I was introduced to the book The Well Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer when my oldest child was four years old (in 2001). We were not using preschool, I was a mother-at-home and I intended to homeschool my kids. This was the same family who was the first homeschooling family my husband ever met. They lived in Houston and they introduced our family to this book by having Amazon deliver a gift copy to us. I had never heard of the book before this.
Whenever a homeschool mom recommends a curriculum or approach to another family you need to consider their personal perspective and point of view. In this case the mother of three whose oldest was about to enter fifth grade was feeling overwhelmed by the large possibility of topics to expose her kids to and had a new fear of not knowing how to touch upon everything she wanted her kids to learn. She explained to me that this book we refer to as TWTM helped by providing a framework: what topics to teach in what grade and helping her know "how much is enough" while also providing a solid foundation for a rigorous academic education. The fact that one book covered preschool through high school was comprehensive; it presented a big picture view of how to teach the classical method.
When I cracked open the book, my reaction was, of course, based on where I was at the time. Back then I had a one and a four year old and my main project was mothering them while also unpacking from a recent move to a larger home. I was juggling volunteer jobs which were personally fulfilling to me while chasing a toddler and a preschooler around, trying to keep them safe while they did things like play in the dirt pile in the rain and other such boyish adventures.
Back at that point in my homeschool journey I was trying to avoid anything in our home school that looked like what I experienced in public school. I wanted curiosity led learning and deep learning, fun times and exploration that were meaningful and educational but not coerced or forced or negative in any way. I was very much influenced by John Taylor Gatto and John Holt, but my kids were so young that many of the cool educational endeavors they spoke of kids doing were things that may happen in the future not in the here and now. I had not yet heard the name Charlotte Mason, her influence had not yet touched my life.
When I first looked at TWTM I was put off by the rigidity. Who is to say that science topic X should be done in grade 1? They recommended that book but what about this book and that book and that other book that we read and loved? I was bound and determined to give my kids a customized education and I felt too confined by the preschool and elementary grade recommendations put forth in TWTM. However I did like the rigorous academics of it, especially for the older grades. My goal has never been to raise underachievers or to raise my kids to be intentionally stupid or ignorant. I respected the book enough to keep it.
A couple of years later, close to my home, a new homeschool support group was formed to support classical home education. I joined the group and became friends with some of its members. A problem I had was that some families seemed to take TWTM's recommendations so literally and I felt they were arrogant and looked down upon others who were using the framework or not "doing TWTM enough". I tried to stay away from those people so our interactions with the group were on and off over the years. I felt the same way about the radical unschoolers. I was looking for a tribe that was more tolerant of personal freedom in homeschooling and who was open-minded to customization. I wanted independent minded people around me yet not the ones who were content to let their kids do nothing much at all who also thought avoiding college was a good idea since it was nothing but a financial rip-off. Those types do not have the same mindset as me.
As I learned more about learning styles I came to the opinion that the resources recommended in TWTM and the type of learning activity was best suited to left brained learners who learn by reading and being read aloud to, and who find penmanship easy, and who can easily handle many hours of sitting still a day. That was not my older son at all. My use of TWTM was mainly for the teaching of history using a chronological methods, using The Story of the World by Bauer and the activity guide which rounded out the learning to include hands on projects exciting supplemental reading of picture books.
At some point later I read an article in Home Education Magazine that said that if you do all that TWTM says it would take 35 hours of direct instruction a week for an elementary grade student. That matched my concern that TWTM was too much like regular school for my taste and that it seemed time intensive. Spending that long on school for elementary school I thought was ridiculous since 1:1 homeschool teaching is more effective than group learning in school. A young kid should not endure seven hours of seat work a day alone with mom, I think. I also heard a response to this, that Bauer said the publisher made her make a solid recommendation to teach every subject in every grade and that it was never the author's intention for readers to be so literal in their acceptance of their advice.
As my younger child grew older I saw a marked difference in his learning style and in his precocious ability to learn and with his happiness sitting still and begging for workbooks and his pleasure in doing assignments and getting things done. This kid, I felt, could easily do and be happy with the type of assignments recommended in TWTM.
At that point in time my opinion of TWTM was positive with the caveat that I still felt that homeschoolers should take advantage of their freedom by developing a customized education so long as their energy level and enthusiasm allows. Those mothers who dislike customization are free to follow any expert's plans or to buy a school in a box, their choices are not for me to judge. I am all for supporting homeschooling and making it work well for children, by whatever method works for a family; I am in no place to sit and judge others or to insult people for making a choice that's different than mine. With that said, I don't like being judged by others for my choice to customize my kid's home educations when they choose to follow a strict formula, somehow thinking that there is "only one right way to homeschool".
As I write this, I'm at a point where I have nothing but respect for the aim of classical education and the method prescribed in TWTM. I have respect for a rigorous academic education and for a classical education. If following the plan works easily for your child and it is working for you, you are lucky. Most people I know use some of TWTM and adapt others to meet the needs of their child.
I have kids with different needs and one with a brain injury from Lyme Disease (formerly it was labeled a visual processing disorder but we now know the root cause was brain injury). I now see plainly that all the recommendations in TWTM are not suited for kids who have special needs or for the kids who were not ready in preschool or Kindergarten or first grade to have a lot of sit still and do your worksheets type of schoolwork. Asynchronous development (with or without giftedness) does not pair well with TWTM if you take all of the recommendations literally and strictly.
It is possible that TWTM was not a good fit for one of my kids when he was in elementary school but the high school program is a great fit. But a classical education is a foundational program and one could argue that if there were significant gaps in the logic stage's goals then the student is not ready to do the work in the rhetoric stage. However it seems to me that homeschooling is messy and mushy sometimes, kids can fly through some learning and catch up, and they can sometimes require taking longer to master a skill that a book said should have been mastered last year. It makes no sense to get caught up in fretting over the details. All that matters to me is that my kids keep learning and moving forward, if they are ahead in this but behind in that and on track with the other, well, that's just how life and learning goes.
I applaud the voices in the homeschool community who support rigorous academics and who are not ashamed to set high aims as both reasonable and desirable. I especially like the experts who allow us room to pick the materials rather than a curriculum provider who just pushes their school-in-a-box product for each grade level onto customers.
I appreciate the conference speakers who discuss method of learning and teaching that educate me as a homeschool parent-teacher so that I can either use them with their recommended method or so I can use them with something more customized that I create for our homeschool.
Have I blindly followed any one homeschool method? No.
Have I changed my opinions over time about what is right for each of my children as my children grew and changed over time? Yes.
Have I ever embraced a method now that I formerly thought was too confining? Yes.
Have I been more rebellious and creative with my kid's education than some experts dictate? Yes.
Are my kids learning? Yes.
Am I perfect? No.
Are my kids perfect? No.
Will my kids be ready for college? I hope so, and I'm trying hard to make sure they are.
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Tomorrow I will hear Susan Wise Bauer speak at a homeschool conference for the first time. I'm thrilled. Years ago I purchased audio recordings of her lectures from conferences I did not attend in person, and I have listened to them over and over for inspiration and information and for my own self-education. I can't wait to see her in person. Maybe I'll also be able to thank her for her work to be one of the active voices in the homeschool community in support of classical education and in support of high academic standards.
It's a shame though, that Bauer is about to start a sabbatical in reaction to negative experiences with Christian homeschool conference organizers. Read more about that here: You Heard It Here First.
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At the time I am writing this my sons are entering grade 10 and 7. Our thoughts are on homeschooling high school, high school sports and NCAA requirements, college admissions, keeping options open to play NCAA sports in college, and helping my sons prepare for the college major of their choice. The older son desires to be an engineer, petroleum or aerospace, and the younger changes his mind: he'd like to be an entrepreneur and self-employed, or an orthodontist, or a trial lawyer or maybe something else he has not yet discovered. To prepare best for these science college majors guess what is needed? A rigorous academic education with a heavy emphasis on math and science and also a strong grasp of the English language and strong writing skills if for no reason other than to get high enough scores on standardized tests such as the SAT. And a classical home education can prepare such students well for that.