Why classical education

Once in a while I have friends ask me about homeschooling. This was a response I started writing to a friend and decided to post it as a blog so others can read and get answers: I hope in some way that my experience had a slight influence on your considerations. I have talked extensively with M'Liss and Tara about getting more people interested in homeschooling in the ward. I know some are considering a co-op but I don't know how long it'll take for them to get going, and it may be only for middle school. So my biggest reason why I chose the WTM curriculum is that it is a type of leadership education. Besides the Thomas Jefferson education, I don't know of other leadership Ed curricula out there. The WTM is very language based(helps the child build a super strong foundation in language by understanding how language is constructed from the get go), trains them in logical and critical thinking, and grooms them in persuasive and rethorical writing and public speaking. Moreover, it teaches the classics which helps one learn and study morals and principles, a rare find in books nowadays. The curriculum has endless lists of great books, it purposely is against your regular library book, which may attempt to write about a moral but its vague stories offer no thoughtfull and compelling anecdotes to real life. A book that really got me thinking about this was Joseph Campbell's The Power Of Myth. Another wonderful part of the curriculum is history. You can start your child in 1st grade or 2nd(most classical schools I've visited start them in the ancients in second grade). I was way too excited to start and am so glad I did. Isaac is now an Egyptologist/ archeologist if you can a 1st grader one! Once in a while I'll ask him about where he would want to go if he could travel anywhere in the world and he says Egypt, always! I think he has watched every documentary on Egypt that netflix has. As a family who believes in God and the creation, I just loved starting history as it should logically start: from the beginning. One of the best parts of homeschooling is that one can integrate all subjects, you can run a completely interdisciplinary curriculum with a whole child approach. We've talked about the preexistence, and how that came before the world, we discuss evolution freely, and I love speculating about it, I even once compared Sargon the first known dictator to Satan. "Coersion and threats take away freedom, and you know who was the first person to try that?".... I have to admit another pull towards a classical education for me personally was learning Latin. Obviously it is not a requirement, but for me it is of the utmost importance. Having a latin based romance language in my back pocket, has opened up doors to learning Spanish easily, carrying simple but frank conversations in Italian in 9 days, surviving France, and even having an advantage is English. Thank heavens for cognates! As I read or even watch spelling bee contests I'm often amazed at how much I know because of one romance language derived from Latin. It is very important to me that my kids learn Latin, mainly because of the languages influence by it. Also how easy would medical and/or legal a terms be to a person who knows Latin? That to me is a big advantage while studying, wouldn't you say? In any case, if you choose to keep your kids in school, there's still so much you can do with them. Since this year I will be working at the clinic, I will have to put Isaac in school. Unfortunately it's not possible to put him in a classical school this year, but I'm devising a plan and hope I can carry it out with the help of his teacher. I want to have a syllabus of what is being covered so I can do reinforcement activities at home, get more in depth, find other solutions and answers to what is being taught. With such an emphasis on standardized testing, and the fact his school receives a 10 makes me wonder if the teachers are concentrating on teaching only for national tests. So I'm still planning to do field trips and activities outside school as well as teaching the subjects they don't get in school yet like history, geography, and reinforcing grammar and language arts. The WTM curriculum is one you can use for "after schooling" too. We've spent a whole day making a mummy that came in a kit I bought when Borders went out of business (Our history curriculum has a recipe for mummifying a chicken, but I just couldn't do it), we also made hieroglyphs with cookie dough, you can see them in the kids blog. We like to read books and watch their movie versions, do science activities on vacations (especially on the beach), Usborne has archeology and science kits, and as more people are turning towards homeschooling more products are popping up. We've researched and celebrated Passover, talked about the Exodus before eating Seder, made drawings of the 10 plagues and glued them to popsicle sticks, and painted our door red Another great resource are the forums. Www.ldshomeschooling.com, welltrainedmind.com among others give you great ideas, for all kinds of things. Amazon.com has everything you can possibly want to buy too! The possibilities are truly endless when a mothers is willing to teach their children. That's all for now...