One-Sixteenth

Hey, I was Googling myself (stuck in a house in a blizzard makes us do crazy things) and I came across this - http://www.caerdroia.org/116/archives/001415.html (it was number two on the list!. I feel bad that I never responded to you. I can't post a comment at the original post and honestly, I've worked too hard on a response to not post it.

Good gravy, I Googled myself to see what came up and this is number two. I never knew you responded to my post and had questions. I feel like I was horribly rude, and I'm very sorry! I do feel you deserve an answers, four years down the road. I hope you don't mind me bring up such an old topic.

I'll start off by saying I have read both editions of "The Well-Trained Mind" and "The Latin-Centered Curriculum". I tried to read "Climbing Parnassus" but found it too contrived and it didn't really hold my interest. Our home school is largely based on the LCC, but a but of WTM is in it.

I believe that to hyper-focus on Western culture as the only culture worth studying can be a mistake. Such a study will help us understand much about current Western culture, but we are increasingly living in a Global world and we do, IMO, need to keep in mind that many cultures are what drive us all now.

My primary example of this is the attack at Pearl Harbor, which we are normally taught (at least I was), was an attack with no reason other than to start a war. Most people in Western culture don't study Japanese history, or if we do it's normally from the point of view of the Westerners.

But, a closer study of Matthew Perry will reveal that there was a basis for the attack at Pearl Harbor. When Perry "opened" Japan to Western trade he did so by sailing in with his cannons ready to take out all of the capitol of Japan, which was where the majority of the population was concentrated. Japan had never really wanted to deal much with the outside world. Their experience with other cultures has been that the majority of them just wanted to take over them and destroy their culture. But Perry threatened and they really had no way to fight back against a naval attack. It took ninty-one years for Japan to respond to Perry's threats. It's a long time, but an understanding of Japanese culture will help us to understand.

The same can be said of Custer and his famous last stand. Had Custer or the US government respected the fact that to the Sioux the Black Hills are sacred he might not have tried to force the mining operations there. Had Custer been taught that Sioux culture was worth of as much respect as Greek culture he might have lived to a nice old age. Honestly, if the best vein of gold ever discovered was under the Temple Mount/Mount Moriah would everyone just say "Sure, have at it!" or would there be people who took up arms and defended it with their lives.

These are two examples that underline that all is not perfect with a traditional classical education. The view that Western culture is the only culture worth studying had lead to, IMO, an excuse towards racism. Now I am not saying that all people who study Western culture are racist - far from that. It can, however, subtly say that any other culture is less.

You ask "how would you focus an education to prepare them for that world?", which is an excellent question. I don't feel qualified to answer that for the whole world or even one public school. I know what we do for our home school, and I feel it's ideal for my family and my one child. It might be different if I had two or more children.

For my eight year old daughter a good education has been a mixed one. I did a lot of Waldorf and the suggestions from WTM for Preschool and we read more than most. There was a lot of TV and most of the toys were open-ended. What was lacking was playing with other kids and that might have helped with social understanding. I have social anxiety problems, so it is my fault my daughter didn't play with other kids as much as she needed.

Elementary school has been a bit more Unschooling than I like, but it's working. I personally feel the focus should be on the Three R's ad daily subjects, with a few others as weekly subjects. My daughter loves science, so the suggestions in LCC aren't enough for her. That's one time I switch to WTM. In keeping with my view on a global society I do use SOTW since it does cover many cultures, but I do try and do the readings Drew suggests for history.

(It's been four hours - dinner time has come and gone along with a decent episode of Cold Case)

My daughter studies Japanese because I think it's good to hear a language that is radically different from English. Yes, Latin will help her build up a larger English vocabulary and help her learn Romance languages. But they aren't the most spoken languages in the world (Those would be Mandarin, English and Spanish, so one Romance language is on the list).

I do include life skills as part of our home schooling. This subject might be manners, how to change a flat tire, or how to deal with bullies. Lots of home schoolers that I know don't include this as a home schooling subject, but I do. I also do Religion and Geography. We talk about own own religion and we also learn about world religions in a respectful and non-judgmental manner. Geography is important to me because it's a good thing, again IMO, to know where places are and how the climate and location has effected cultural development.

My brain is tiring out, so I'm going to change to questions and answers at this point -

You ask "Do you think it's not possible to focus our education on great Western works and thoughts, AND to have an understanding of various non-western cultures?" Yes and no. I believe that there are only so many hours in a day and that if we say that Western works are the more important than non-Western then we are giving our children a not-so-subtle message.

"Do you think that classical education by definition will result in an adult who is not capable/doesn't understand other cultures?" By and large I think that classical and neo-classical education runs the risk of producing arrogant children by telling them that Western culture is the best and that the system of education that it produced is the best. If traditional or neo-traditional education was the best and always produced intelligent and thoughtful people then it would never have been abandoned. It has flaws and we need to be mindful of those flaws. I really don't want my child to end up like Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III and I don't think that will happen with other children but we do run that risk IMO.

"Do you favor a broad survey of culture, works and thought throughout an education, not picking any particular one as a "spine"?" Yes.

"I don't know if you saw it, but I have a post above on this topic as well." I hadn't seen that and I may look it up. I think I'll first look and see what you're doing now since four years have past since this post :D