Posted on 06/08/2010 7:44:05 AM PDT by SwotSonOfSitetest
I wore my high school ring for more than 40 years.
--SNIP--
I wore the ring (and will wear it again) because although I have degrees from two Ivy league schools and have taught at U.C. Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Columbia and Duke, Classical High School (in Providence, RI) is the best and most demanding educational institution I have ever been associated with. The name tells the story. When I attended, offerings and requirements included four years of Latin, three years of French, two years of German, physics, chemistry, biology, algebra, geometry, calculus, trigonometry, English, history, civics, in addition to extra-curricular activities, and clubs — French Club, Latin Club, German Club, Science Club, among many others.
--SNIP--
Sounds downright antediluvian, outmoded, narrow and elitist, and maybe it was (and is; the curriculum’s still there, with some additions like Japanese), but when I returned home I found three new books waiting for me, each of which made a case for something like the education I received at Classical.
--SNIP--
[S]he [Leigh Bortins] proposes a two-pronged program of instruction: “classical education emphasizes using the classical skills to study classical content.” By classical skills she means imitation, memorization, drill, recitation and above all grammar, not grammar as the study of the formal structure of sentences (although that is part of it), but grammar as the study of the formal structure of anything: “Every occupation, field of study or concept has a vocabulary that the student must acquire like a foreign language . . . . A basketball player practicing the fundamentals could be considered a grammarian . . . as he repeatedly drills the basic skills, of passing dribbling, and shooting.” “Every student,” Bortins counsels, “must learn to speak the language of the subject.”
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Dear metmom,
Not quite a homeschooling article, but very much related, philosphically.
Dear narses,
I thought this might be an interesting article to you.
sitetest
Actually, the actual article in the NY Times is more explicitly about homeschooling than I realized.
I read the article with great interest because my brother-in-law was an English teacher at Classical for many years. He retired because he was sick of what Classical was becoming due to political correctness. Now it is apparently more of a day-care center for troubled youth than a true institution of teaching and learning. Very sad - and not a slam to current teachers, but VERY DEFINITELY meant as a slam to school administrators.
Interesting article. I plan to homeschool my children when I actually have some, but this makes the case I’ve been studying for my Masters in English: modern linguistic and classical arts and sciences studies have fallen by the wayside in lieu of theoretical technology-based studies.
Thank you for this article, Swot. Bookmarked for future use.
Interesting.
I’m a couple more years out from starting homeschooling (baby girl is only one!) but I’m becoming convinced that I need to at least investigate classical education philosophy that’s becoming popular with homeschoolers. I know our homeschool will be more math and science focused than a lot of the strict classical homeschoolers I know - but I think it should be a “both and” not an “either or”.
I attended that school in the late 60’s/early 70’s, prior to getting accepted into St. George’s.
The primary need was a friend to watch your back in the boy’s room.
I pulled a B+ average there while spending four days out of five at Barrington beach.
We drive back to RI once a year or so to see the MIL, and you can have it: we love NH.
The flux capacitor of Classical Education has been fluxing our college students for many decades now..
Many are pretty well fluxed..
Although Professor Fish says it much more lucidly than I have ever said it, this was really at the foundation of our own homeschooling experience. The ideal of the classical education was that for which we strived.
We seem to have succeeded, at least in large part. You will note the name of the poster who posted this article. Yes, he is my son.
And yes, I shamelessly pinged this article to folks with substantial ping lists. ;-)
sitetest
I was homeschooled and we did not use a deliberately classical structure. Some of the concepts were there but not deliberately expressed.
The wonderful thing about homeschooling is the ability to pick and chose elements of philosophies on a family or even child by child basis.
One area many homeschoolers neglect or contract out is high school level math and science and it’s a serious failing that we need to work at. Hopefully the more parents think about education, rather than just grabbing a curriculumn, the more that gap will shrink.
“The primary need was a friend to watch your back in the boy’s room.”
Yikes!
Great article. We do classical home schooling here.
One of the reasons that we chose to send our sons to a “regular” school for high school (after homeschooling through 8th grade) was realizing that the school to which we're sending them has very good and rigorous math and science curricula that would have been difficult for us to match.
Math and science are very important.
But what was critical to our decision was that their school is not driven by “practical” aspects of educations - what the article talks about as the goals of No Child Left Behind - helping young folks get the education to make a lot of money and to broadly increase national income.
Although folks who are well-educated often optimize their earning power and ability to achieve material success, THAT IS NOT THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF EDUCATION.
At my sons’ high school, the goal is to make “Gentlemen and Scholars.” This is much closer to the classical philosphy than making Rich Lawyers and Investment Bankers.
sitetest
Dear tgusa,
That’s really too bad. I was having some hope that the “old-fashioned” ways were making a comeback.
It’s rather ironic that the administration of the school have rejected the classical curriculum, considering that the idea of having schools at all is derived from classical thought. If Plato hadn’t started the Academy, the educators wouldn’t be here to reject Plato!
Oh, well. Nothing good lasts forever, I guess.
Swot
btt
He’s been retired for 10-15 years, so maybe things ARE turning around up there. I really hope they are. But I’m not holding my breath. It really is too bad.
What a great article! I have spent enough time in the public school system to know that the left knew just where to begin in destroying our culture. So far, they are succeeding.
It is pretty much of interest to homeschoolers.
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