Personalizing Classical Education

Some parents are worried that classical education is too "off the rack" for their children, but there are many opportunities to individualize classical schooling, and you can customize how you present subjects and add in-depth studies for your students.

The link below is to Drew Campbell's Multum Non Multa, from his Latin-Centered Curriculum, and it provides an important caveat for parents and teachers tempted to rush their children through a list of Great Books.

Graduate school students at the University of Chicago may only study 10 Great Books in their Master's year, so don't feel like your 10 year old is falling off the plan if it's not finished by week's end. Some of the lists (1000 Great Books for children age 7-10 etc.) are absolutely overwhelming, and often don't provide any ways to prioritize what to read or how long to study.

When customizing our studies, we considered some of the following:

1. Interests - Special Topics, People, Ideas

Our kids often fell in love with certain subjects, and we allowed them to pursue in-depth studies. Our daughter fell in love with comparative mythology, so we got lots of books from the library and allowed her to do more creative work involving mythological themes. Our son was interested in history and logic, so he had more in-depth learning with Roman rulers and battles, fallacies, and formal coursework in argumentation.

Sometimes children will have strong preferences of people-based learning, while others may prefer the world ideas. Classical learning has plenty of enrichment for both, so a customized curriculum for one children could look very different from another. Highly personal learners would like to hear about Hannibal, Horatius, and Demosthenes, whereas the conceptual-philosophical types might enjoy political theory and disagreement, philosophical rivalries, and cultural clashes.

Some students are precocious thinkers, and the beauty of the classical curricula is that there is no limit to the depth or complexity of learning with this stuff! Don't stick to rigid ideas about the trivium! Many grammar-age children are capable of some dialectical aspects to their education, and higher order thinking will deepen a child's appreciation and enjoyment of a subject's material.

2. Visual vs. Verbal

Some children are more strongly visual or verbal, and an accommodation of these differences might make some of the complexity of ideas or experiences easier to master (and enjoy)in the educational process. For highly visual learners, we like to encourage access to direct sources - real artifacts in museums or grownup books of antiquity with beautiful pictures - give them a taste of the real thing, not just watered down "kid books."

Verbally-gifted children may especially enjoy classical language study and word derivations, or challenging verbal activities - such as the rewriting exercises of the Progymnasmata or the challenge of writing in verse (we'll post some of ours, later!). Many talented verbal thinkers are also good argumentarians, and they may enjoy elementary logic and beginning concepts in rhetoric.

3. Remember the Big Picture

What are your priorities in classical education for your children? Do you want your children to understand the lessons of history? Do you want them to develop their character? Do you want them to be able to defend their faith and know how to make good decisions in the future?

Guide your children to interesting stories, people, or events, and see how they respond. Don't over-schedule. There will be plenty of time for revisiting topics and times. Enjoy leisurely study and reflection, appreciate beautiful arts and verse, and discuss the wisdom or folly of events as they occurred. What do these stories mean to you? Can you see any continuities into the present?

Latin-Centered Curriculum: Multum Non Multa

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