The Classical Scholar

Inspiring Homeschool Invention

I get so excited when I come across a national contest that homeschool kids can enter, and this competition inspires invention which fits right in with teaching the three skills of the classical trivium in your Christian homeschool:  language, thought, and speech.  Two winners will be selected, one from the k-8 group and one high school student, to receive a huge prize package each.  If you are creative and diligent in recording the work performed, you can incorporate the entire process from start to finish as part of your homeschool curriculum for the high school transcript.  For example, Meredith and Connor are both writing essays for the homeschool speech ISI George Washington essay contest, so I will be including that as part of their composition credit.  This particular contest involves video production and the use of software, so you could incorporate this project in any number of courses for homeschool high school credit:  composition (writing the script), information technology (using the video software and video camcorder), or even art (graphics and photos).  Here are the competition highlights:

The Advertising Council, Sony Creative Software and Discovery Education have announced the “Inspiring Invention” public service advertising (PSA) development contest to engage a new generation of children in innovation. The contest is part of the Ad Council’s “Inspiring Invention” campaign, sponsored by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation (NIHFF). The contest is open to school groups at the elementary, middle and high school levels nationwide. In addition to prizes including Sony video and audio production software and hardware, the winning entries will be distributed to media outlets throughout the country in spring of 2009.

Entrants to the Inspiring Invention PSA Contest will submit their video in either the elementary and middle school or high school categories by March 15, 2009. Contestants are encouraged, but not required, to download a demo of Sony Creative Software’s leading video editing application, Vegas Pro 8 software or Vegas Movie Studio software. Initial entries will be submitted to Sony Creative Software on DVD accompanied by a backgrounder on the production and theme. If selected as a semi-finalist, participants will then furnish broadcast-ready components for final judging.

One grand prize winner will be chosen from each of the two categories and awarded a prize package valued at more than $22,000, featuring Sony Creative Software’s professional video and audio production applications, Vegas™ Pro 8, Sound Forge™ 9, Cinescore™ and ACID™ Pro 7 software, as well as Sony Creative Software content including loop libraries, sound effects and Cinescore themes, in addition to having the PSA aired on national television. See full contest rules and regulations including a printable pdf with lots of details for your budding homeschooler videographer.

I am a firm believer in competition even if the homeschool child has little realistic hope of placing in the top finalists.  Why is that?  Well, when you give a homeschool child or teen an attainable goal with a hard deadline, they usually step up to the plate and give their best effort.  They also learn so much in the process about being organized and systematically tackling a task.  Why not incorporate this video contest into your homeschool curriculum after the holidays?  You’ve got plenty of time before the March 15, 2009 deadline, and it will look great on the high school transcript whether your homeschool teen wins or not!

How do you evaluate your homeschool child’s progress towards mastery of the three skills of the classical trivium?  Consider the race car analogy.

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The Pit Stop

Indy Cars enter the pit for one reason: maintenance. Periodically throughout the race, the driver pulls into the pit for fuel, tire changes, and for other engine or body work. The experienced pit crew member assesses the situation and prescribes a solution. Personally, in the “Lockman Racing League,” we like regular pits! I probably reassess the kids’ progress about every 12-18 weeks. I use my “road maps to mastery” as a gauge and adjust the homeschool schedule and curriculum content accordingly. Weaker areas get more time. Sometimes I’ll even table all other work and do a quick intensive to make sure they are getting the concept. We’ve been known to stop everything and do a “grammar camp” or nothing but algebra until I was satisfied that they “got it.” Feel free to use my mastery road maps as a guide to help you develop your next semester curriculum plan.

The Score

Indy Car drivers accumulate points over the racing season as they compete in multiple races around the country. You need criteria for judging mastery, too.

How will you evaluate the learning?

In our home school, we have one performance philosophy: do it well or do it over. We don’t accept mediocrity. Once Connor was performing poorly on his math lessons averaging about a 60-70%. My husband took control of the situation and started grading his work. Instead of circling the errors, he simply told Connor how many he missed and told him he had to find them. Basically, he had to do every problem again to find the errors. Although it was a painful lesson that took a couple of weeks of endurance, Connor learned to take his time, check his work, and master the material.

Although I do use letter grades for recording high school level work for the transcript, I prefer to evaluate mastery using a scale that I found in John Milton Gregory’s The Seven Laws of Teaching. Basically, you pick a skill and answer the following question. For instance, how much do you know about analogies? punctuation? bibliographies?

• I know nothing about…

• I am somewhat familiar with…

• I can generally describe the steps to…

• I can illustrate and explain how to…

• I am beginning to understand the deeper truths of…

• I am changing my behavior because of…

When they reach the changing behavior status, you know that they have mastered the material. Additionally, I really like to have them teach others the concept. You cannot teach what you do not know, and there is nothing like having to prepare a home school lesson that clarifies your misunderstandings or weaknesses. By the way, the word “master” is defined as “one who has such extensive knowledge and comprehensive skill that he is able to teach others his specialty.

The Training

Alas, mastery is hard work for both parent and child. Home school parents who may not remember (or maybe never learned) the “rules” of the race need refueling to restore long-forgotten knowledge. Thankfully, a rusty parent can come up to speed rather quickly with a little review. The child, however, begins each of the three skills of the trivium as a novice, and consequently, his or her journey towards mastery will take years of learning and practice before language, thought, and communication skills are finally conquered. To continue with the race analogy, the parent runs a sprint while the child runs a marathon!

Mastery of the three skills is not consecutive; the skills are usually built concurrently over time. In other words, your child doesn’t master language then master critical thinking then master writing then master public speaking. In fact, your child can work on mastering all three skills of the trivium at the same time. Consider the child who is learning about multiplication. As he learns the vocabulary like factor and product (language), he makes ordered stacks with the colored tile manipulatives (critical thinking) and sings the multiplication songs to his little brother (speech).

Additionally, you may find that your home school child has substantially mastered one skill (like the spelling component of language) but is still working on another skill set (the grammar component of language). Instead of drilling the spelling rules, devote that time to diagramming sentences.

The good news is this: if you have dropped the 12 year public school paradigm, then you are free to spend as many years as it takes teaching only three major skills: reading, thinking, and speaking. In some families, mastery of these three skills takes six years; in others, it takes eight years. Even if you spent the first  eight years guiding your child toward full command, that still leaves four years for your teenager to dive deep into the Socratic Paideia where dialogue drives instruction  during the high school years of home school.  In the process, he will compile a very impressive transcript. Don’t worry about how long it takes; teach your child language, thought, and speech until he is able to teach others and become a master of the three skills of the classical trivium just like Indy Car racers.  With your customized homeschool curriculum, you have the luxury of doing everything well!

In Shaky Speculation: The Lost Tools of Learning, I examined the history of classical Christian education and why the current classical home education 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 classical 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 three subjects or stages, I will refer to the first three liberal arts (the trivium) of the seven liberal arts as (1) language, (2) thought, and (3) speech. Finally, once these three skills have been substantially mastered, the parent mentors the homeschool high school teen in the reading of the classics as they together craft a unique homeschool curriculum and high school transcript based upon each teen’s gifts, abilities, and interests.

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

1. Discard the old public school paradigm
2. Teach three skills until mastered
3. Mentor teens in the pursuit of knowledge

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.

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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 about these three simple but significant steps to a real classical education.

Although a classical Christian home education is academically rigorous, you should still make time for meaningful extracurricular activities like sports. In the early childhood years, experiment with a variety of activities so that you can be more intentional in the high school years as you are preparing the transcript. We tried lots of different sports before settling in on their favorites.

My kids have been involved in sports from the preschool years. Meredith started swimming on the local summer swim team, and Connor began playing baseball when they were very young. Not surprisingly, those 2 sports, swimming and baseball, have turned out to be their favorite athletic events. They also tried gymnastics (too tall), volleyball (not tall enough), basketball (really not tall enough), and golf (I’m still hoping they’ll acquire a passion one day…Connor seems more interested than Meredith…she thinks it’s boring.)

Our culture is obsessed with sports, and although I think sports need to take a back seat to academics, I do see the value of:

• maintaining a fit and healthy body
• learning discipline and patience as skills are gained
• participating with team members
• serving on the sidelines or on the field
• improving mental concentration and physical endurance
• accomplishing difficult goals
• learning how to lose graciously

Both of my kids are athletically confident and competitive, but my greatest joy over the years have been the times when the coaches and parents took me aside and complimented me on how kind, helpful, or mannerly my kids were. My face just beams when I hear these words of praise because I know they are becoming people of influence by living righteously. They are both gifted athletes, but the competition victories are not what is most important — it is their actual day-to-day responses to the challenges of the sport — on the field, in the natatorium, in the dugout, in the locker room — in community — that really matters and has an eternal impact on the lives the Lord has allowed them to influence.

David and I have made an effort to be involved in their sports, too, so that they see us serving. David loves coaching baseball and keeping score while I have been team mom and regularly volunteer to time races and collect admissions at swim meets.

Opportunities for sports involvement can be found by canvasing your local churches (many host Upward activities), municipal recreational leagues, and homeschool cooperatives. Make time in your homeschool schedule for some athletic activities and watch your kids grow in character and skill while influencing the kids and coaches around them.

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Want to learn more about how to incorporate extracurricular activities in your home school? Subscribe to The Classical Scholar today and have posts delivered to your email the day that I write them. You’ll also receive my free ebook on the history of classical Christian home education.