algebra 2, Drama (although we've gotten a ton of that this year), and British Literature. It's been great prep for college. I also couldn't resist adding some other things to his year. Hey, he'll be on his own and doing what he wants soon enough. For now, I'm keeping his education has wide and varied as I can. I added reading the Gospel of John in Greek (also his third, last, and best year), other various devotional materials for his spiritual life, and more history (you can never have too much history.) He's Daddy Warbucks in Annie this year with Stage LeFters, a local homeschool drama group. If you live nearby, please come see him in it. He did Cincy Shakes's Groundlings group first semester, but he's too busy this semester. He continues KCC, and has added piano.
Bryna:
Continuing with the Gospel of John - the commentary and memorizing
Ourselves - I've decided to go through this at a faster pace than AO.
Churchill's Birth of Britain
History of Scotland - a great book
a generic World History overview that I had
American History - switched out TCOO for the Guerber sold by Memoria Press; w/ the 200 Q. guide
The Namesake (not in our time period really, but I wanted her to read the sequel The Marsh King)
Ivanhoe
Short Stories
A Taste of Chaucer
History of English Literature for Children
Brendan Voyage
Tennyson - this has been slow going
Joan of Arc by Mark Twain
The Magna Charta - I'm hoping to go see this one.
Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet
Life of Fred - continuing this for the year...I hope it's not a waste...
Still doing oral & written narrations, dictation, and copybook
Sentence Combining for Middle School - a fallback
Real Food, Nutrition, and Health
Artist/Picture Study - Van Eyck
The Story of Painting - Janson 1/2 ch. a week
History of Music/Composer - something I had from Jillian's days
The Friendly Stars and Classical Astronomy - we need to improve on this. I'll console myself that we'll be more motivated in the warmer weather when we can stargaze.
Lay of the Land
Bird Study - I've been really pleased with this
Memory work and map drills continued
Art of Argument - had this lying (laying?) around too
Book of Roots - another pleasing product from Memoria Press
Switched to Rosetta Stone German. We couldn't get the French to work anymore so since we were buying again, she had a choice and switched.
Plus free reading - The Hunger Games, etc.
Continuing choir, piano, and Groundlings Jr. The South Dayton drama group has proven to be a disappointment. Henle Latin hasn't happened, but I'm an optimistic person so I believe it eventually will. :-)
A whole slew of our "together" things haven't happened. When all of the extra drama opportunities came up something have to give, and it was unfortunately the other extras. But we're always blessed by The Art of Poetry (what a grand book!) when we get to it. Poetry should never be said with "when we get to it."
I always front-load their school schedules -- putting in more than I know we can possibly do. That discourages some people and it used to discourage me because I thought it should discourage me. But then one day I realized that it didn't really discourage me. I found if I put what was realistic (less) on the list then we actually did less. This way we do more than I hoped. I am aiming for heaven and getting earth thrown in.*
That's all for now.
*I wish I'd said that. It's actually from CS Lewis.
I did not expect to love Classical Conversations. Bryna did their Foundations program last year. I thought I would give it a try. Rote memorization. I've always hated that. But now I am seeing that I only hated it because I went to school in the 60's and was taught to hate it.
Bryna memorized a lot of bald facts last year. Knowledge without its informing ideas, and it didn't hurt her one bit. In fact, she would memorize a history fact, or a geography fact, and then afterwards come across the word or place name in a book or movie and a light bulb would blink, the zing would come into her eyes, and she would say, "I know that person." or "I know that river." She already knew it because she knew its name, knew its location. That's all. And some new information about this friend would come along, and all at once she knew him better. But she knew the friend before.
I learned a lot from that experience too.
But this year, she was too old for Foundations and, realizing that this was my last student, I couldn't give up going through Ambleside Online Year 7 one last time.
But Jared is in 10th grade, and I liked the Challenge II program so in he went. It's been a great year too, and he's learned a lot. He's been able to learn it with some fantastic kids and a great Mother-Teacher. One more child to watch and learn from Francis Schaeffer's How Should We Then Live? thrills me. I may have changed my views on some things, but Francis Schaeffer will never be irrelevant to me - even if the videos were made in the 70's. Jared also studied more Latin (his third and best year), Logic (which he said was his favorite subject), Chemistry (no worrying about doing experiments around here for the 3rd time), Algebra 2, Drama (although we've gotten a ton of that this year), and British Literature. It's been great prep for college. I also couldn't resist adding some other things to his year. Hey, he'll be on his own and doing what he wants soon enough. For now, I'm keeping his education has wide and varied as I can. I added reading the Gospel of John in Greek (also his third, last, and best year), other various devotional materials for his spiritual life, and more history (you can never have too much history.) He's Daddy Warbucks in Annie this year with Stage LeFters, a local homeschool drama group. If you live nearby, please come see him in it. He did Cincy Shakes's Groundlings group first semester, but he's too busy this semester. He continues KCC, and has added piano.
Bryna:
Continuing with the Gospel of John - the commentary and memorizing
Ourselves - I've decided to go through this at a faster pace than AO.
Churchill's Birth of Britain
History of Scotland - a great book
a generic World History overview that I had
American History - switched out TCOO for the Guerber sold by Memoria Press; w/ the 200 Q. guide
The Namesake (not in our time period really, but I wanted her to read the sequel The Marsh King)
Ivanhoe
Short Stories
A Taste of Chaucer
History of English Literature for Children
Brendan Voyage
Tennyson - this has been slow going
Joan of Arc by Mark Twain
The Magna Charta - I'm hoping to go see this one.
Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet
Life of Fred - continuing this for the year...I hope it's not a waste...
Still doing oral & written narrations, dictation, and copybook
Sentence Combining for Middle School - a fallback
Real Food, Nutrition, and Health
Artist/Picture Study - Van Eyck
The Story of Painting - Janson 1/2 ch. a week
History of Music/Composer - something I had from Jillian's days
The Friendly Stars and Classical Astronomy - we need to improve on this. I'll console myself that we'll be more motivated in the warmer weather when we can stargaze.
Lay of the Land
Bird Study - I've been really pleased with this
Memory work and map drills continued
Art of Argument - had this lying (laying?) around too
Book of Roots - another pleasing product from Memoria Press
Switched to Rosetta Stone German. We couldn't get the French to work anymore so since we were buying again, she had a choice and switched.
Plus free reading - The Hunger Games, etc.
Continuing choir, piano, and Groundlings Jr. The South Dayton drama group has proven to be a disappointment. Henle Latin hasn't happened, but I'm an optimistic person so I believe it eventually will. :-)
A whole slew of our "together" things haven't happened. When all of the extra drama opportunities came up something have to give, and it was unfortunately the other extras. But we're always blessed by The Art of Poetry (what a grand book!) when we get to it. Poetry should never be said with "when we get to it."
I always front-load their school schedules -- putting in more than I know we can possibly do. That discourages some people and it used to discourage me because I thought it should discourage me. But then one day I realized that it didn't really discourage me. I found if I put what was realistic (less) on the list then we actually did less. This way we do more than I hoped. I am aiming for heaven and getting earth thrown in.*
That's all for now.
*I wish I'd said that. It's actually from CS Lewis.
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