Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

There is this view out in the homeschooling community that Classical Educators are rigid, forcing our children to do tasks just to get the work done. After all, we make our kids do grammar, and spelling, and Latin, and write compositions, and do school for hours on end, all while sitting at a desk. Oh how I’d like to dispel that myth, but I know that isn’t possible, so here’s a little glimpse into our school day.

Presently ScienceKid is lying on the sofa reading Euripides Ten Plays. He insisted that this was the book he wanted to read next for his 9th grade Ancients Great Books course. He actually started reading the book over the weekend for fun so I agreed with his decision. Yesterday he finished writing an argumentative essay on Antigone reflecting on whether it was morally right for Creon to forbid the burial of Polyneices. Already he is reflecting on the story-line differences between Euripides and Sophocles and I imagine that his next essay will be a compare and contrast between these two authors who lived at the same time in history. He is the one concerned that he is not doing enough writing, not doing enough reading, not as far along as where his PS peers are. I really do not know where he gets these ideas that he is behind but he has them.
ScienceKid has always been one to jump at learning with gusto but what do we Classical Educators do when our child lags behind? You see that is MilitaryKid.  MK entered fifth grade this year which in the Classical Educators world marks the beginning of the Logic Stage. Of course not all children enter the Logic Stage at the same time, nor do they magically enter it when 5th grade begins. One Logic Age skill is to learn to outline a piece of writing. I taught SK at the beginning of 5th grade how to outline, so in September I sat down with MK and began the process of helping him learn this skill too.  We began with a bucket of Legos and organized them into different groups by an attribute. We then took one of these groups and organized these pieces into sub-groups by a new attribute. I think the first time we did this, MK chose shape for his major attribute. We then took one of the groups and MK chose to further sub-categorize these pieces by the number of pegs the piece had. MK caught onto this concept right away but he wasn’t able to transfer this concept to outlining his history book. We sat together a few times, me leading him through the process of picking out the topic sentence and the few supporting items to form the outline. The experience however was like trying to stop a new puppy from chewing on chair legs—-frustrating. I put outlining aside for a few months, and had MK answer questions about his history reading instead, continue with adding dates to his timeline, write short descriptive sentences about the wars or the people he was reading about, and find on a map the area discussed in his reading.

Last week in history we revisited outlining and I sat with MK pointing out the topic sentence, suggesting the supporting items and guiding him on how to write an outline from his history reading. He GOT IT!! The following day he began his outline, asked me if he had the ‘right’ heading, and did he have the ‘right’ supporting points, and of course I enthusiastically said he did. It was so neat to see him get it. Then today I sent him off to re-write his spelling words from his Spelling Power book, and suddenly realized that he had been sitting at the island a very, very long time.

“MK, what are you doing?”

“Mom, I’m doing my History outline. What’d you think I was doing?” Sure enough he had a wonderful outline. I was sure he was goofing off and that my bathroom would soon be cleaned. No such luck :-)  He had finished one topic and moved onto the next subject since he knew the task that needed to be completed.  He also verbally shared the early Chinese history he had been reading and outlining with me.  

Also in the fall I started MK in the writing program Classical Composition. I had taken SK through this program and knew that folks start kids in CC in 4th grade. I didn’t try to start this program last year since I felt MK had plenty of other stuff on his plate so we began this fall. That first assignment was like trying to push a rope along. It wasn’t working so CC was put on the side. Seeing how independently MK was working on history outlines I pulled CC back out. He breezed through the outlining on Tuesday, breezed through re-writing sentences on Wednesday, and breezed through re-writing the story today.

So that is what this Classical Educator does. I have certain skills I want my kids to learn as we work through our school years, such as outlining, such as writing a composition from an outline, and a certain timeline for when these skills should be mastered. When I saw that MK was not grasping the idea of outlining, the task was put aside for awhile. If he had not grasped it last week it would have been put aside again for another 3 months or so, and then we would have tried again.

So, that’s a little glimpse into our school day. Just a little I know but I do need to watch a puppy so he doesn’t eat our home.