How Trained is Your Mind? Mine Needs More Exercise
February 21, 2006
Do you ever have one of those moments when you first learn about something that seems completely new to you then over the next four months the topic becomes ubiquitous in every aspect of your life? I'm not talking about current events
like Dick Cheney's weekend activities, I mean learning about a topic that has
been around for thousands of years (or more) and you just never clued in? It's
astonishing when it happens and reminds me never to think too highly of my intelligence.
About six years ago I read The Well-Trained Mind by Jesse Wise and Susan Wise
Bauer for the first time. The book introduced me to the Classical
Trivium. Some remnants of the Classical Trivium still exist in American public
school such as referring to the early grades as grammar school and in high school
math and science courses, especially now that New York is dumping Math A and B.
However, the two ideologies of education part quick company after that. The Trivium
ascribes to a three-part education. Part one, the Grammar stage is also known as the
poll-parrot stage. Just as it sounds, this is a great time to fill kids up with
information that they can parrot back. It's the perfect time to memorize and young
children do memorize quickly. Children love language and can quickly memorize poems,
chants, lists, rules. This is the time to lay down the overview of "everything".
Children are exposed to a vast wealth of information in chronological order. The
complete history of the world including classic literature and poetry is taught using
materials written at the students' developmental level. Biology, Chemistry, Physics,
and Earth Science are all taught within the context of scientific discoveries in
history. Children learn grammar, writing through dictation and summaries, reading
and the basic math operations. Also, children learn Latin and/ or Greek so that
by the third stage, the student can read the classics in the original language.
Children are not asked to form an opinion on the information, it is too soon. During
part two, the Logic or Dialetic stage, all the subjects are taught again but this
time in more depth. This is the second go round and now the student delves deeper
into the information. The student is now capable of forming his own opinions and
arguments on the information studied, questioning the ethics of past personalities
and beliefs. The third stage is the Rhetoric stage and the student is ready for
self-expression and for specialization. The student has the tools to guide his
own learning path. The student can read the classics in the language they were
written in, void of the translator's bias.
I started about three years ago using Wise-Bauer's Story of the World books as an
outline for teaching my sons (and myself) world history in chronological order.
I have to admit I was dumbfounded by what I never knew about world history or American
history for that matter. Where was I when the Terracotta Warriors where discovered
in China? Over 7,000 life-sized ceramic soldiers uncovered in a secret tomb of the
first Chinese Emperor Qin. Then to add insult to injury, doesn't The Amazing Race
reality TV show visit it two seasons ago? I never knew. Socrates taught Plato then
Plato went on to be the personal tutor of Alexander the Great. Hades was the Greek
god of the underworld. That explains a lot. The teenager Julius Caesar was kidnapped
by pirates and held for ransom and so was St. Patrick of Ireland. There was a Children's
Crusade. 30,000 youngsters from Europe were sent to fight the Muslims with love instead of
swords, only to never make it to the Holy Land because they were sold into slavery by
ruthless Christians along the way. This was news to me. Another interesting tidbit
was the plague cycled through Europe about every ten years, it didn't just hit once.
I learned the Black Death wasn't all bad either. Yes, it wiped out one third the
population of Europe but it also created a middle class, higher wages for the poor,
and forced aristocrats without the proper amount of staff to sell off land. Also,
due to the plague and an overzealous Catholic Church, Europeans lost their "technology
experts". Romans during the medieval ages had only two working aqueducts running into
the city as opposed to the twelve from ancient times. Mohammed was visited by the angel
Gabriel; that sounds familiar. Florence had an unroofed cathedral in its city for over
300 years because no architect could figure out how to put a dome on it as ancient Romans
had done. Leonardo DaVinci, Michaelangelo, Filippo Brunelleschi, Pope Leo X, the Queen
of France, and Galileo Galilee all had ties to the powerful Medici family of Florence,
Italy. Attila the Hun died of a nosebleed on his wedding night. Ferdinand and Isabella of Christopher
Columbus fame were also the creators of the Spanish Inquisition and Columbus wasn't
such a nice guy himself. The term "going berserk" comes from a group of fearsome Vikings
"The Berserkers" who went into battle naked and even scared the pants off the regular,
ruthless Viking warriors. Eleanor of Aquitaine, while reigning as Queen of France and
after returning from her own crusade to the Holy Land, ran off with the heir to the
English throne. There she gave birth to eight children including Richard the Lionhearted
and his smarmy brother John Lackland, of Robin Hood and Magna Carta notoriety. She ended
up under house arrest by her King hubby. Greenland was named improperly by Leif Eriksson's
dad to trick unsuspecting Norsemen into following him to an even more desolate location
(he was kicked out of Iceland for murdering his neighbor). The information I didn't know
could fill volumes (oh, it does).
After exposing my ignorance, I bought Wise Bauer's adult companion book, The Well-Educated Mind. It lists all the books I should have read growing up but never did including
authors from Cervantes to A. S. Byatt, Herodotus
to Laurel Thatcher Ulrichand. I set about reading the classics in
chronological order of course. I was feeling pretty proud of myself; I read bits of
Homer, parts of Machiavelli, Flaubert, all of Jane Austen (that was easy and fun), and
more. Unfortunately, sticking with the books from cover to cover was a lot harder. I
kept falling asleep. My mind kept wandering; I'd pick up some lighter reading instead.
Wise Bauer warned against such time wasters, advising me to get up earlier to read at the
same time each day. I did do this but never made it away from the newspaper.
Over time, we got busy. We were doing our "real" homework, working,
following the latest events on "Survivor", we let our classical education
slide. I was okay with this until embarking on the hilarious book The Know-It-All
It is written by A.J. Jacobs. Jacobs decides that he wants to
be the smartest person in the world and the best way to achieve this goal is
to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica in order, completely from A-Z.
About six years ago I read The Well-Trained Mind by Jesse Wise and Susan Wise
Bauer for the first time. The book introduced me to the Classical
Trivium. Some remnants of the Classical Trivium still exist in American public
school such as referring to the early grades as grammar school and in high school
math and science courses, especially now that New York is dumping Math A and B.
However, the two ideologies of education part quick company after that. The Trivium
ascribes to a three-part education. Part one, the Grammar stage is also known as the
poll-parrot stage. Just as it sounds, this is a great time to fill kids up with
information that they can parrot back. It's the perfect time to memorize and young
children do memorize quickly. Children love language and can quickly memorize poems,
chants, lists, rules. This is the time to lay down the overview of "everything".
Children are exposed to a vast wealth of information in chronological order. The
complete history of the world including classic literature and poetry is taught using
materials written at the students' developmental level. Biology, Chemistry, Physics,
and Earth Science are all taught within the context of scientific discoveries in
history. Children learn grammar, writing through dictation and summaries, reading
and the basic math operations. Also, children learn Latin and/ or Greek so that
by the third stage, the student can read the classics in the original language.
Children are not asked to form an opinion on the information, it is too soon. During
part two, the Logic or Dialetic stage, all the subjects are taught again but this
time in more depth. This is the second go round and now the student delves deeper
into the information. The student is now capable of forming his own opinions and
arguments on the information studied, questioning the ethics of past personalities
and beliefs. The third stage is the Rhetoric stage and the student is ready for
self-expression and for specialization. The student has the tools to guide his
own learning path. The student can read the classics in the language they were
written in, void of the translator's bias.
I started about three years ago using Wise-Bauer's Story of the World books as an
outline for teaching my sons (and myself) world history in chronological order.
I have to admit I was dumbfounded by what I never knew about world history or American
history for that matter. Where was I when the Terracotta Warriors where discovered
in China? Over 7,000 life-sized ceramic soldiers uncovered in a secret tomb of the
first Chinese Emperor Qin. Then to add insult to injury, doesn't The Amazing Race
reality TV show visit it two seasons ago? I never knew. Socrates taught Plato then
Plato went on to be the personal tutor of Alexander the Great. Hades was the Greek
god of the underworld. That explains a lot. The teenager Julius Caesar was kidnapped
by pirates and held for ransom and so was St. Patrick of Ireland. There was a Children's
Crusade. 30,000 youngsters from Europe were sent to fight the Muslims with love instead of
swords, only to never make it to the Holy Land because they were sold into slavery by
ruthless Christians along the way. This was news to me. Another interesting tidbit
was the plague cycled through Europe about every ten years, it didn't just hit once.
I learned the Black Death wasn't all bad either. Yes, it wiped out one third the
population of Europe but it also created a middle class, higher wages for the poor,
and forced aristocrats without the proper amount of staff to sell off land. Also,
due to the plague and an overzealous Catholic Church, Europeans lost their "technology
experts". Romans during the medieval ages had only two working aqueducts running into
the city as opposed to the twelve from ancient times. Mohammed was visited by the angel
Gabriel; that sounds familiar. Florence had an unroofed cathedral in its city for over
300 years because no architect could figure out how to put a dome on it as ancient Romans
had done. Leonardo DaVinci, Michaelangelo, Filippo Brunelleschi, Pope Leo X, the Queen
of France, and Galileo Galilee all had ties to the powerful Medici family of Florence,
Italy. Attila the Hun died of a nosebleed on his wedding night. Ferdinand and Isabella of Christopher
Columbus fame were also the creators of the Spanish Inquisition and Columbus wasn't
such a nice guy himself. The term "going berserk" comes from a group of fearsome Vikings
"The Berserkers" who went into battle naked and even scared the pants off the regular,
ruthless Viking warriors. Eleanor of Aquitaine, while reigning as Queen of France and
after returning from her own crusade to the Holy Land, ran off with the heir to the
English throne. There she gave birth to eight children including Richard the Lionhearted
and his smarmy brother John Lackland, of Robin Hood and Magna Carta notoriety. She ended
up under house arrest by her King hubby. Greenland was named improperly by Leif Eriksson's
dad to trick unsuspecting Norsemen into following him to an even more desolate location
(he was kicked out of Iceland for murdering his neighbor). The information I didn't know
could fill volumes (oh, it does).
After exposing my ignorance, I bought Wise Bauer's adult companion book, The Well-Educated Mind. It lists all the books I should have read growing up but never did including
authors from Cervantes to A. S. Byatt, Herodotus
to Laurel Thatcher Ulrichand. I set about reading the classics in
chronological order of course. I was feeling pretty proud of myself; I read bits of
Homer, parts of Machiavelli, Flaubert, all of Jane Austen (that was easy and fun), and
more. Unfortunately, sticking with the books from cover to cover was a lot harder. I
kept falling asleep. My mind kept wandering; I'd pick up some lighter reading instead.
Wise Bauer warned against such time wasters, advising me to get up earlier to read at the
same time each day. I did do this but never made it away from the newspaper.
Over time, we got busy. We were doing our "real" homework, working,
following the latest events on "Survivor", we let our classical education
slide. I was okay with this until embarking on the hilarious book The Know-It-All
It is written by A.J. Jacobs. Jacobs decides that he wants to
be the smartest person in the world and the best way to achieve this goal is
to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica in order, completely from A-Z.
"Apart from the sheer pleasure of scaling a major intellectual mountain, Jacobs figured reading the encyclopedia from beginning to end would fill some gaps in his formal education and greatly increase his "quirkiness factor." Reading alphabetically through whole topics he never knew existed meant he'd accumulate huge quantities of trivia to insert into conversations with unsuspecting victims. As his wife shunned him and cocktail party guests edged away, Jacobs started testing his knowledge in a hilarious series of humiliating adventures: hobnobbing at Mensa meetings, shuffling off to chess houses, trying out for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, visiting his old prep school, even competing on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Indeed, one of the book's strongest parts is its laugh-out-loud humor. Jacobs's ability to juxtapose his quirky, sardonic wit with oddball trivia make this one of the season's most unusual books."
Publishers Weekly
Jacobs questions the difference between knowing information and being intellectual. Behind all his reading is the gnawing concern he will soon forget all the information he is cramming into his head. How much can the human brain retain? I struggle with this thought as well, especially after having discussions with unschoolers, people who feel any "forced" learning is unnecessary and the only real learning will happen naturally and within the context of life. But having gone thirty-nine years and learning just today that neither Jerry Garcia nor Bob Weir came up with the clever name The Grateful Dead; I do want to learn it all. Even if in six months I can only remember the haziest details of the story and even knowing that I have lived thirty-nine years without knowing that tidbit and I've done just fine for myself.
The Know-It-All is laugh out-loud-funny and reading it has reignited my quest for my family, we will have a Classical Education! If Jacobs can take a year and read all 32 volumes of the encyclopedia, 33,000 pages with some 44 million words then we can do a little extra homework each night. I happened to be browsing the Encylopeadia Britannica website and noticed they have a nifty collection of the greatest books of western civilization, all right there in one 60 volume collection, even color-coded by subject matter. However, I was a little taken aback by their "reading plan" (and price tag).
Ten years?? I better get busy."Reading Guidance: A special section offers advice on how to get the most out of the Great Books collection, including a 10-year reading plan."
Ciao!
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