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September 5 - September 30, 2020
Public schools, which have the impossible task of teaching children of many different faiths, must proclaim neutrality. We don’t deal in matters of faith, the teachers explain. We’re neutral. Think about this for a minute. Arguing for the presence of God is generally considered “biased.” Assuming his absence is usually called “neutral.” Yet both are statements of faith; both color the teacher’s approach to any subject; both make a fundamental assumption about the nature of men and women. To call this neutrality is intellectually dishonest. Education cannot be neutral when it comes to faith: it
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Many elementary-school history texts, unwilling to run the risk of lawsuits, tell third graders that the Pilgrims gave thanks at Thanksgiving but never mention God. One particularly bad text informs children that the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians.
SUBJECT: Art and music TIME REQUIRED: 1–4 hours per week
One of the distinctive traits of classical education is the attention it pays to basics. Classical education takes great care in laying the proper foundations for reading, writing, math, history, and science. Laying foundations is time-consuming. If you learn these subjects thoroughly and well, you may find that you don’t have a great deal of time for other areas of study at this level.
The purpose of the elementary years is to accumulate knowledge, yes, but the focus of your teaching should not be sheer amount of material covered. Rather, your child ought to be learning how to find information, how to fit information together, and how to absorb information through narration, notebook pages, and memorization.
We suggest that you try to schedule at least one block of time (an hour or two) per week for art and music appreciation. If you can manage two blocks of time during the week, do art appreciation one day and music appreciation another. If you can only cope with one more teaching period per week, alternate—art appreciation one week, music the next.
Third and fourth grade Week One Day 1: Art lesson, 60 minutes Day 2: Read an artist biography Day 3: Do picture study, 15–20 minutes Week Two Day 1: Listen to classical music for 1 hour Day 2: Listen to classical music for 1 hour Day 3: Read a composer’s biography Repeat sequence Note: You could also choose to focus in on music during the first semester and art during the second semester, or vice versa.
Dover Art Postcards. New York: Dover. Order from Rainbow Resource Center. These sets of art postcards (24 each) provide a simple way to do picture study. $5.95–$6.95 per set. Berthe Morisot Dalí Degas Ballet Dancers (small format postcard book for $1.99) Leonardo da Vinci Manet Paintings Masterpieces of Flower Painting Monet Picasso Pre-Raphaelite Paintings Renoir Van Gogh Vermeer Winslow Homer
Venezia, Mike. Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists. Chicago: Children’s Press. $6.95 each. Order from Rainbow Resource Center or check your library. These short, 32-page children’s books provide an entertaining introduction to some of the most important artists of the Renaissance and later, along with very nice reproductions of paintings. The text is written on a third- to fourth-grade level. Botticelli. 1994. Bruegel. 1994. Mary Cassatt. 1994. Paul Cézanne. 1998. Dalí. 1994. Da Vinci. 1994. Gauguin. 1994. Francisco Goya. 1994. Edward Hopper. 1994. Paul Klee. 1994. Henri Matisse.
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Usworth, Jean. Drawing Is Basic. Parsippany, NJ: Dale Seymour Publications, 2000. $21.47 each. Order from Rainbow Resource Center. For the busy parent who wants to do art but can’t find the time, these books offer fifteen-minute “drawing breaks” for you to guide the student in; these breaks teach beginning skills and grow a little more demanding with each year. Drawing Is Basic: Grade 1. Drawing Is Basic: Grade 2. Drawing Is Basic: Grade 3. Drawing Is Basic: Grade 4.
Beethoven’s Wig. Cambridge, MA: Rounder Records. $11.99 at iTunes. A favorite at the Bauer household, this puts (silly) words to great music, builds familiarity, and reveals the underlying structure of symphonies and other music forms. Sing-Along Symphonies. 2002. Vol. 2: More Sing-Along Symphonies. 2004. Vol. 3: Many More Sing-Along Symphonies. 2006. Vol. 4: Dance-Along Symphonies. 2008 ($14.98).
Brownell, David. A Coloring Book of Great Composers: Bach to Berlioz. Santa Barbara, CA: Bellerophon. $4.95. Order from Bellerophon. Portraits to color along with biographical sketches for fifteen composers each. Vol. One: Bach to Berlioz. Vol. Two: Chopin to Tchaikovsky. Vol. Three: Mahler to Stravinsky. American Composers.
Hammond, Susan, producer. Classical Kids series. Toronto: Children’s Group. $16.98. Order from any music store, from Rainbow Resource Center, or check your library. These CDs combine music with history and dramatic storytelling to familiarize children with great composers and their works. Very highly recommended. Beethoven Lives Upstairs. 2000. A young boy learns about Beethoven’s life through letters to his uncle. Hallelujah Handel. 2000. The composer gets involved in a fictional plan to help an orphan boy who sings but won’t speak. Mozart’s Magic Fantasy: A Journey Through “The Magic Flute.”
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Third Grade Reading 20 to 25 minutes per day of phonics work until program is finished. 30 minutes of reading (skill building), 3 times per week; one instructional, one at-level, one below-level. Literature 30 to 45 minutes, 3 days per week, focusing on literature of the late Renaissance and early modern eras; make notebook pages (narrations) once or twice per week; memorize a poem every 3 to 6 weeks. Spelling 20 minutes per day, 3 to 4 days per week. Grammar 20 to 30 minutes per day, 3 to 4 days per week. Writing Penmanship, 10 to 15 minutes per day. Dictation exercises 3 days per week (may
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Fourth Grade Reading 30 minutes of reading (skill building), 3 times per week; one instructional, one at-level, one below-level. Literature 30 to 45 minutes, 3 days per week, focusing on literature of the modern era; make notebook pages (narrations) 1 or 2 times per week; memorize a poem every 3 to 6 weeks. Spelling 20 minutes per day, 3 to 4 days per week. Grammar 30 minutes per day, 3 to 4 days per week. Writing Penmanship, 15 minutes per day. Student should write her own narrations 3 times per week (may be completed as literature, history, or science assignments). Optional: add practice in
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Monday Phonics (25 minutes) _________ At-level reading (30 minutes) _________ Grammar (20 minutes) _________ History (40 minutes) _________ Literature (25 minutes) _________ Penmanship (10 minutes) _________ Math (45 minutes) _________ Writing (dictation, 15 minutes) _________ Tuesday Phonics (25 minutes) _________ Spelling (20 minutes) _________ Writing (narration, 25 minutes) _________ Science (1 hour) _________ Listen to music and color (30 minutes) _________ Penmanship (10 minutes) _________ Math (45 minutes) _________ Grammar (20 minutes) _________ Wednesday Phonics (20 minutes) _________
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Monday Phonics (20 minutes) _________ At-level reading (30 minutes) _________ Math (45 minutes) _________ History (60 minutes) _________ (Includes narration exercise) Literature (30 minutes) _________ (Dictation exercise as part of literature) Penmanship (15 minutes) _________ Latin (30 minutes) _________ Tuesday Phonics (20 minutes) _________ Spelling (20 minutes) _________ Grammar (10 minutes) _________ Listen to music and color (30 minutes) _________ Penmanship (15 minutes) _________ Math (45 minutes) _________ Science (90 minutes) _________ (Includes 1 narration) Latin (30 minutes)
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Monday Literature (45 minutes) _________ At-level reading (30 minutes) _________ Math (45 minutes) _________ History (60 minutes) _________ (Includes brief written summary) Penmanship (15 minutes) _________ Latin (30 minutes) _________ Tuesday Penmanship (15 minutes) _________ Spelling (20 minutes) _________ Grammar (10 minutes) _________ Listen to music and color (30 minutes) _________ Writing course (25 minutes) _________ Math (45 minutes) _________ Science (90 minutes) _________ Latin (30 minutes) _________ Wednesday Grammar (30 minutes) _________ Instructional-level reading (30 minutes)
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Curriculum Planning Worksheet Use this worksheet to start planning out each year of study. Download a PDF version of this worksheet at welltrainedmind.com.
Unfortunately, illiteracy is still soaring in states where whole-language classrooms dominate. There are several reasons for this. First, many whole-language teachers, while insisting that their methods differ from look-say, are still using look-say drills. They read texts over and over again, pointing to each word and encouraging the children to join in. Children eventually learn to recognize many of the words through sheer repetition. This, of course, does nothing to teach them how to read real literature, which might contain words they haven’t seen in the classroom. Second, most
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Guessing (whole-language teachers prefer to call this “predicting by context”) is perfectly all right. Ken Goodman, professor of education at the University of Arizona and a whole-language proponent, says that “accuracy is not an essential goal of reading.” § This attitude is one of the most troubling aspects of whole-language reading. A classical education tries to equip a child to join the Great Conversation, to understand and analyze and argue with the ideas of the past. Those ideas are important. Those words are important. Aristotle chose his terms with care; the reader must struggle to
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Teaching reading by a pure whole-language approach is like trying to train a house builder by showing him a manor house, explaining to him how to construct those parts that catch his interest—a chimney here, a porch front there—and then leaving him to figure out the rest on his own. A classical approach first explains the properties of brick, wood, concrete, plaster, and steel; then teaches the prospective builder to read a plan; and only then sets him on the task of house building. A builder who knows his work from the bottom up can fix a leak or a sagging floor, instead of staring helplessly
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Somewhere around fourth grade, the growing mind begins to switch gears. The child who enjoyed rattling off her memorized spelling rules now starts noticing all the awkward exceptions. The young historian says, “But why did Alexander the Great want to conquer the whole world?” The young scientist asks, “What keeps the earth in orbit around the sun?” The mind begins to generalize, to question, to analyze—to develop the capacity for abstract thought. In the second stage of the trivium, the student begins to connect all the facts she has learned and to discover the relationships among them.
The poll-parrot stage has prepared the middle-grade student for the logic stage in two important ways. First, the middle-grade student should no longer be struggling with the basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic. A child must read fluently and well before entering the logic stage; the student who still battles his way through a sentence cannot concentrate on what that sentence means. The logic-stage student will write extensively as he evaluates, analyzes, and draws conclusions; the study of grammar and punctuation will continue through high school, but the basic mechanics of
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Now, you won’t be feeding the child with a spoon. You’ll be asking her to dig a little deeper, to do more discovering on her own. Instead of lecturing, you’ll concentrate on carrying on a dialogue with your child, a conversation in which you guide her toward the correct conclusions, while permitting her to find her own way. You’ll allow the child to disagree with your conclusions, if she can support her points with the facts. And you’ll expect her not simply to repeat what she’s read, but to rework the material to reflect her own thoughts. Once she’s done this, she’ll have learned the material
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insist that your young students keep up in each core subject area, while you allow them to follow their interests in the less essential fields of study.
SUBJECT: Formal logic and puzzle solving, grades 5–8 TIME REQUIRED: 3 hours per week
What is logic, anyway? Logic is simply the study of rules of reasoning. Think of logic as a roadmap that keeps you driving in the correct direction.
We suggest that you begin with a year of what we call “casual” informal logic: a year of exploring terms and methods of informal logic through storybooks, puzzles, and other fun activities. This will serve as a warm-up for a more organized study of informal logic. Plan on spending two more years working through an informal logic course, and then wrap up with at least one year of formal logic. Progressing on to the second year of formal logic is optional, and the progression may well run over into the high-school years.
Sample progressions might look like this: For the student comfortable with both grammar and mathematics: GRADE TIME PER WEEK SUBJECT Fifth 2 hours “Casual” informal logic Sixth 3 hours Informal logic I Seventh 3 hours Informal logic II Eighth 4 hours Formal logic I Optional progression forward, for students inclined toward mathematics and philosophy: Ninth 4–5 hours Formal logic II Tenth 5–6 hours Symbolic/propositional logic, introduction Slower progression: GRADE TIME PER WEEK SUBJECT Fifth _______ _______ Sixth 2 hours “Casual” informal logic Seventh 3 hours Informal logic I Eighth 3 hours
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Langman, Kris. Adventures in Reason series. Boston: Post Hoc Publishing. Logic to the Rescue: Adventures in Reason. 2008. The Prince of Physics: Adventures in Reason. 2014. Entertaining ebook series about a heroine who enters a magical land filled with knights, talking scarecrows, castles, wishing wells, and logical fallacies. A fun introduction written on a fifth-grade level, excellent for students who enjoy reading.
SUBJECT: Mathematics and algebra, grades 5–8 TIME REQUIRED: 45 to 60 minutes per day
