The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, Revised and Updated Edition by Susan Wise Bauer, Jessie Wise Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, Revised and Updated Edition
Book Review: the only homeschooling book you need
Summary: 5 Stars
this is the best homeschooling book out there. i have spent tons of money and time on most of the other well known homeschooling books amazon promotes, and nothing compares. i have sold the rest at the used book store. i should have borrowed them at the libary! just keep this one and all the other books written by and recommended by these authors. Book Review: A Homeschool Must Read!
Summary: 5 Stars
My first thought after finishing the book was that I wish I had read this when we first began homeschooling! This book is a wealth of information on classical education. It thoroughly describes how to implement it into your own home and gives plenty of curricula recommendations along with other helps. I would recommend this book as a must read!Book Review: wrong photo
Summary: 1 Stars
The photo next to the book is of the revised and updated book. I ordered it only to find out that I was getting the old book with a different cover and outdated info. Not very happy.Book Review: Don't get stressed out!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is fantastic in that the resources are thoroughly reviewed from a credible source. This particular style of homeschooling may stress some parents out though; it is very regimented. This can be altered to suit just about any style, however, which is one reason I gave it such a high rating.Book Review: Thorough, Mostly Excellent
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a very good book. I am using it to design a custom curriculum for my daughter. She is only two-and-a-half, but is starting to read already, wants to be a mathematician, and likes ancient Greece, so I thought I had better start early. I read some negative reviews of the book here and would like to say something in its defense. The authors state that the reader isn't meant to follow everything in the book exactly, standing over the student with a stopwatch, barking orders. One is meant to take from the book whatever is useful and apply it, even to use it to supplement a public or private school education, in one subject or all. The curriculum should be modified as the teacher sees fit, in order to suit the needs and tastes of the child. The struggling student should move slowly through this rigorous curriculum rather than being given something watered down in order to facilitate social promotion. Unless the student masters basics, he or she cannot hope to have an intellectually fulfilling life. The goal of a classical education is to produce a well-rounded and culturally-literate student with a full and solid foundation. This includes Latin, for instance, because that language supplements the learning of logic and English grammar and vocabulary. Just like a student that hates math must learn arithmetic, a student that hates Latin must still have a good introduction to it. The first student shouldn't be forced into calculus and the second student shouldn't be forced into more advanced Latin. I do have some reservations about certain things in the book. Most importantly, there is a math curriculum recommended in it, Calvert Math, which I've found to be of marginal quality. It DOES teach arithmetic, but even in 5th grade, relies fairly heavily on manipulative objects (blocks, fraction strips, and so on) and hasn't finished teaching basic arithmetic, yet includes many higher math concepts, such as algebra and probability. I have no experience with the other math curricula. The other two problems are smaller, but still serious. First, in 12th-grade literature, the book Beloved is recommended. I have read excerpts of this book and they are highly disturbing and full of obscenities. It is not at all suitable for children. Second, printing instruction is recommended to be given before cursive instruction. Back when good penmanship was the rule, rather than exception, this sequence was reversed, so I believe that tradition should be recontinued. Not mentioned in this book, the best penmanship instruction is the French method of vertical writing. It is scientifically developed to be entirely ergonomic, and it is elegant and easy to learn and write. Another element I believe can improve the curriculum is public-domain textbooks from the late 19th and early 20th centuries (1880-1919 or so, earlier books can be useful too). This is the time of the modern pinnacle of education, when methods and general knowledge had reached their highest level of refinement, right before the introduction of progressive education when we began our descent into the current dark age. Of course, not everything from that time period is sufficient; for instance, the theory of relativity had not yet been developed. But that is an ideal time period on which to base teaching methods. Such books are available here on Amazon often for very low prices. With these modifications, the curriculum presented in The Well-Trained Mind is ideal and I cannot praise it enough.