Kay left these two questions below:
Classical education teaches logic, reason and rhetoric which is something that I never learned going to public school. I never learned how to spot fallacies or argue properly, so to me it seems as though its a must…but my heart just can’t get there. Is there a way to help children in those three areas without a classical education which suggests that the child learn in chronological order and be forced to write, read, write read all day long?
My son will be 12 in a couple of weeks and he does talk about going to college someday, I’m just starting to get a little bit freaked out and any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Kay, I think I will answer the second question first since I can answer that out of experience. Our son will start college in another month or so. What we told him a couple years ago was that if he wanted to take his program of choice at college then he would need to work through these sections of these books. Because I was teaching at college in that field at the time, I already knew what books he needed to work in. But that is something which you have lots of time to find out. What is important about that strategy is that the choice to study whatever subject is still his. If he starts digging into it and decides he doesn’t like it, then he can search around for a field which suits him better. In the mean time, he will have 4 years where he can explore his interests and gain experience that will help him make a choice that HE will be happy with.
There are, from my perspective, thousands of tools which are readily available which train in logic, reason and rhetoric. Before I get to the tools, I would like to explain why I’m going to give you the answer that I give you. As I mentioned above, I used to teach at a technical college. Everything I taught was somehow related to my field of expertise, which is computer programming. Some students had about 500 hours in my courses over the duration of the programs I taught in. What I would tell them at the beginning and remind them of as often as the opportunity presented itself was that what would make them a good programmer was programming.
Programming is like riding a bicycle. You can talk about it all you want, admire all sorts of different types, debate endlessly about the advantages and disadvantages of different models, watch videos of professional riders riding their bikes. But, in the long run, the only way you are going to learn to ride a bike is to get on one and ride it. You may be wabbly at the start. The only way to become a good bike rider is to practice.
Skills are developed through practice. Public school was supposed to teach us logic, reason and rhetoric. But I expect few people learn it there because the exercises they are given are too structured and controlled for any student to get any practice. If your children do not want to follow a course of study then making them do it will not teach them the intended subjects, whatever they are, simply because the only skill they are really exercising is enduring a controlled environment.
For logic, I would suggest things like stretegy games (eg. chess), books like 2, 3 or 5 minute mysteries, mystery novels (eg. hardy boys), puzzles, brain teasers, etc. Any of these will provide lots of practise in logic.
TBH, in thinking about it, the first thing that came to mind for both reason and rhetoric were books. Lots and lots of books. While I don’t have any great issues with the classics, I don’t believe that the reading material has to be classics for the reader to learn from them. From reading we learn how other people say things and discover there are writing styles that we do like and others that we don’t. I’ve never felt that I was particularly articulate. When I write, I write, to some degree unconsciously, in a way that reads well for me. Secondly, you can provide them with lots of opportunities in day to day life to practice both of these things. In our home we talk about the news, politics, history, science, etc. in a way that comes as close as it can to being equals.
I think almost anyone will become a natural problem solver, thinker and speaker/writer if they have the chance to immerse themselves in other people doing those things and practive the skills themselves.
Are there other readers who can constructively add to this?
I have no comments on the teaching of logic, reason, etc. though what you say sounds right to me.
I do have something to add to the going to college thing. I used to be a university professor in a university which had high entrance standards and attracted a lot of nice middle-class kids who had gone to “good” schools and had supportive parents (financially and otherwise). The thing that most depressed me about teaching these people was that they were terrified to take risks. They couldn’t make a decision for themselves. Not even a decision about which books to read for an essay. I made it one of the objectives of the introduction to sociology course to get these folks into a better learning mode.
So, I think that if you have been homeschooling in a way that isn’t some really regimented program, this is probably a good thing. If your child is saying at 12 that s/he wants to go to college then get some brochures for community colleges and universities to get a sense of what the admissions requirements are. Go to open days. Basically, research what they expect of an incoming student. Not you, your kid. YOU (the parent) need to focus on helping your kid structure this research sensibly (at 12, you don’t need the same kind or quantity of information as you will at 16) and help with what comes next.
Help you kid set goals and work out how to acheive them. This fits with Ron’s advice to discover the field that really interests them. No goal is set in stone but if you need to have a certain level of accomplishment in math to get into most programmes, then now is a good time to work out how you will acheive that over the next 6 years. If you need a second language (or want one) now is a good time to pick one and start. That sort of thing.
But if your child can set goals and work towards them, and take risks, make their own decisions, etc. they are well set up to succeed in higher education.
Oh, I suppose you might want to know about bureacratic necessity. And now is probably a good time to check out if places your kid might want to go have special admissions procedures for homeschoolers or if they have a non-traditional admissions process. Or just to talk to someone in the admissions office about what they might require as evidence of meeting the admissions standards (and whether non-traditional entrants are eligible for merit scholarships). Then if you do need some formal courses or something, you have plenty of time to work out how to fit those in.
I just wanted to mention to Kay that one way to teach logic to a young child is to teach the logical fallacies. I did this last year with my 13 and 14 year olds. We used The Fallacy Detective. http://www.triviumpursuit.com (I think!). I would just pick up the book a couple times a week and read it aloud to them. They really enjoyed it. It has lots of humor in it. We did it in a very relaxed way and it proved to be thoroughly interesting and enjoyable. It is a Christian resource and rather conservative (at times it was more conservative than I am and I am kind of conservative). So if that is not to your liking you could just try to get a list of the logical fallacies, go through and define them and then hunt for them. They are EVERYWHERE in the media.
I agree with Ron that wide reading is the number one way to learn how to reason and express oneself. Then if your son in high school wants to study classical logic or rhetoric more formally, he can do so. But at age 12 reading and good discussions are the best teachers.
Another wonderful resource to teach you how to teach your child to analyze literature is called Teaching the Classics. I have enjoyed this dvd lecture series immensely. The teacher is brilliant! And it will allow you to impart critical thinking to your son by reading works of literature together and then analyzing them. The web address is http://www.centerforlit.com. My 15 year old daughter actually and quite voluntarily watched these with me! I could see lightbulbs going off over her head! She really felt like she learned so much from it. After each lecture she’d get up and say “wow, that guy is a really good teacher!” So I highly, highly recommend them.
Anyway, those two resources are ones I have personally used that have allowed for a relaxed classical approach to learning.
Blessings,
Faith
Well, I keep promising myself that I’ll create a new genre of homeschooling referred to as relaxed classical. But I think I am a little too relaxed to patent the idea. But I think you are a rare bird, attracted to the well-rounded education that classical can provide, but appalled by the confines it could impose. I know about 3 or 4 other people like this. I’m sure there are tons more. I think Ron hit on the big ideas, logic can be taught many ways and making literature, poetry, music and art a huge part of your lives can help too. I think it is possible to let the kids lead their own education and then read aloud to them stuff that you think would be useful. My children have never asked me to stop reading a thing, even the most archanely worded creation myths keep them glued to the seat.Also, I have heard that a kid who is ready can learn all of the higher math principles in under three months of study. I wouldn’t want to be that kid but it helps to know.
Thanks for all the replies. Perhaps the classical education proponents just make it sound like a must when really, those things are pretty much natural for most people, aren’t they?
I agree with the reading and writing for teaching logic, reason and rhetoric. I never thought of reading mysteries and playing chess as teaching that, though. My mother said that I was reading when I was 3. I was the first born child and she had a lot of time to sit and read with me. I grew up reading Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown. I always tried to solve the mysteries before the end of the book. I still enjoy mysteries today, novels and on TV and movies. I learned to play checkers and chess when I was around 9 or 10 and my dh taught me Stratego. I have always been a natural writer and speller for as long as I can remember. I believe that reading all the books I’ve read – classics and all – have contributed to that.