I’d also like to talk about the gems that I took away with me from the Carole Joy Seid Seminar on a Literature Based Education.

Reading to children doesn’t stop when the kids can read for themselves.  

I think as busy people, this is a mistake we make.  We read to the kids until they can read for themselves and then stop.  After all, we’ve done our job. 

Family story time can continue on and on and this way there are books that unite a family together  and around which a family has shared history.  I remember first reading about families that did this in the 1990’s.  I thought it was so cool.  A family was reading through one of Charles Dickens books together in the evenings.  It seems a bit like having your own multi-age reading group.  I remember thinking that if I could “read ” through the classics while snuggling on a couch with family, that would be much more fun [than trying to cram it in for some high school requirement].

And what great memories!  I suppose a family could do it with audiobooks, but somehow the memory of hearing your dad or your mom read to you from the greats just seems like a warm-blanket memory.  When I was a junior in college, my mom and I  joined her cousin (A.C.) and A.C’s sister (B) in Pagosa Springs, Colorado just after Christmas.  One night, in front of the fireplace,  A.C. read us her favorite poems from Sharon Olds’ The Gold Cell .  I was enthralled.  After I graduated and had a regular paycheck, I went to Vroman’s Bookstore and purchased the same volume.  It is still on my bookshelf, in the poetry section.  And I still remember which was her most favorite poem from the book.  I wonder if I would have a poetry section if it wasn’t for that snowy vacation and reading books aloud in front of the fireplace.

Rome and I went to a Carole Joy Seid seminar last Saturday.  I walked in with strong Charlotte Mason leanings thinking I would walk out a Charlotte Mason devotee.  (Charlotte Mason was a 19th century British educator).  But I didn’t.   The seminar wasn’t what I was expecting.  It was called A Literature Based Approach to Education and I guess I walked in expecting a Nuts-and-Bolts-How-To mixed with philosophy seminar.  

Show me the how-to’s of teaching language arts, grammar, etc. using this method.  And if used in a home-schooling context, how does one translate that into what the state (let alone my mother) is expecting to have covered.

What I did get was a lot of statistics about when children are physiologically ready to learn certain tasks; some great book recommendations; and a really fast (and rushed) overview of the how-to’s.   She started the seminar out laying down the scriptural basis for wise and thoughtful parenting, which of course, makes sense; but she was all over the map; it was frustrating.

She put the “meat” of the seminar at the end, when I was least-able to absorb what she was conveying, and when she could compress it or speed through the material as much as she needed to in order to finish on time.  To a certain extent, what she covered at the end of her seminar was what I went for.  And  I would guess that she’d done this seminar so many times that the nuts and bolts part is dull for her.

A significant part of the seminar was spent reading from books that she was selling at the book tables (not of her authorship, but books that she recommended for relating history, values, science concepts, etc.).  Now, I kinda understand her doing this.  She went to a lot of expense to bring some excellent resources there and she’d spend a lot of money shipping them back if they didn’t disappear.   And they were good resources;  but somehow, having her read from her recommended books didn’t teach me what I came there to learn.

A lot of her seminar came down to this. 

If you teach something to a child when s/he isn’t yet physiologically ready, you will spend four frustrating years doing it and will have a frustrated child who thinks s/he’s a failure and hates to learn.  Or you can wait till they are ready to learn and they’ll pick “it” (reading or grammar or algebra) up in three weeks.

Now, to a certain extent, I agree with this.  But as Rome and I drove away, we compared this approach (which might be considered a Charlotte Mason-y approach) with a Classical Education.  And we determined that we’d both rather start with a Classical approach and then fall back on the Carole Joy Seid approach if one of the gaggle hit the wall.

Would I go again to one of her seminars?  I did walk away with three or four gems, but not the guts of what I came there to learn.  I certainly like her policy of spouses coming free.  And her book table rocked; truly it did.  I have a feeling that she’s probably really good with one-on-one consultations with families.  So in the end, I’m not sure what the answer is.

I’m on chapter six of Don Quixote and I’ve got to wonder what one has to read to be the translator of a Spanish text that is 400 years old.  Chapter six has DQ’s two closest friends going through his collection of romantic-chivalrous books and deciding which to save and which to burn.

This chapter lists several of the texts by name — I guess the 17th century readers would have been familiar with them and the notes for chapter six describe most of the books mentioned (they’re real books, not made up titles) for those of us who hang out in the 21st century.  These are the romantic-chivalrous books that have driven DQ insane.  I wonder if it’s a bit like romance novels for women or the Star Trek series for serious trekkies.  Those romance novels can screw with the way one see’s men (perhaps warping reality in a similar way as DQ’s books screwed with his perception of reality.   I can’t speak for Trekkies — most of those that I’ve met enjoy the silliness of the whole thing and are firmly grounded in reality.

So if you’re the translator, do you read each book mentioned in chapter six, or do you read the Cliff Notes edition of these old books?  Also, do modern day Spanish speakers read Don Quixote in it’s original, or is there an updated language version of the text for them?  Think about it.  We have modern day translations of The Canterbury Tales because most of us can’t understand the English from 1400 A.D. .  Don Quixote was written in 1605, approximately 200 years later.   How much has the Spanish language changed?

Time to go hunt down my Spanish speaking friends to ask.

I wonder if Susan Wise Bauer considers this part of ”The Great Conversation”.

Today I am thankful for warm September evenings, times with my daughter when my baby is asleep, internet real estate searches, and See’s candy just when I need or don’t need it.

No purfume today, just sweat and a bit of spit-up.

I spent the Fall and Winter months of this pregnancy reading my sister’s copy of The Well Trained Mind  by Susan Wise Bauer– an absolutely inspiring book about classical education and how to do it (in children).  Last summer, I also started slogging my way through The Charlotte Mason Companion.  For those of you unfamiliar with those names, both books indicate that I’m considering alternatives to public school.

I’d also heard an interview with Susan Wise Bauer in the ‘Mars Hill Audio Journal’ (BTW, an excellent -though not inexpensive- source of really well-thought-out articles) where she spoke on another of her books, The Well Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had.  In this book, she applies the Trivium thinking process to about thirty great works (each) in five genres: the novel, autobiographies, history, drama, and poetry.  I was pleased to see how many of the books I’d already read, but still– I recognize that my knowledge of the works was fairly shallow.

Well, I have a two year old, and I like to research things well in advance of when I have to make decisions…especially about something this important; and I’m very interested in providing Kate with a classical education.

So I’ve decided to try “it” on myself. 

The fist book in The Well Educated Mind is Don Quixote.  I’ve just finished chapter one.   I won’t tell you how long it took me to slog through the introduction and the translators notes – but I was doing it while balancing the novel on my breastfeeding pillow, so I give myself a lot of slack.

Don Quixote is 982 pages long (1023 pages with the notes – and yes, I’m reading the notes) and has 669 characters.  At the rate that I’m going, I should be done by Spring.

Today, I’m thankful to God for my husband who noticed that I busted my buns unloading groceries and came and gave me a hug; for good books; for my Bradley instructor who gave me breastfeeding insight by e-mail yesterday;  for last minute vacation plans; and for His timing in bringing things to my life.

What I’m wearing today:  Safari by Ralph Lauren