Have you ever wondered why you suffer? You may suffer with a chronic disease. Perhaps you suffer from depression or anxiety. Maybe you have lost something or someone you love and wonder WHY your pain is so intense. Sometimes we home school moms suffer the subtle condemnation of our friends who choose not to homeschool their kids and wonder why we are such curiosities. Suffering can be physical, mental, or spiritual. There are times when our suffering is directly related to our personal choices, but sometimes I believe the Lord allows our suffering for the sake of others.

Recently when I was on a fabulous ski vacation with my family, I had trouble getting my ski boot attached to my ski binding. In fact, I pushed, pulled, and stomped on the binding with my foot until my quadricep muscle was burning with fatigue. I strained and fought with that silly boot and binding for a good 20 minutes. So frustrating, and yet I knew the procedure from years of skiing…why was I having so much trouble doing something that I knew how to do?

Along came my husband, and he quickly assessed the situation…somehow in my exasperation, I had closed the binding position, and all he had to do was open the binding and my ski boot popped right in. Well, I felt like a fool, but I was so grateful for David’s intervention. It sounds selfish, but I have to admit, I skiied down the slope wondering WHY the Lord had allowed such a delay in my fun.

Later that afternoon I understood. I was coming down a snow-covered slope when I came upon a lonely man struggling with his ski binding. He was clearly exasperated, and I asked if I could help. He looked up at me and said it was just so frustrating trying to get his boot back into the ski binding. I quickly looked at the binding and realized he was in the exact same situation I had been in earlier that day…all I did was do for him what my husband had done for me…I pushed my ski pole on the catch, and the binding opened so he could slip his boot into the binding.

As I glided down the mountain, I thanked the Lord for allowing my earlier predicament. My suffering had caused me to see with clarity the need of another who was also suffering so that I could offer the Lord’s kindness.

Although this example of suffering is trivial, I do remember some serious suffering with a capital S! When my son, Davis, died in 1991, I suffered more physical, mental, and spiritual pain than I had ever experienced in my life. The agony was sometimes overwhelming, and I didn’t smile for 6 months. But soon after I began to heal, the Lord showed me a way to serve Him by using my suffering. I heard about a grief recovery program at my church and decided to volunteer. The professional counselor knew that she could refer grieving moms who had lost children to me because I knew what it felt like to have empty arms. I had walked the same path that they were walking, and with God’s help, I had survived to praise Him even in the bleak mystery of loss.

Are you currently suffering? What are your stories of grief or pain? Perhaps the Lord wants to use your suffering for the sake of others. Open your eyes; tell Him you’re ready to give back to those who need His comfort. Do for them what He has done for you.

In my last post, Shaky Speculation: The Lost Tools of Learning, I examined the history of classical Christian education and why the current renewal movement is based on the following faulty premise: the psychological development of children (poll-parrot, pert, then poet) roughly follows the chronological pattern of the medieval trivium (grammar, logic, then rhetoric.) I explained how the current “classical” education model regularly recommended in homeschool circles is really just a 12 year public school paradigm with classical subjects tacked on for enrichment. Now if you accept my position, the next question is this:

Where do you go from here if you want to give your kids a true classical Christian education?

Well, in my family, first we strip away the idea of a 12 year, subject-driven schedule and all the trappings of a public school model including start and finish times, standard holiday and vacation dates, textbooks, and dedicated school rooms. Then we go back to the content of the original trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and establish that we will master these skills (the “lost tools of learning”) over several years. [Note: In order to help you resist the temptation to think of the trivium as 3 subjects, I will refer to the 3 stages as (1) language acquisition, (2) critical thinking, and (3) effective communication.] Finally, during the final stages of the trivium, we then begin to delve deeper into discrete “subjects” (historically called the quadrivium) based upon each child’s gifts, abilities, and interests.

In a nutshell, there are 3 simple but significant steps to a classical Christian home education:

1. Discard the old public school paradigm
2. Teach the skills of the trivium (language acquisition, critical thinking, effective communication)
3. Supervise the study of subjects after the skills of the trivium are substantially mastered

This doesn’t begin to explain the entire process, but I hope it helps you get your mind around the simplicity of the system. Each family will uniquely tailor the three steps. Look for my next post on step one, “Discard The Public School Paradigm.”

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Let’s get a dialogue going on this topic…it was a real stretch for me that took a few years and lots of reflection to realize that our classical home school didn’t have to be so rigid. Have you found yourself tied to a schedule or concerned because your had fallen behind in completing the tasks? Let’s talk! Leave a comment below.

Do you know a friend who might be interested in this conversation? You can forward this post to a friend by going back to the Home page and clicking on the envelope icon called “Email This Post.”

This post is the 2nd in a series on the flawed premise of the classical home education renewal movement. The first post was called “Why The Well-Trained Mind Will Drive You Crazy!“

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First, here’s a little history lesson. The classical model of ancient Greece and Rome was resurrected during Emperor Charlemagne’s reign in the Middle Ages and given a Christian twist. This classical Christian model which included the trivium, the quadrivium, and many more subjects was faithfully followed in Europe and North America for several centuries thereafter until around the middle of the 1800s when the Common School Movement began in the United States in response to a huge immigrant influx. A secular public educational model and lack of classically-trained teachers effectively removed the classical Christian method from schools. For the next 100 years, classical education was practically nonexistent with the exception of some prestigious private academies which catered to the elite classes.

During the 1940s, British author Dorothy Sayers, presented an essay at Oxford University called The Lost Tools of Learning in which she compared the sorry state of modern education with the historically preferable state of classical education. She proposed that we had lost the tools necessary for learning how to think. In the early 1990s, respected pastor and private school educator, Douglas Wilson read Sayers’ essay and then wrote his own book, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, in response. Next, Harvey Bluedorn wrote Teaching the Trivium, and a few years after that the mother-daughter team of Wise and Bauer wrote The Well-Trained Mind. By the end of the 1990s, a classical Christian education renewal movement had begun in the United States. Sayers’ essay was the flame that ignited the fire.

Early in the essay, Sayers accurately recounts the composition of the medieval classical education: first, the trivium which included the “tools” of learning: grammar (language acquisition) logic (critical thinking), and rhetoric (written and oral composition) which young men tackled before moving on to the quadrivium (the specific “subjects” of arithmetic, astronomy, music, and geometry.) In her anguish over the modern state of nations where men and women don’t know how to think, Sayers speculates that there may be a connection between the medieval trivium and the stages of child development. She posits:

what if the psychology of the child progresses through the 3 stages of the trivium?

Sayers names the 3 stages of child development poll-parrot, pert, and poetic; she then concludes that the 3 stages of the trivium are “singularly appropriate” to the 3 stages of child development. Based upon her own personal experience as a child, preteen, and teen, this hypothesis does seem to make sense, but in real life, it has never been clinically proven, and in fact, in my own experience as a mom who has tried to follow this model, I have found that the 2 pieces do not correlate. In fact, Sayers absolves herself from blame by saying, “My views about child psychology are, I admit, neither orthodox nor enlightened.”

My objection relates to the current classical renewal movement’s (1) misinterpretation of Sayer’s personal opinion on child development as gospel truth, (2) misapplication of Sayers’ hypothesis to a 12 year schedule, and (3) deviation from the historic classical education model by tackling subjects as soon as the child can read. In practice, we have taken a public school model (12 years of subjects) and dressed it up by incorporating classic literature, ancient languages, formal logic, and oratory as follows: 4 years (grades 1-4) in the “grammar” phase doing subjects, 4 years (grades 5-8) in the “logic” phase doing subjects, and 4 years (grades 9-12) in the “rhetoric phase doing subjects. No wonder moms and dads who try to adopt a classical education model fail! If you look closely, this is a public school paradigm with “classical” subjects tacked on!

Medieval scholars did NOT impose a 12 year trivium on their apprentices. They taught their students the basics first (the trivium: first grammar, then logic, then rhetoric), and when the student had the tools for critical thinking, speaking, and writing, he or she was instructed in subjects. In our current culture, we rush to formally educate; you might be surprised to discover that medieval and colonial students began the trivium at a much older age (14 years old) and quickly progressed through the trivium so that they could dive into the meatier subjects of the quadrivium. In later years, additional subjects were added to the curriculum including law, medicine, and theology.

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In my next post, I’ll discuss options for classically educating your home school children. I’d love to read your own experience with any of the books mentioned, so please leave your comments below.

The Well-Trained Mind (TWTM), by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer, was THE very first book that captured my attention when we began to consider giving our kids an education at home. I was smitten with the concept of classical home schooling right away! I loved the vision and conversational style that Jessie and Susan offered, but 8 years after trying to fully implement their suggestions, I am convinced that the “trivium” as they teach it is impossible to achieve.

Overly ambitious, TWTM feels a lot like traditional school with harder subjects. Twelve years of math…twelve years of science…twelve years of grammar…argh! Add the “classical” subjects that I never had as a student (logic, latin, and rhetoric), and all of a sudden, “classical” home schooling felt like a huge task. At first, I tried to do everything they recommended, but over the years, I began to eliminate as many of their ideas as I embraced because they didn’t work for our kids, or they were just too tedious. I spent way too much money in the first few years purchasing various curricula that enslaved us (Abeka Grammar, Canon Press Logic II), and I felt such a burden because I was trying to follow TWTM and always fell short! I have talked to so many moms who were excited about classical homeschooling only to give up in frustration. Today, I use The Well-Trained Mind as a resource and not as a blueprint; read more about their educational philosophy.

Perhaps you are one of those parents who was initially excited about the concept of classical education, but somewhere along the way you lost your drive. Maybe you felt discouraged or wondered how you would get it all done! If so, you’ll want to read this entire series. Through no fault of your own you have been operating under a false understanding of a classical Christian education which positioned you and your children for failure. Now please don’t think I am suggesting that the leaders of the renewal movement are intentionally conspiring to deceive; that is NOT what I am saying. I am merely suggesting that the current classical education renewal movement is operating under a faulty premise because the historical trivium was never meant to be taught the way we do it today. In the next post, I’ll give a little background on the current classical education renewal movement so we’re all on the same page.

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Tags: classical education renewal movement, Classical Home Schooling, Jessie Wise, latin, Logic, Rhetoric, Susan Wise Bauer, The Well-Trained Mind, trivium