Hot Carmel Sundae Comments
Before you finish the Well Trained Mind you may want to visit the conversation about classical homeschooling at the Heart of Wisdom blog.
May give you a different view , if you are interested.
Robin, you make some very good points about Greek and Roman literature. I'm wondering, have you actually read The Well Trained Mind? Although the word "classical" is frequently misused, taken to mean an emphasis on the Greek and Roman classical works, this is not what TWTM means by the phrase "classical education." Rather, it is about two things: first, a recognition of three developmental stages of learning, in which a child moves from rote learning to understanding to analysis; and second, an emphasis on the whole of history, offered in a chronological and coherent way.
The idea is not to focus on the "traditional" classics, but to center education around history and literature, correlating literature with the historical period currently being studied.
This year, for example, our focus is on the medieval times, and we will be reading the works of people like St. Augustine, and reading about the founders of monestaries, the early knights, and those who helped form our modern languages. If there is any point I really want to get across this year, it is that the "dark ages" are misnamed; they are so-named by people who thought that the focus on faith in life was a form of darkness, where really it was a spiritually formative time.
I thank you for bringing up this important point about the dangers of stressing pagan literature as a height of wisdom. I think I may write a post on the subject.
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