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Bookswithtea
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I should preface this with the fact that I am kind of revisiting my entire philosophy of education. I'm looking into all sorts of things I researched briefly years ago and then quickly discarded in favor of CM. I'm giving up old prejudices and favorites and trying to look at things with fresh eyes. Classical Ed. is one of the ideas I'm looking at.
I've been reading Memoria Press' catalogue while eating lunch. I read Peter Kreeft's article in the most recent catalogue and it finally dawned on me what is niggling at the back of my head. I know some of you are Classical Ed. enthusiasts so I'm hoping you can answer this question for me.
If I understand correctly, this form of education was birthed and developed before and through the middle ages and it was the hallmark of a truly educated person.
But it was birthed and developed in times when the average person did not attend school. In the middle ages, wasn't this the education of kings and their sons (and possibly some monks/priests)? Isn't this the education of the wealthy and most privileged of society, who were being prepared to essentially run society in the future?
Moving into the future a bit, I know that the majority of Colonial America was literate (more literate than we are today, in fact), but I don't think they all knew their Greek and Latin? Education in America was not compulsory till somewhere in the 1800's, and I don't think the one room schoolhouses that educated Laura Ingalls were teaching a full Classical Curriculum? I think that most stopped attending in the 8th grade, and some one room schoolhouse teachers were 8th grade graduates of these schoolhouses who passed written tests. I recognize their 8th grade graduation level was probably better than what we do in the 8th grade, but was it Classical Education?
If this is true, then realistically, wouldn't the vast majority of our families, historically speaking, be in that generic category of "possibly illiterate farmers and skilled laborers"? Please don't misunderstand me. I have incredible respect for the farmers and skilled workers who really make America (and the world) *work*.
I guess what I'm wondering is if Classical Education is appropriate for *most* students. Should all schools be teaching this way to all students? Are proponents assuming that this curriculum is within the intellectual grasp of the majority of humans? No one wants to say, "Gee, this kid is not smart enough for the King's Education"  and tracking is a dirty word in our culture. But it seems to me that this entire method of education was formed in a culture that assumed their audience was privileged and not *average* in any way.
This article(part one of three) is sort of getting at what I am thinking about.
Can you help me to understand?
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mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and  due 9/10
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CrunchyMom
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Here is a great lecture by Charles Murray you might enjoy. Charles Murray
I think that those supporting the methods of Classical Education would maintain that it is going to help any person reach their personal potential to be as liberally educated as they have the ability to be. Maybe they won't become the scholars who teach others or lead others, but they can be the follower who has been taught which things are worthwhile, good, true, beautiful, etc...
If you follow their theory, ANY child is going to more readily learn facts at an early age. Maybe a child who is less intelligent will have a capacity for less than a more intelligent child, but it is still the most impressionable age for that skill.
I get what you are saying. I mean, I respect tradesmen immensely and would be thrilled if my boys wanted to be one, and it isn't necessarily important that my plumber know how to conjugate Latin.
BUT, we live in a democratic-republic (sort of). We need an educated populace for that to work. We also make education compulsory, and it seems like if we are going to let everyone think they are well educated just because they went to school, we might as well use methods that have shown to be effective. That doesn't mean that everyone needs equal rigor.
I say all this as someone who leans more towards CM methods so far. I just think that the Classical education isn't going to necessarily rely on the intelligence of the student to prove its effectiveness as a method.
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Willa
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Reading that article, I think the slant of it is to caution about the "No Child Left Behind".
Education is for everyone, as he says, and every child can benefit from a liberal education. But as Charlotte Mason says, different children will dip in different ways into the living streams... not just intelligence factors in, but other things as well.
Kolbe's Ignatian manual talks about the limitations every person has in their capacity. Not just intelligence but also the effects of fallen nature, their circumstances, and many other things.
I went to high school in Europe where kids were put into "tracks" from an early age -- which seemed wrong to me, contrary to the American ideal.
But I don't really think it's the American ideal, either, to make college education the panacea for everything and then basically dumb down the curriculum so that a college education now is equivalent to an 8th grade education in earlier days.
It's sort of like devaluing currency so that everyone will have more -- it turns out that everyone has more of something that is worth less. I think that's how No Child Left Behind will turn up.
I have a delayed child and I firmly, firmly believe that he is entitled to the best education he is capable of receiving. So I wouldn't want to see the counter-rhetoric to No Child Left Behind turn to elitism -- only SOME kids are intellectually deserving of a liberal academic education, while the rest should be trained to be factory workers or something. That is too much like Brave New World.
There has to be a middle ground. As you point out, Books, the skilled laborers and farmers and so on are the heart of a society -- maybe that's where our society is going wrong, not realizing that thoroughly enough.
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stellamaris
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One of the greatest impacts that Christ had on the world was raising the dignity of every human person to a previously unimagined height. Each man, woman, or child has the potential to become a child of God, a co-heir with Christ. Especially at Easter, we celebrate the astounding effect that our union with God through Christ has upon our human nature. This dignity can never be effaced. When we think about education, we often focus on level of academic ability or disability, career and/or work potential, and worldly competition and ambition. Our culture and public education system stress education as a means to develop competent workers and citizens. I believe our hope, as Christians, is to guide and educate each child to prepare for the vocation to which God has called them, to be citizens of the Kingdom of God first and foremost, and of our earthly country subordinately. We must recognize the vast individual differences in children (and adults) as God-given graces which are part of the divine plan. Some are more academically gifted, some are more technically brilliant, some are musical, or artistic, and some are given us to teach us to love and serve more charitably.
Recognizing this does not mean we are unfairly judging anyone or abandoning hope for anyone. It means we are free to give our academically gifted children challenging, high-level classical literature and we are free to tailor our curriculum to our students who aren't so scholarly in a way that will develop them and challenge them at their level of competence and interest.
I have students at both ends of the spectrum, and each is deserving of my best effort on their behalf. It will not, however, be the same material or curriculum for each child if I am respecting their individual differences and gifts. When I see them each as a whole person in Christ, it helps me to see their dignity and not make academic standards the criteria by which I judge them and myself.
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Caroline
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CrunchyMom
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Willa wrote:
It's sort of like devaluing currency so that everyone will have more -- it turns out that everyone has more of something that is worth less. I think that's how No Child Left Behind will turn up.
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Well, I think if you read Murray's other writings, it goes beyond No Child Left Behind. What you describe is how things are now--not just what they will be because of this law, imo.
Murray, and I think Books, are saying that perhaps it isn't fair to the people to *expect* the half of the population who are not academically gifted to receive the same sort of academic education. Not that they don't deserve it, but that our system which seeks to send everyone to college to get an academic education does them a disservice. They could perhaps reach their greatest potential and succeed more fully in learning a trade rather than attempting to master Greek.
It also does a disservice to those who are gifted and would benefit from being challenged from a very rigorous curriculum.
I think, though, that his other points (like in the next article, The Greeks vs. the Aztecs) hold true to classical theory regardless of which segment of the population you are dealing with. So, if you are going to teach history, its probably more beneficial to spend more time on the Greeks rather than the Aztecs.
I'm not sure I'm expressing myself well, but I think that this topic is hard to articulate in few words.
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Bookswithtea
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CrunchyMom wrote:
and I think Books, are saying that perhaps it isn't fair to the people to *expect* the half of the population who are not academically gifted to receive the same sort of academic education. Not that they don't deserve it, but that our system which seeks to send everyone to college to get an academic education does them a disservice. They could perhaps reach their greatest potential and succeed more fully in learning a trade rather than attempting to master Greek.
It also does a disservice to those who are gifted and would benefit from being challenged from a very rigorous curriculum.. |
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Yes, this is the question I have. Does it do a disservice to both ends of the population to have them follow the same academic path?
Willa wrote:
I have a delayed child and I firmly, firmly believe that he is entitled to the best education he is capable of receiving. So I wouldn't want to see the counter-rhetoric to No Child Left Behind turn to elitism -- only SOME kids are intellectually deserving of a liberal academic education, while the rest should be trained to be factory workers or something. That is too much like Brave New World. |
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I would never want a society that doesn't allow all branches of society to attempt whatever kind of education they want. Waaaay to Brave New World for me, too, Willa.
When I read about every other methodology of education, they make a strong case for why their educational method is the best. But when I read from Classical Ed. apologists, there is a constant referral to this method as the gold standard of education for the past 500 or 1000 years. And those societies really did track students, albeit more by class than by ability.
It makes me wonder, if this golden era of education had developed in a society where *all* children were pursuing an education, would it have developed differently? Would all of those children have succeeded equally with a Classical Education, or is this the gold standard of education *because* they had the most privileged in society to begin with?
CrunchyMom wrote:
| I think, though, that his other points (like in the next article, The Greeks vs. the Aztecs) hold true to classical theory regardless of which segment of the population you are dealing with. So, if you are going to teach history, its probably more beneficial to spend more time on the Greeks rather than the Aztecs. |
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Definitely agree with this.
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Blessings,
~Books
mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and due 9/10
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Bookswithtea
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Willa wrote:
I went to high school in Europe where kids were put into "tracks" from an early age -- which seemed wrong to me, contrary to the American ideal.
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My mom is British so my uncles (who are actually my age) went through this system. Both of them chose the "non college" option and graduated at 16. One of them apprenticed to a plasterer and from what I understand, makes a ton of money now. The other apprenticed in the banking industry, and now takes the train to London every day and does very well.
When I visit with relatives I always pick their brains about education because I'm fascinated with this sort of tracking system, which I see as different from American tracking. My jr. high school in CT in the late 70's tracked. Everyone knew what it meant if you were in the A-track...or not. But there was no effective system to funnel the non A-track students into lucrative trades. It seems to leave them hanging with options like "secretary" or "day laborer". But the impression I have gotten from my relatives is that apprenticeship is alive and thriving, and there is no real social stigma attached. But then again, the ones I have talked with are all pretty old now (mid 70's), and maybe they are not in touch with the current system. Maybe Kathryn or Doris or some of our other non American members can shed some light on this?
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~Books
mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and due 9/10
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Willa
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Bookswithtea wrote:
| It makes me wonder, if this golden era of education had developed in a society where *all* children were pursuing an education, would it have developed differently? Would all of those children have succeeded equally with a Classical Education, or is this the gold standard of education *because* they had the most privileged in society to begin with? |
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Great question.
I always think that the average homeschooling family has better access to more educational resources than any king's child had up till very recently. Basically this is true across the board, so in a way ALL children are in the privileged classes of former times in regard to opportunity.
The huge resource explosion of recent years (partly facilitated by the internet) has made homeschooling, for one thing, possible. In former days, immigrants sent their children to parochial or public schools because that was really the only way to ensure literacy and so forth.
In some ways I think the apathy afflicting the public school system now is a silent acknowledgement that education is really not best pursued in a static, rigid fashion within brick or cement walls.
However, as always, education DOES require care and commitment and motivation and all those things. This is what seems in short supply nowadays.
There is no doubt that a classical education requires time and effort invested by both teacher and student(s).
I don't think there is much doubt that there was a funneling system in place to some extent with classical ed. The way I understand the old Ignatian system -- all the kids in the school would learn Latin (Latin was the language of literacy in those days and I suppose only the intellectually capable kids went to school at all). The brighter ones went on to Greek, higher math etc; the brightest of that group were trained for the seminary and learned Hebrew and philosophy etc.
The system was based on mastery so there was no real necessity either for "tracking" or for "grade levels". Whenever you entered school, you simply started at the lower class (the level you placed in to, I guess) and worked your way up at the speed you were able to.
Even in last century or so in our country you see this. In the LM MOntgomery "Anne of Green Gables" books, for example, you see Gilbert Blythe who had been sick and out of school for a year so he was in a lower class at the start. Then because he was intelligent he worked his way up quickly to the top of the school. The "top" students would run past their teacher's knowledge base and would be prepped for college, etc. Some of the kids dropped out to work at much younger ages.
It was interesting hearing about the British apprenticeship system -- it's too bad there is more of the stigma here in the US, it seems -- that if you drop out or go to "vo-tech" it's because you took the lower road.
I think it's harder to justify the Latin/Greek type element of a traditional classical education nowadays. You don't see it as being quite so directly valuable as it was in the Renaissance when you really needed to read and write Latin to be a scientist, a scholar, even a poet, etc. Nowadays the benefits are seen more in terms of mental formation, access to history, and so on.
If the golden ideal of education was being proposed nowadays I'm not sure what it would be, or even if one could be agreed upon. Maybe that's part of the problem nowadays. It's difficult to even propose the ideal, whereas in the past the ideal was fairly clear even if not very many people reached it.
I guess I'm rambling! Your question made me think.
I think Charlotte Mason is the earliest educator I've read who was interested in a liberal education for ALL people. St Ignatius thought all classes should have equal opportunity and his school system spread out to the farthest missions in South America and Africa but his system was merit-based as I've tried to describe, a sort of very masculine ideal directed towards his spiritual ideal of "distinguished service" in God's Church militant. Charlotte Mason I believe kept or tried to restore many classical liberal ideals but she specifically conceived of her system as inclusive -- waking the potential of the "backward" (delayed) children and the deprived (underprivileged) children as well as the middle class child. A difference in emphasis, I think.
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Willa
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julia s.
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Bookswithtea wrote:
When I read about every other methodology of education, they make a strong case for why their educational method is the best. But when I read from Classical Ed. apologists, there is a constant referral to this method as the gold standard of education for the past 500 or 1000 years. And those societies really did track students, albeit more by class than by ability.
It makes me wonder, if this golden era of education had developed in a society where *all* children were pursuing an education, would it have developed differently? Would all of those children have succeeded equally with a Classical Education, or is this the gold standard of education *because* they had the most privileged in society to begin with?
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Books,
I think I may be catching the rabbit by it's toe, but I think you may be mixing "the gold standard" of education with "everyman's" education. A laborer doesn't want or need much education. A philosopher or theoretical mathematician needs a lot. When people get together to argue and debate ideas there has to be a common understanding between them and that is where classical education comes in. Classical education takes the arguments from the beginning of oral and written education and people learn to dip in and out of that pool.
Society needs laborers and philosophers. And there is a whole shades of gray (where other forms of education come in) between the two.
Perhaps I'm not understanding what you're asking?
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julia s.
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I had to stop early because the baby took a very shortened nap.
Just to finish up...
Would it be fair to restate your question (for those of us who sometimes miss the point)
What is the minimum level of education a society needs and which of the educational methods would fulfill this void?
Or is that getting to far off base from what you were asking?
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Bookswithtea
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julia s. wrote:
What is the minimum level of education a society needs and which of the educational methods would fulfill this void?
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Not really. Mostly because when I read advocates of Classical Education, they often set up their argument that anything less than a Latin centered curriculum is not a complete education, and they make that argument based on its historical significance, to some degree. So I'm interested in exploring its historical significance. I'm not sure its fair to make that argument when as far as I can tell, this is the education of the privileged throughout time, not the general public.
Does that make sense?
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~Books
mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and due 9/10
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Bookswithtea
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Willa wrote:
In some ways I think the apathy afflicting the public school system now is a silent acknowledgement that education is really not best pursued in a static, rigid fashion within brick or cement walls. |
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Now that's a provocative thought!
Willa wrote:
| The system was based on mastery so there was no real necessity either for "tracking" or for "grade levels". Whenever you entered school, you simply started at the lower class (the level you placed in to, I guess) and worked your way up at the speed you were able to. |
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The article I read by Cheryl Lowe today made this point, too. I appreciated that she made the point that its not how much knowledge, but to start from the beginning and not to rush things.
Willa wrote:
| It was interesting hearing about the British apprenticeship system -- it's too bad there is more of the stigma here in the US, it seems -- that if you drop out or go to "vo-tech" it's because you took the lower road. |
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I came from a family that was college bound or bust. A dear friend of mine went to a 4 yr. UC (the same one I attended) and then on to a masters at Fuller Theological. The journeyman drywaller his mother (an interior decorater) hired to re-do his bedroom made over $100,000 a year. I think college is a wonderful thing and its definitely useful, but I don't think it should be touted to kids as the only way to make a secure living.
Willa wrote:
| I think Charlotte Mason is the earliest educator I've read who was interested in a liberal education for ALL people. ... Charlotte Mason I believe kept or tried to restore many classical liberal ideals but she specifically conceived of her system as inclusive -- waking the potential of the "backward" (delayed) children and the deprived (underprivileged) children as well as the middle class child. A difference in emphasis, I think. |
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I hadn't thought of CM methodology this way. A very good point.
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~Books
mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and due 9/10
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stellamaris
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Bookswithtea wrote:
I came from a family that was college bound or bust. A dear friend of mine went to a 4 yr. UC (the same one I attended) and then on to a masters at Fuller Theological. The journeyman drywaller his mother (an interior decorater) hired to re-do his bedroom made over $100,000 a year. I think college is a wonderful thing and its definitely useful, but I don't think it should be touted to kids as the only way to make a secure living.
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Do you think that maybe this is the problem with our educational system? The unstated (or sometimes stated) purpose of higher education is to *make a secure living*. I want my children to make a secure living as well, but there are many ways to accomplish that goal. Furthermore, a university education is not a guarantee of financial security and shouldn't be promoted as one. Do you think we've made our universities into high-end voc-tech schools? The classical university system was concerned with ideas and philosophies, not practicalities. Only a small percentage of people will ever be truly interested in such abstract learning and capable of it, but these ideas are important because they affect the rest of the culture. In thinking about whether a classical education is the "best" form of education, we need to add the caveat, "Best for whom?" Educational achievement is determined more by the mind of the student than the content of the curriculum.
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Caroline
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JuliaT
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I am loving this thread! 
I recently finished reading Charles Murray's Real Education. This book got me riled up in a mighty big way! I came away from this book thinking that my children (who all have learning difficulties) would not be able to have a Classical Education (which is what I am trying to give.) I have since calmed down and am seeing his thoughts in a different light.
Murray says that way too many people are going to college--people that cannot handle a college-level education. Therefore, college-level work has dipped in order to accomodate those kids that cannot handle higher level work. As a result, kids who are academically gifted (or the elite, which he calls them) are left swaying in the wind because they are given work that is way too easy for them. Murray is their champion saying that they deserve a more rigorous curriculum.
Murray does say though, that those children that are gifted as plumbers, mechanics, and farmers are still entitled to a liberal arts education but just not as rigorous as the academically gifted. Murray suggests using Hirsch's curriculum for elementary grades.
This is what I came away with frome reading this book (after I had calmed down.) The purpose of CE is to instill wisdom and virtue. Everyone can benefit from wisdom and virtue, be it a plumber, a doctor, a farmer, etc. We can all benefit from wisdom and virtue. 
My children may not ever be able to read an original work in latin or get too far with rhetoric but they can definitely benefit from having their souls nourished on all that is beautiful, true and good (which are the stepping stones to wisdom and virtue.)
Blessings
Julia, who is starting to feel ill and hopes that this post makes sense.
mom of 3 (9,8,6)
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Natalia
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Quote:
| Education, as classically conceived, is not primarily for citizenship, or for making money, or for success in life, or for a veneer of "culture,” or for escaping your lower-class origins and joining the middle class, or for professional or vocational training, whether the profession is honorable, like auto repair, or questionable, like law; and whether the profession is telling the truth, like an x-ray technician, or telling lies, like advertising or communications or politics. The first and foundational purpose of education is not external but internal: it is to make the little human a little more human, bigger on the inside. |
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This is a quote from Peter Kreeft's article on the MP catalog.I think that we, nowadays, have a very utilitarian view of education. Education is what takes you to college and, in college, it is what helps you to make a living.
I think CE has a value, not only in content,but also in methodology. CE teaches a certain order of learning that is applicable to anything from scholarly subjects to more practical ones.
Quote:
| I guess what I'm wondering is if Classical Education is appropriate for *most* students. Should all schools be teaching this way to all students? Are proponents assuming that this curriculum is within the intellectual grasp of the majority of humans? No one wants to say, "Gee, this kid is not smart enough for the King's Education" and tracking is a dirty word in our culture. |
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Why shouldn't it be? I just think that this type of education needs to start from the beginning.I think it is hard,not impossible but hard, to start in the middle. CE starts with the grammar of a subject, the basics and it progresses at a steady, slow pace that adjust to the maturity and development of the student.
What about Marva Collins? Didn't she use a classical method with inner city kids?
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Willa
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JuliaT wrote:
| I recently finished reading Charles Murray's Real Education. This book got me riled up in a mighty big way! I came away from this book thinking that my children (who all have learning difficulties) would not be able to have a Classical Education (which is what I am trying to give.) |
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That is what bothers me, I think. For one thing, I don't trust the schools the way they are set up presently to accurately measure who is intellectually qualified for the more elite type of education. What about late starters? What about children who come from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds? Are we really infallible in our measurements and predictions?
This g that Murray mentions -- according to a book I read a while back IQ: A Smart History of a Failed Idea -- no one even quite knows what "g" is. The IQ tests measure what the IQ tests measure -- it's a tautology, in other words. They don't measure success, because plenty of successful people don't score that high and plenty of people who score high don't necessarily achieve much. Success and achievement perhaps aren't good markers, either, but that begs the question -- WHAT is being measured by the IQ tests? How would Einstein have scored? Edison? Helen Keller before Annie Sullivan?
Hey, I'm going to be losing my Classical Educator badge if I am not careful .
On the other hand, I do very much believe in classical education as enculturation into our heritage and invitation to human excellence. A book called Norms and Nobility by David Hicks makes the point that traditionally, education was pursuit of an ideal. Everyone failed to some extent. There is no ideally educated person. Who could say "I am as educated as a person could possibly be?" Education is a uniquely personal interaction with knowledge; the horizon just keeps stretching out before you. Yet the effort, the striving towards the ideal, brought us beyond ourselves to the extent that we were willing to put in the effort to teach and learn. Certainly you could read history as a record of people who went beyond themselves in various ways -- whether the saints, the great leaders, the scientists and discoverers. Perhaps all of them didn't receive the perfect education, perhaps all of them didn't have the perfect degree of that "g", but they all received enough to really take and run with.
The very failure to achieve the ideal was fruitful. Humans do better striving against odds. David Hicks makes the point that now, by "norming" things on a statistical curve we've done a disservice to everybody. The "above average" feel pretty good about themselves just the way they are. The "below average" feel they don't measure up. And the "norm" -- the perfect average -- just doesn't exist. He is a statistical fantasy, and a sterile one. Whereas the ideal type isn't sterile -- everyone has to work to approach that, and can never exceed it.
I suppose I am saying I resist a certain subtle complacency I pick up with some of this elite education stuff -- that you either have the "g" or you don't, and that it can be measured accurately from Day One and that it makes a huge difference in potential... potential for what? Greek and Latin scholarship? A tenure in an Ivy League school? I think more of education as a sort of seed that is planted... you don't know how and in what way it will take root and bear fruit, but combined with one's individual mind it has a generative effect -- one can't predict what specific direction.
There is a scholar local to our area, Victor Davis Hanson, a farmer's son who became a classics professor who has written several books on various topics. He makes the point that classical scholarship used to be a virile, dynamic thing. It didn't involve just the brain but the whole person. In the heyday of classical education, say St Ignatius's Jesuit schools, you didn't see people sitting around talking about who had "g's" and who didn't. They wrote poetry; they made scientific discoveries; they composed great spiritual classics; they tried to educate other people around them, to scatter the seeds further. I am sure things weren't perfect then either but I do see somewhat of a sea change in basic attitude.
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| Murray says that way too many people are going to college--people that cannot handle a college-level education. Therefore, college-level work has dipped in order to accomodate those kids that cannot handle higher level work. As a result, kids who are academically gifted (or the elite, which he calls them) are left swaying in the wind because they are given work that is way too easy for them. Murray is their champion saying that they deserve a more rigorous curriculum. |
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I agree with this -- again I see it as a problem with the system. Kids graduate from high school because it's a huge blot on your future not to, so the high schools devise accommodations so that almost everyone does graduate some way or another, and now college is going the same way -- you almost HAVE to go to college, usually for years and years. So high schools become glorified elementary schools and colleges do the work that high school used to do.
I don't think that will change until there are more viable options for people who have no interest in or inclination for 16 plus years of education. But I don't see that situation changing in the near future -- it's a money-maker and a tax cow.
I hope I didn't get too carried away! I am really enjoying discussing this with you all.
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stellamaris
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There's so much food for thought on this topic. Thanks for starting it, Books.
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Quote:
| That is what bothers me, I think. For one thing, I don't trust the schools the way they are set up presently to accurately measure who is intellectually qualified for the more elite type of education. What about late starters? What about children who come from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds? Are we really infallible in our measurements and predictions? |
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When I was in college in the Dominican Republic, I was learning to administer IQ test as part of my clinical psychology degree. This used to bother me. I am not sure that IQ tests measure what they say they measure. I remember using the maid in our house as a subject. Of course she came out with a very low IQ. Could I honestly say that she wasn't smart? was it a fair test to her? she didn't grow up using manipulatives, making puzzles, listening to stories. All of those experiences, or lack there of, could have affected her results. Would it be fair for me to label her as non-intelligent because of her low score on a test. Can I judge by the test her ability to learn? Could she have learned classically if she would've been exposed to a classical education from early on?
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julia s.
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OK I'm going to take one more stab at this. I think people are loading the Classical Education Model with things it never took on. One being IQ tests. No one has to take an IQ test to be classically educated.
Second whether a skilled laborer makes a descent living has no bearing on the Classical Education Model either. What a person's salary has nothing to do with whether they were classically educated. Most professors and scholars, and priests for that matter are not paid that well. For that matter you do not know if a laborer is classically educated or not by their profession. They may be, but chose their job for the pay and the free time it allows them in the evenings to pursue more intellectual pursuits.
What you can legitimately criticize it for,in my opinion, is the rigid way it looks at human development. If your child is behind developmentally and canno5t be memorizing when it says they should be memorizing (for example)in the way they classify memorizing then they are automatically excluded from this education, perhaps by definition. Unlike CM and other educational methods that seem to keep the door open and offer ways for the child who is "behind" to gain the same information, but at a different pace.
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julia s.
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What Charles Murray is saying has some facts in it, but his conclusions are, in my opinion, bunk.
Everyone should be offered an education that is fit for a king. Not everyone has to follow through on it, but it should be there for the asking.
I think what Caroline said fits here the best. We are not here to fill space and do jobs, we are here to be the hands and face of Christ and we are here to protect man's inheritance in heaven. (She said it better)
Sorry for having to write in pieces.
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4Real Forums : Philosophy of Education
Topic: philosophizing about Classical Education
