Classical Latin Education?

[aep]

Has anyone here been discussing home or private schooling with classical and Latin-based education? I have seen posts from 2004 on this forum about classical education for Catholics, and was eager to discuss this more with others who are working with these materials.

I have just read the book The Latin-Centered Curriculum by Andrew Campbell, and it is wonderful. I have also tried to find others online who have read master book The Trivium by Sister Miriam Joseph.

My thought is that it is high time Catholics reclaimed their classical heritage.

Thanks for any updates.

 

[samcarter14]

We use The Well-Trained Mind and associated curriculum; Susan Wise Bauer was the best writer on homeschooling I could find when I was researching it. I really like her history curriculum (Story of the World) and her English curriculum.

We also use flashcards for Greek and Latin roots, to build vocabulary. But i am not going to teach Latin in the traditional sense, unless my sons express an interest.

 

[Fidelia]

We also use flashcards for Greek and Latin roots, to build vocabulary. But i am not going to teach Latin in the traditional sense, unless my sons express an interest.

I am so glad to hear that someone does that!!! So many people have no idea how learning etymology helps students’ vocabulary. Learning Latin is an even greater advantage. I don’t know about home-schooling, I’m not even a parent. But I have my BA in classics, and I know how much Latin and Greek have improved my vocabulary, grammatical knowledge and writing, and I think it’s a very worthwhile thing for a student to learn. KUDOS for teaching it to your kids!!!

 

[aep]

I cannot recommend enough the book by Andrew Campbell called The Latin-Centered Curriculum. It has a very thoughtful look at how Bauer’s neoclassical approach differs. Few children are going to “ask” for more Latin on their own . . .

His web site has tremendous amount of great information and links:
www.latincentered.com.

Wyoming Catholic College apparently has a great Latin program, and of course they teach it alongside their outdoor survival and horsemanship training. Kind of like cowboys on the range doing Gregorian Chants! I think there is already a huge upswing in interest in Latin.

 

[Rawb]

I am so glad to hear that someone does that!!! So many people have no idea how learning etymology helps students’ vocabulary. Learning Latin is an even greater advantage. I don’t know about home-schooling, I’m not even a parent. But I have my BA in classics, and I know how much Latin and Greek have improved my vocabulary, grammatical knowledge and writing, and I think it’s a very worthwhile thing for a student to learn. KUDOS for teaching it to your kids!!!

Real life example; I was at a party with a guy who had won a scholarship because he was continuining his education and had a history of a certain illness in his family. He rattled off a long Latin illness, and I guessed what it was just by using Latin roots, which I had been taught. He was amazed at my ability to do this; apparently he’d never been taught Latin or Greek roots. They come in very handy.

 

[gardenswithkids]

Has anyone here been discussing home or private schooling with classical and Latin-based education? I have seen posts from 2004 on this forum about classical education for Catholics, and was eager to discuss this more with others who are working with these materials.

I have just read the book The Latin-Centered Curriculum by Andrew Campbell, and it is wonderful. I have also tried to find others online who have read master book The Trivium by Sister Miriam Joseph.

My thought is that it is high time Catholics reclaimed their classical heritage.

Thanks for any updates.

I’m unfamiliar with Campbell’ book. One I am familiar with that you might enjoy is by Laura Berquist “Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum”.

We use elements of classical education to homeschool. (We use an eclectic approach to education. While the classical approach appeals to me, so do other approaches.)

Memoria Press publishes some excellent material with the classics, including some books on learning Latin. memoriapress.com/index.html Their “Latina Christina” program teaches a little Latin through music for grades 3-8. My own Latin is rather limited to Church music and prefixes, suffixes and roots.

There are other elements to a classic education beyond learning Latin. I particularly like Memoria Press’ Traditional Logic books. I believe logic is sadly missing from many elements of our secular society. I hope through teaching my children to think logically, they will resist moral relativism.

 

[Fidelia]

Real life example; I was at a party with a guy who had won a scholarship because he was continuining his education and had a history of a certain illness in his family. He rattled off a long Latin illness, and I guessed what it was just by using Latin roots, which I had been taught. He was amazed at my ability to do this; apparently he’d never been taught Latin or Greek roots. They come in very handy.

Yea, it’s so sad that schools don’t really teach it much anymore. Schools hardly teach grammar. I didn’t fully understand English grammar until I took Latin.

 

[samcarter14]

Yea, it’s so sad that schools don’t really teach it much anymore. Schools hardly teach grammar. I didn’t fully understand English grammar until I took Latin.

My mother was a teacher (mostly sixth-grade level) for 30 years. She started out teaching all subjects, then they had teachers specialize, and she was an English teacher. Then they decided “English” was too exclusive, and she was called a “language arts” teacher.

By her 2nd decade of teaching, the powers-that-be decided that teaching grammar and spelling separately was “stifling” and “discouraged” children from being creative, so she was told to scuttle the grammar and spelling textbooks and teach those subjects “concurrently with composition, allowing for the children to feel free to express themselves”.

She kept teaching spelling and grammar, she just did it on the sly.

When I was in graduate school, I was a teaching assistant, teaching freshman composition. My second semester, one of my students came up to me after the first class and said, “What was your last time again? Are you Mrs. ____'s daughter?” I said yes, knowing what was coming. “I had your mom for English in sixth grade.”

“What did you think of her? You can be honest.”

“She was a good teacher…but TOUGH. We had to diagram sentences!”

Needless to say, that student was one of the best I had. I rarely had to correct her spelling or grammar, and she knew what a topic sentence and thesis statement were…unlike about 80 percent of the other freshmen entering college.

BTW, my son diagrams sentences. He adores it.

 

[HouseArrest]

Our kids go to school, but I am always looking for some type of enrichment activity or actual course for the summers. I will check out the Memoria Press and Andrew Campbell information.

Theh Memoria Press Traditional Logic also looks interesting.

 

[dulcissima]

I am so glad to hear that someone does that!!! So many people have no idea how learning etymology helps students’ vocabulary. Learning Latin is an even greater advantage. I don’t know about home-schooling, I’m not even a parent. But I have my BA in classics, and I know how much Latin and Greek have improved my vocabulary, grammatical knowledge and writing, and I think it’s a very worthwhile thing for a student to learn. KUDOS for teaching it to your kids!!!

I have my BA in classiscs too.

A couple of years ago I was working as an aid in an English class at a continuation high school, which is where kids who couldn’t make it at a traditional high school are sent. The teacher let me design a lesson using Greek and Latin roots to help the kids learn vocabulary. For fun I taught them the Greek alphabet and how to transliterate. They also learned how to break words apart into their roots. They really loved it, and these were kids who were gang members and normally really apathetic.

To the parents here, one of the easiest ways for kids to learn some Greek roots is by learning about all of the different phobias since they are all based on Greek. Check out just how many there are phobialist.com/#A- The kids in my class found it fascinating. I would have them pick ten words, then find pictures that depicted the phobia and put it together on a poster. Everyone learned a lot by doing it and by walking around the classroom and looking at all of the other posters.

 

[Rob_s_Wife]

We use elements of classical education to homeschool. (We use an eclectic approach to education. While the classical approach appeals to me, so do other approaches.)

Memoria Press publishes some excellent material with the classics, including some books on learning Latin. memoriapress.com/index.html Their “Latina Christina” program teaches a little Latin through music for grades 3-8. My own Latin is rather limited to Church music and prefixes, suffixes and roots.

There are other elements to a classic education beyond learning Latin. I particularly like Memoria Press’ Traditional Logic books. I believe logic is sadly missing from many elements of our secular society. I hope through teaching my children to think logically, they will resist moral relativism.

I agree and have several of their materials.
Also, The Trivium by the Bluedorns might interest some of you.
**I’m rather ecclectic personally. **

 

[aep]

With the book The Latin-Centered Curriculum, A Home Educator’s Guide to a Traditional Classical Education by Andrew Campbell, I wanted to share a link from his web site about the application of an educational principle:

“As articulated by Pliny the Younger, that principle is multum non multa: not many things (multa) but much (multum). Today we would say 'quality, not quantity.”

memoriapress.com/descriptions/sample/LatinCentered/LatinCenteredSample.pdf

And in this article he has a fantastic 10 Reasons to put Latin and Greek at the center of your curriculum. Not the least of which is that it simplifies your curriculum choices. With Latin as your base you get vocabulary, grammar, comnposition, and a basis for logic, and certainly a grounding in why we study history at all. He recommends and integrates the Memoria Press Latin and Logic books. And his web site just has many more fabulous resources (like daily podcasts in Latin . . .)

The thing that impresses me most is that he has a very clearly written guide to the content and structure of the traditional approach. You can see and understand it all, not puzzle over a big mass and wonder how one can squeeze in all these subjects and books in one semester. I think some programs do that, and some otherwise good classical or Great Books programs come close to information overload.

 

[jwatza]

We are enrolled in Mother of Divine Grace Independent Study School which is a homeschool program using a classical curriculum. It is wonderful program and my children and I are learning together–because I was not taught much of this stuff in my Catholic school.

 

[Fidelia]

I have my BA in classiscs too.

A couple of years ago I was working as an aid in an English class at a continuation high school, which is where kids who couldn’t make it at a traditional high school are sent. The teacher let me design a lesson using Greek and Latin roots to help the kids learn vocabulary. For fun I taught them the Greek alphabet and how to transliterate. They also learned how to break words apart into their roots. They really loved it, and these were kids who were gang members and normally really apathetic.

To the parents here, one of the easiest ways for kids to learn some Greek roots is by learning about all of the different phobias since they are all based on Greek. Check out just how many there are phobialist.com/#A- The kids in my class found it fascinating. I would have them pick ten words, then find pictures that depicted the phobia and put it together on a poster. Everyone learned a lot by doing it and by walking around the classroom and looking at all of the other posters.

Very cool!

 

[Margarite]

Wyoming Catholic College apparently has a great Latin program, and of course they teach it alongside their outdoor survival and horsemanship training. Kind of like cowboys on the range doing Gregorian Chants! I think there is already a huge upswing in interest in Latin.

We do have an awesome Latin program! Our teacher teaches Latin through immersion. We have whole weekends where we are not allowed to say a single word that is not in Latin, nor are we allowed to read a single non-Latin word. We have one hour Latin classes four times a week and on Fridays we have the choice to sit at a table with the professors who speak Latin and we speak Latin all lunch. It is an awesome program that really inspires the students love the language.

Vale!