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January 29, 2007

A Little Light Schooling

Take a look at this curriculum for a late 18-century Latin grammar school in Pennsylvania. It's scary. I'm scared. Well, I'm scared because I know I'm not working hard enough at making sure my kids have the Latin grammar down pat, and I know we won't ascend those higher heights until I do. But wow.

However, this was the part I found the most interesting:

Through the whole course no book shall be laid aside upon having had but one reading. There may, indeed, be but few books which can be read through, because time will not permit, but whatever part of a book is read once, it shall be the practice of this school to read twice.

I think this is excellent advice. Most booklists for most schools, or most curricula, leave no time for re-reading and re-studying; if a book is worth studying, it surely must be worth studying twice. Or three, or four, or ten times. This is one of the reasons I appreciate the sparse book lists, and the concept of multum non multa, in "The Latin-Centered Curriculum"; focusing on a few great works gives us time, time to re-read and re-study.

I hope I remember to make that time.

Posted by lynx at January 29, 2007 9:20 PM

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Comments

Thanks for this. One problem I have with "Well Trained Mind" is that the reading lists are huge. I was feeling overwhelmed until I realized that it was too much. I then chose just a few books to represent Ancient times. We read Genesis (which was easy because my son's Torah Portion was the last one in that book), then "The Source" and then "Black Ships Before Troy." When we read Genesis, we also dipped into some creation myths. That is all. That gave us time to discuss as we read and talk about what we thought. Now we are reading a book of stories about the ancient Greeks. I'll choose very carefully where we go next.

The problem with too much, too quickly is true in all subjects in schools now. The standards movement has the unintended consequence of driving teachers to cover a great deal of information but very superficially. This means that the kids don't every learn enough to actually think about the information.
For example, in NM the new elementary science standards require the teacher to cover every major field every year.

Posted by: Elisheva Levin at January 30, 2007 9:41 PM