Progressive responsibility and appropriate consequences are two characteristics of self-discipline in a classical home school. But those are not the only attributes. Supervised independent study is the pinnacle of self-discipline to which all parents using this classical homeschooling method should aspire. When your children have substantially mastered language, thinking, and communication, pay attention. You will probably notice that your preteen or teen is also regularly teaching himself the material instead of relying on you to relay knowledge.

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David and I belong to a local health club. During the first few months of our membership, we hired a personal trainer to (1) perform some tests, and (2) show us how to use the equipment correctly. We had to fast from food and drink (no coffee…oh the headache!) the night before the first test, and when we arrived that morning, we had to wear this strange mask that measured our resting heart rates over a 20 minute interval. Next we both got on a treadmill and, still wearing the masks, ran a difficult course of increasing elevation to determine our body’s minimum and maximum metabolism. We were told to do as many push ups as we could (I hate pushups), and timed abdominal crunches. Finally, we were weighed (gasp…did I really weigh that?) and the dreaded pincher tool grabbed our thighs, waists, and arms to measure body fat percentage.

After all the results were entered into the computer program, a concise report was generated which gave us our personal baselines for improving our health IF we ate a healthy diet, exercised aerobically, and lifted weights. Personal goals for weight loss, strength, and body fat reduction were established. We then began a 12 week program with a personal trainer who used our personal plans to teach us how to use each piece of equipment without injury. Each week we saw improvement in strength, endurance, and weight loss as she challenged us to work at our maximum abilities.

When we began the program, we had high hopes that we would see results immediately (after all, we had doubled our exercise time!), but each week, we only saw little gains. However, now that the entire regimen with the personal trainer is over, we clearly see a difference in the way we look and feel; the physical results are measurable and positive. Neither one of us met the computer’s prediction by the end of the 12 weeks, but we are both still faithfully working towards those goals and know that, with time and practice, we will arrive at our destination even if it takes longer than expected.

Although we greatly enjoyed our personal trainer, we no longer need her help. She gave us all the guidance and even shared copies of her twelve plans with us so that when we were ready, we could launch out on our own fitness adventure. If we need any help, we can find her quickly and resolve any concerns or questions that we have.

Supervised Independent Study is like a Personal Training Program

Coaching your maturing child to the point of supervised independent study is like starting a fitness program. Imagine that you are the personal trainer, and he is the trainee. After all those years under your careful guidance, he has learned how to use the language to express his thoughts in writing and in speech. In essence, you have taught him how to learn!

As he gains confidence and age, he begins to take ownership of his own learning as he acquires more knowledge and interprets the meaning of what he’s learning. Not only have you taught him how to learn academics, but you have taught him administrative skills, too. Over the years, you have no given him more and more responsibility. You’ve shown him how to regulate his own schedule. Perhaps you even have him check and correct his own work now.

Once you determine that he is ready to begin the systematic study of subjects like economics, history, and philosophy, your role as personal trainer changes. Just like our personal trainer showed us the ropes then released us to implement the regime on our own, so, too, you need to release your child to supervised independent study when it is time.

If there are subjects that you or your husband are especially qualified or eager to teach them, then by all means, continue teaching those subjects! My husband, David, is an American Civil War buff, so there is no better mentor in that area of U. S. history for our kids. I love to write, so I take responsibility for supervising their increasing competence in composing speeches and essays. However, we employ the expertise of outside personal trainers in some areas: Meredith takes voice and piano lessons from a university professor, and we use video, audio, and live instruction from other experts as necessary. I regularly download the mp3 lessons from The Teaching Company, and I’ve spent too much money taking the kids to debate camps and Andrew Pudewa workshops!

Most of all, I’m delighted that both kids are able to let the text teach them! The tools that we have given them (like annotation and abstracts) enable them to have a “conversation” with the author of the text that really helps them to get to the bottom of the author’s intent and take ownership of what they discover. Later in this series, I’ll outline the scholar’s tools.

Four Mental Attitudes

Self-discipline is often about pushing yourself to accomplish tasks or adopt behaviors even though you’d really rather be doing something else. Every time that I had to do those push ups, I inwardly dreaded them but willed myself to move forward. Obstacles to progress, temptations to slothfulness, and hardships along the way will inevitably arise. You need to train your kids in rejecting immediate satisfaction for the greater good. Here are four lessons that David and I learned in the gym.

1. Identify your goal.

Before you can make progress, you need to first establish the baseline from which you are starting. Ask yourself, “where am I in terms of…?” Accurate assessments, no matter how embarrassing or painful, will help you realistically set achievable goals. Decide what steps you need to take to get there. Which steps are easy, and which steps are challenging? Be realistic.

2. Take the plunge.

As the Nike ads say, “just do it.” Once you have decided on a course of action, it’s time to move forward. Train yourself in tackling the project sooner rather than later. Don’t procrastinate. Attack the steps identified in reaching your goal systematically and strategically. It helps to break the goal up into to baby steps, plus you’ll get more endorphin rushes when you check off more to-dos!

3. Work hard.

Achieving your goals is hard work, but you need to work hard to achieve them. The challenges will be great, but so will the reward. Learn to use your time efficiently so that you are productive and effective. The pain may seem unbearable, but you will get through it.

4. Keep moving.

Don’t give up. There is such a joy to pushing through the pain even if you think you cannot take another step. The sense of achievement is worth the difficulties that preceded the goal. Move on even if you don’t feel like it. Keep your eyes on that vision that you established earlier and imagine what can be. Persist. Persevere. It’s worth it in the long run!

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The maestro who can bring a musical score to life or the Indy Car driver who can observe the signs of an engine problem have both learned how to interpret meaning. Insightful interpretation comes after a full knowledge and understanding of the topic is mastered. In my next two posts, we’ll look at the challenges of interpretation and three methods for interpreting meaning from face-to-face interactions to textual clues.

In ancient Greece and Rome, classical rhetoric was comprised of five canons or principles which provided a template for developing and critiquing speeches and written compositions. In canon one, INVENTION, the orator or writer determined the debatable idea, discovered the logical arguments, and developed the thesis for his speech or essay. Canon two, ARRANGEMENT, divided the speech or essay into the following parts: an introduction, a statement of facts, an outline, the proof, the refutation, and the conclusion. STYLE, canon three, involved determining purpose (instruction, persuasion, or entertainment) and selecting words for greatest effect.

Canon four, MEMORY, involved the ability to recall the elements of the speech. Every great orator was expected to recite his speech from memory, but canon four was more than simply memorizing a speech. One author, perhaps Cicero, called memory the “treasury of things invented” meaning that memory was the place where all the components of the debatable idea were stored. Additionally, memory had to do with structuring the speech so that the audience would retain the content, too, through use of enumeration and vivid descriptions. Here are two memory techniques that I have found helpful in our classical home school.

See, Say, Hear, Write, Move

Once you’ve written the speech, it’s time to start memorizing. Partition the speech into natural divisions (actors call these “beats” of character motivation), and tackle one section at a time. You could start with the introduction and learn each subsequent paragraph, or you might want to start with the conclusion and work your way backward to the beginning of the speech. Both methods work. When you select a segment to memorize, start by reading the entire section out loud. Not only are your eyes storing the content, but your ears are storing the data, too. Experiment with pronunciation, intonation, and pacing as you read the text. Decide which words or phrases are important enough to punctuate verbally with pauses, rising volume, or crisp consonants. Carefully listen to yourself speak. After you’ve read through this section, copy the text word for word, reading aloud as you write.

Now stand up and go back to the first sentence. Read it aloud while moving until you can recite it from memory. You might try an outstretched arm at an appropriate moment, or you might walk to the right and place your hands on your hips. Do the same with the second sentence, and this time, recite sentences one and two. Add sentence three so that now you recite the first three sentences from memory. Continue this repetitive layering technique until you’ve got the entire paragraph memorized. When you’ve got the first paragraph memorized, start on paragraph number two. Follow the same procedure and recite both paragraphs from memory. Keep plugging away by using all your senses until you’ve got the whole speech down.

Imagine the Room

Ancient orators used to “place” certain portions of the speech in the room where they would give the speech. For instance, if Quintilian was preparing a speech for the assembly gathering in the Roman Forum, he might go to the Forum and walk around looking for distinct images which he could then tag as he memorized his speech. He decided in advance where he would physically deliver or geographically “place” each component of the speech: the intro to the center steps, point number one to the marble column on the left, point number two to the statuary on the right, and the conclusion to the entrance. As the speech unfolds, each section is recalled as the images are viewed. This technique involves tagging by association; when you want to recall a certain portion of the speech, think of the tag, and you’ll remember the content associated with that tag.

So what do you do when you aren’t able to visualize or visit the room in advance? Use a room from your home for tagging the speech. Place point one at the sofa, point two at the coffee table, and the conclusion at the piano. Or you might want to use a familiar traveling route as your tags…from the garage to the mailbox to the entrance to the subdivision to the traffic light to the grocery store. Do you see how this works? Learning experts say that your brain forms associations between your environment and circumstances. An example of this is the bombing of the World Trade Center; you probably remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when you heard the tragic news even though it’s been years since the event. Your brain uses spatial and otherwise meaningful clues to store and retrieve information.

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Our brains have an amazing capacity to memorize large portions of scripts and speeches. As a speech coach and frequent judge at NCFCA speech and debate tournaments, I always prefer a memorized speech over a script that is read word for word. The student who commits the speech or debate constructive to memory is free to make eye contact, tailor the text to the needs of the audience, and receive nonverbal feedback as a result. These two techniques are not limited to formal speeches given by teens. Use these two techniques now to help younger children memorize short poems, Bible passages, and even foreign languages. If your younger child is not yet reading, you can read the poem or passage into a cassette recorder or mp3 player for the “hear it” portion of the memory technique. Start now and watch your child’s “treasury of invention” grow!

Tags: arrangement, classical home school, classical rhetoric, conclusion, debatable idea, Debate, essay, five canons of rhetoric, introduction, invention, logical arguments, memorizing a speech, memory, memory techniques, NCFCA, orator, outline, proof, public speaker, speeches, style, thesis, writer, written compositions

As I briefly mentioned in “Could You Define Classical Rhetoric?“, rhetoric is the art of oratory. Today we generally refer to oratory as “public speaking” or “speech;” however, I think you’ll agree that the principles of rhetoric can be appropriately applied to written communication like essays, research papers, and even journalism articles. Other than impromptu speeches, which happen on the spur of the moment with limited preparation time, most contemporary speeches start with a written script or at least an outline of the speaker’s (1) idea or claim, (2) proof or evidence, and (3) call to action. So for our purposes, I’ll define rhetoric as

a system for gathering, selecting, arranging, and expressing our material whether in oral or written form

Remember that rhetoric is one of the 7 liberal arts of ancient Rome. If you were to examine the other 6 liberal arts (language, logic, geometry, astronomy, music theory, and arithmetic), you would realize that each of these arts involves a system for gathering, selecting, arranging, and expressing the material.

Let’s modernize this concept. You could probably list a vast number of “arts” that also involve a system for accumulating, organizing, and presenting the material. For instance, the “art of cooking” involves deciding on the recipe, gathering the ingredients, combining the ingredients in a certain measure and order, cooking the mixture, arranging the final presentation, and serving the delightful dish to the audience. In a nutshell, the chef has concocted an idea, presented evidence to prove her idea, and announced a call to action: “eat and enjoy!” The art of gardening, the art sewing, and the art of singing are just three examples which follow a similar pattern of idea, proof, and call to action. Likewise, the master writer or orator develops an idea, presents the evidence, and calls the audience to action.

In other words, rhetoric for the classical home school is not a stage of educational progress, but rather a set of procedures and criteria that guide the author or orator in making strategic decisions during the composition process. During ancient and medieval times, this system was tightly defined as 3 kinds of persuasive discourse (deliberative, forensic, and epideictic oratory) which are the subjects of my next post.

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Have you watched my parent tutorial yet on “The 7 Laws of Teaching?” It’s just a little over 30 minutes in length and full of practical teaching tips that I have used in my own home school. You’ll learn a little history to put the 7 laws in context as well as assess your own expertise in the areas of teaching language, critical thinking, and communicating well. Click on parent tutorial image in the upper right corner of this page now, and the flash presentation will begin right away.

Tags: Add new tag, audience, author, classical home school, classical rhetoric, composition, deliberative oratory, epideictic oratory, essays, forensic oratory, impromptu speeches, journalism, orator, oratory, public speaking, research paper, Rhetoric, Speech, writer, written communication

Today I’d like to suspend my posts on Teaching the Trivium in your classical home school to share a thoughtful article written by my friend, Amy Barr, co-owner of The Lukeion Project, a website offering live, online classes on antiquity. Amy and her husband, Regan, teach Greek and Roman history, Latin, Mythology, Art, Architecture, and Greek and Latin Word Roots among other fascinating subjects. I had the privilege of taking one of their 4 week summer workshops on Troy, and it was superb. I know you’ll enjoy Amy’s perspective on history!

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I was at a convention speaking to a harried homeschool mom about educating high schoolers in ancient history when she shrugged and confessed, “This semester we are just going to focus on world history.” I said nothing but thought, “focus on world history?!”

I’m not unsympathetic. As a home educator of three myself, I know all about the tyranny of the urgent. By the time kids get into ninth grade, history often takes a back seat behind a stack of essential-life-skill courses like botany, algebra or creative writing. The worst case scenario? History gets crunched into a survey of the whole record of human activity in a mere 16 weeks. Our ambitions to ignite a passion in our children for learning about history are reduced to a card deck of names, dates and places plus an optional craft project.

History is so much more than surveys and flash cards. We realize this best when studying the history of our nation or of our own ancestors. We can walk battle fields, witness reenactments, grind corn like the first Americans, drive Route 66 or walk the Appalachian Trail. These things easily become real and important because they satisfy all of our senses and give us a sense of broader purpose.

At the Lukeion Project, we want to prove that the ancient world was in Technicolor too! We paint from a broad palette of archaeology, literature, and art. Greek and Latin add great depth. As icing, we flesh out the world of the Bible, walk with Paul or tour ancient Jerusalem. Greece and Rome begin at Troy, the site we once excavated and where Homer once celebrated heroism in the Iliad. All world literature opens up for learners who are introduced to Greek and Latin word roots, ancient tragedy, epic, rhetoric and mythology.

Thomas Jefferson prided himself on being able to write Latin with one hand, Greek with the other. Designers of our nation’s capital copied the Parthenon of Athens for the Lincoln memorial and the Pantheon of Rome for Jefferson. In Washington D.C., buildings are encrusted with symbols of two world powers so important that Hitler wrongly named his the “third.” Alexander the Great teaches tremendous lessons in genius, leadership and hubris. Julius Caesar embodies a fatal lesson about the relentless power of tradition. His heir, Augustus, taught Rome new traditions that included him as emperor. Classical Athens informs us of the strengths and weaknesses of direct democracy. Sparta illustrates the generational curse of the systematic (and legislated) destruction of the family. We learn Rome fell not because of barbarian invasions, but because of an addiction to luxury and power unequaled by any nation but our own.

We can not presume to be educated if we do not go beyond surveys. We must present Greece and Rome to our learners in 3-D and living color. The high school mind must be challenged to tackle the difficult life questions presented to us by the Classical world. Learning about the two cultures that have most shaped our own is a priceless life skill. It is well worth the time, effort and enjoyment. Let me just say: I promise that the family field trips are going to be out of this world!

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Coming up next: Teaching the Trivium, step 2, “Thinking Critically.”

As I explained in Teach the Skills of the Trivium, classical homeschooling begins with the following three skills: (1) learning the primary language, (2) learning to think critically, and (3) learning to communicate effectively. “Learning the primary language” is the topic of this series. In Learning the Language through Listening, I discussed three steps you can take to ensure that your kids are learning the language through hearing. In Reading Aloud: the Key to Language Development, I gave you 8 suggestions for raising kids who love to read. You might think that your child is translating the symbols on the paper into sounds in their head, but what he is really doing is translating the letters on the page into meaning. Comprehension is the subject of this post.

Understanding the Language

Do you remember those first board books that you used to read to your children? You’d hold your little one in your lap and point to the pictures and words as you read out loud. Perhaps you’d move your finger from left to right as the sentence progressed. Eventually your child began to point with you, and soon he excitedly “read” his favorite book to you! Why is learning to read so compelling? Because even the young child realizes that reading is not only fun, but reading is both useful and meaningful! The child learns that in the

“hodge-podge of black on white is a story, somewhat like the stories that Dad tells at bedtime, but steadier and simpler in its variation of words and nuances. In its many rereadings, the story will become part of the child’s world of imaginative experiences. And she will crave for ever more new ones.” (Seymour Itzkoff, Children Learning to Read)

Reading is not just sounding out letters in perfect articulation. Reading is comprehending, understanding, or making sense out of the printed text. The search for meaning should be the primary purpose of reading. Even a colorful board book has meaning that the child can comprehend.

One of Meredith’s favorite board books, Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, is about a bunny who postpones bedtime by telling all the objects in the room “good night.” In this example, the cute little bunny represents the little child, and the mama bunny represents the child’s mother. Meredith may not have been able to verbalize her comprehension at the time, but she understood that, like the little bunny, she could try to stall bedtime, but eventually she would have to go to sleep. Likewise, the text of sophisticated books, newspaper articles, and instruction manuals all have one final purpose: to convey meaning.

Seeing the printed text is an opportunity for learning the language. There are certain universal concepts about the printed word which every child needs to learn:

* print contains an exact message

* print can be letters and words which have individual sounds

* print corresponds one-to-one with the spoken word

*print progresses from left to right across the page and from top to bottom (with some exceptions)

*print progresses from the front page to the back page of a book

Children are incredible problem-solvers. For the youngest children, pictures act as clues to the meaning. As the books get more difficult, the pictures become less important, and the child has to determine the meaning of the passage from the text. Encourage your child to build a meaningful story in his head as he reads. Emphasize that every book has a lesson to be learned, a story to be told, or an event to relate so that over time he realizes that his foremost task in reading is understanding. In fact, problem-solving skills start with reading comprehension, so when you teach your children to look for meaning, you are helping them develop Skill Set Number 2 of the Trivium, critical thinking!

How can you help your child understand the meaning of the text?

One of the hallmarks of a classical education is the use of Socratic Dialogue in which you ask the child what the text means instead of telling the child what the text means.

*Ask LOTS of questions before you begin the book (and have your teen do the same!) by looking at the cover, the title page, and back cover. Flip through the pages and try to predict what the story will be about by browsing the pictures.

*Ask LOTS of questions AS you are reading the story (or after each day’s chapter for a teen). Find a good stopping place, and ask whether your predictions were correct? What will happen next? How will it end? (An older child is ready for more difficult questions about character analysis, plot, or cause and effect.)

*After you’ve read the story, have your child narrate the story back to you. Make sure he can tell you the beginning, the middle, and the end. Teens should be able to identify the hero, villan, conflicts, climax, and moral or application to his own life. If you want to enrich their learning, occasionally have them write their understanding. I’ll cover this in more detail later.

Another hallmark of classical home schooling is inductive reasoning. Consider the steps: (1) observe, (2) interpret, and (3) apply. In the case of a book, your child observes the details of the story, interprets the meaning of the story, then (hopefully) applies the lesson learned. Back to my example of Meredith and Goodnight Moon, my toddler observed that on every page the little bunny said goodnight to the things in her room (observation.) Then she understood that all little bunnies (and little girls) had to go to sleep even if they didn’t want to (interpretation.) Finally, she applied the lesson learned by allowing me to turn out the bedside light and without a peep and tuck her in for a good night’s sleep (application.) When you teach your children to think inductively, you are on your way to critical thinkers.

Like critical thinking and effective communication, reading or literacy is a cumulative, ongoing process. Think of reading as a continuum of increasing competence. Classical scholars are lifelong learners who, once they have substantially mastered the tools of the Trivium, are able to learn anything! Understanding the language involves determining the purpose or meaning of the written text as well as deciphering the code of the written text. The next post in this series on “Learning the Language” will cover a controversial homeschooling issue: phonics instruction.

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Since I published the post on 3 Simple but Significant Steps to a Classical Education, I’ve received several emails from readers with questions. If you have a question about teaching your children the primary language, especially reading, please click on the “Contact” page, and ask away. I’ll answer through email, and I just might use your question in a future post because if you’re wondering, there are bound to be other readers who are wondering, too. Looking forward to hearing from you!