“Outstanding … should be on every home educator’s reference bookshelf.” —Homeschooling Today This educational bestseller has dominated its field for the last decade, sparking a homeschooling movement that has only continued to grow. It will instruct you, step by step, on how to give your child an academically rigorous, comprehensive ed… More >>
#1 by C. A. Maloney on July 2, 2010 - 11:11 am
I’ve read this book twice. The older copy from my library was so helpful that I purchased the newer one and read it too. I just spent some time reading the 1-star reviews of it and find myself thinking, “These people just don’t get it.” First of all, you shouldn’t take on anyone’s homeschool philosophy whole-heartedly without researching and evaluating yourself and your kids. Also, the book does not claim to be Christian. In fact, the chapter on Bible specifically mentions that they are not going to presume to make your religious/faith-based-education choices for you.
Most importantly though, this is a how-to on classical education. The opening chapters say that yes, it’s strenuous, yes, it’s language oriented. It will be focused on reading, writing, and discussion. And I fail to see how anyone could say you get a shell of an education when the same topics are covered three times with increasing thought given each time. The whole purpose is to introduce ideas and then analyze them.
The authors introduce these ideas and expect you to analyze them too.
Use your own thinking here. If you want to introduce faith AND analytical thought, just teach your children about God’s truth AND greek philosophy. We have been studying Egyptian gods this week with my first grader, and she completely understands that there were people with a different way of thinking and that they did not know and worship the one true God. (In fact, of her own thinking, she reasoned that they would not live again in heaven and was very sad. I wouldn’t have intentionally addressed that at a young age.) Teaching the ways of other cultures does not water-down faith and it doesn’t worship the Greeks, as some critics said.
Also, if the time schedules don’t work for your family, don’t sweat it! You can teach this method without following the authors advice to the letter! Every home school is different and completely customizable. That’s the great thing about it.
I love the ideas behind this book of exploring a topic at early ages, analyzing it at the analytical age, and expressing your own genuine thought at the creative age. So different from my own education where we were not encouraged to have analytical thought until upper level high school.
It’s definitely worth a read. But not a hard-and-fast rule for everyone.
Rating: 5 / 5
#2 by Qwester on July 2, 2010 - 11:21 am
If you want to school your child to be an intelligent and more than competent member of society this is the way to do it. The best thing about this kind of education? No text books! The child learns out of books which have been written for the sake of learning facts and have not been polluted with some sort of agenda. The child gets a pure education the way children are designed to learn. Then when they are older they learn how to think and react logically. It’s painful how children grow up and never learn how to think critically. We chose this curriculum because there are lists of resources starting from preschool aged kids all the way to 12th grade. These lists are key, however, you should not stick to them completely but use your creativity and find other books or projects that might be better. For example, I did not like their suggestion for grammar stage anatomy. The Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia. In fact, I find that I don’t care for the Kingfisher series of encyclopedia’s very much at all. There is a serious lack of content in them. I chose the First Human Body Encyclopedia by DK instead. But here is the beauty, you really don’t even need the kids encyclopedia. There are enough resources out there that allow you to make you’re own curriculum for anatomy fun. Get books like “Uncover the Human Body” by Luann Columbo, “My Body” by PATTY CARRATELLO, “Head to Toe Science” by Jim Wiese, and since kids love visuals get an adult illustrated anatomy book like “Human Body” by Martyn Page, being careful with the reproductive pictures of course. The adult anatomy book then can be used in grades 5 and 9 to give the student a more in depth study of anatomy and you save money by not getting a kids encyclopedia. This is assuming that your kids aren’t squeamish. My 7 year old is just fascinated with whats inside his body and finds the adult anatomy books much more interesting than the children’s books which tend to give dumbed-down information under the guise of “age appropriate material”. Kids are capable of understanding so much more than we give them credit for. Mine surprise me on a daily basis. The down side of The Well Trained Mind? It takes time to research your books…lots of time! Time to: find books at your library, place holds and wait for them, choose the best ones, look through them once you get them and teach out of them. It’s worth it when you see just how much better your kids understand the subject and you’ll swoon when your child repeats facts to his friends from some random lesson a few weeks ago. Its worth it if you are prepared to spend the time making it successful. The program is designed to help your child get a world class education, but it’s up to give it to your kids.
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by K. A. Alphs on July 2, 2010 - 1:33 pm
To be honest I came across this book by total curiosity. I saw our pastor’s wife carrying it with her to and from church so I asked her what it was. After she showed it to me I decided to check out the library copy to read for myself. Since I had attended an “accelerated” public school which taught classical education I was curious as to what it would look like in the home setting.
“The Well Trained Mind” is authored by former public school teacher and homeschooling mother Jessie Wise, with additional commentary from daughter Susan Wise Bauer. The book begins with Jessie telling her own story of how she home educated her three children in the early 1970’s when homeschooling was virtually unheard of. Susan adds her own commentary by giving the reader a personal look at classical education. From there the book is divided into the three components of classical education: Grammar Stage: Kindergarten-Grade 4, Logic Stage: Grades 5-8, and Rhetoric Stage: Grades 9-12. The book ends with the chapter on “How to Home Educate Your Child” and appendices. The Well Trained Mind is an excellant, non sectarian resource for those who would like to learn more about home education with a classical emphasis.
Rating: 5 / 5
#4 by BekahKnits on July 2, 2010 - 1:51 pm
This book changed me from very against Homeschooling, to being a Homeschooler.
Do not be put off by the thickness of this book. It is divided by age group, so parts may not pertain to you yet.
A reader has the chance to glean from the experience and wisdom of the author, and her adaptive approach to the Trivium Method of homeschooling.
After much research we are using this book as our manual to closely follow the Trivium, and looking into the many suggestions for curriculum that supports the Trivium Method.
Rating: 5 / 5
#5 by Skippy on July 2, 2010 - 4:30 pm
This is a great starting point for homeschoolers who want to design their own curriculum. It focuses heavily on reading skills and math as the foundation for a superb education. Then it builds into history, geography and the sciences. This book offers methods for teaching your child how to learn, not just what to learn. I benefited from ideas for improving preschoolers’ vocabulary and speech. However, if fine arts are as important to you as they are to me then you need to find an additional resource.
Rating: 4 / 5