Rogers Classical School

School is out for the summer and my children's education is now 100% up to Jason and I. Yikes! I have been working to come up with a plan for this fall. There are a million different options out there for curriculum. Every home school family I talk to is very happy with what they are using and they are all using something different!

Before deciding to home school, Jason and I were considering the Classical School of Wichita. After touring the school I knew the classical method was the way to go. The classical model for homeschooling is laid out in a book called The Well-Trained Mind.  I got really excited about the book when I read the following:

A common assumption found in history curricula seems to be that children can't comprehend (or be interested in) people and events distant from their own experience. So the first grade history class is named Social Studies and begins with what the child knows: first, himself and his family, followed by his community , his state, his country, and then the rest of the world.

This intensely self-focused pattern of study encourages the student of history to relate everything he studies to himself, to measure the cultures and customs of other peoples against his own experience. And that's exactly what the classical education fights against-a self-absorbed, self-referential approach to knowledge. History learned this way makes our needs and wants the center of the human endeavor. This attitude is destructive at any time, but it is especially destructive in the present global civilization.    

 A classical education is broken down into what's called the Trivium; Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric. In the grammar stage (K-6th) kids are little sponges. This is the who, what, where stage.They learn things like the dates of a war.  In the logic stage (6th-8th) kids start asking questions about what they're learning. This is the why stage. They learn why the war was fought. The final stage is rhetoric (9th-12th). Kids this age want to be heard so they are taught to debate. They learn to defend their stance on why wars are waged.

This is what is missing from the public education system. These are the skills I want to impart on my children. Heck, these are skills I can't wait to learn! I'm still making a list of the books I'm going to be using. I'll include them in another post in case anyone is interested.