The Well Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer, our newest Great Books Reading Partnership book selection, is a guide to the classical education you never had.  Many of us experienced a very traditional school curriculum yet have chosen to educate our own children classically.  Can we actually teach what we do not ourselves know?  My answer is both yes and no!

      I am providing a classical education for my children without having received one myself.  We are a work in progress together!  I have learned to learn along side my children.  Understanding the principles of a classical education and applying them in "real time" is the best I can do for now.  Together we have studied intensive phonics vs. the see & say/word recognition methods from which I learned to read.  We have progressed through Prima Latina, Latina Christiana I and II studying Latin vocabulary and derivatives, conjugating verbs and declining nouns.  Thus far, I have been able to stay a few chapters ahead of my kids!  But as they become voracious readers, I've realized I need to accelerate my own self education in classic literature.  I will be ineffective teaching the classics without first studying them on my own.

      In The Rise of Silas Lapham, William Howell affirms my decision to educate my children using classic literature as the spine of our studies when he wrote, "All civilization comes through literature."  I'm not fully convinced of his premise, but I have embarked on my own journey of self education through the classics to further explore this idea.  Thomas Jefferson encourages self education through systematic, chronological reading of the Great Books.   In the first chapter of The Well Educated Mind, the author echoes Jefferson’s sentiment.

     Susan Wise Bauer encourages her readers through simple steps and tenets of self study and enlightened reading.  The goals of a classical education are simply stated as:

1. grasp knowledge quickly and well
2. evaluate the validity of arguments
3. present your own opinion with grace and clarity

     Bauer sets forth a plan any "average", literate person can implement.  These steps will be summarized in future entries.  My first realization after reading Chapter 1....when it comes to a classical self education, intelligence factors into the formula exceedingly less than self-discipline and intrinsic motivation.  Hmmm....well at least I've identified my first obstacle challenge!

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Posted by Anonymous

I bought The Well-Educaed Mind and never made it through Don Quijote LOL I guess I am not motivated or directed enough. Even tried to work through the book with a reading group, and *none* of us made it.

Good for you for enriching yourself :)

--Rebecca
http://faeriedust2001.blogspot.com

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Posted by Sherry

I like Susan Wise Bauer very much. Did you know she has a blog? And she's publishing an adult level History of the Ancient World this year sometime.

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Posted by TOSPUBLISHER

What I like best about a classical education is that our children are learning to think for themselves instead of being spoon fed the answers. Today's education system puts in exactly what they want to get out of their little subjects.

-gena
www.TheHomeschoolMagazine.com

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