I classically educate the boys using the Trivium model. I understood on an intellectual level what that meant, but it isn't until seeing it in action repeatedly that it began to really click.
For those that aren't familiar with the Trivium it basically boils down to the 3 stages of learning levels for kids. The Grammar stage, the Logic stage, and the Rhetoric stage. Each describes how children learn during certain stages in their development. The Grammar stage is all about the facts. Kids in 1st-4th grade are most capable of learning information. They memorize and can parrot the facts back to you the best at at this stage. But they can't reason through those facts. It isn't until the Logic stage 4th-8th grade that they begin to reason and even argue the best. Finally the next stage is Rhetoric when it all comes together and the skills used in the other two stages are shared by communicating through written or oral ideas. Opinions are formed and debated (hopefully using critical thinking skills) and knowledge, reasoning, and communicating can flow.
I am seeing these stages manifest themselves in the boys almost daily. For example we use "English from the Roots Up" to study Vocabulary for both the boys. Allboy is a whiz at remembering the definitions for each root, but when it comes to analyzing a word and defining it based on those roots he has a hard time. He can't use reasoning to decide whether the first Latin root of the second comes first in the definition based on what makes sense. But Grinmaster can and does quite easily, once he remembers the roots themselves or Allboy points them out. Very different boys, but it makes sense when looked at through the lens of the Trivium. I started thinking about this today while reading Aesop's Fables. The story was "The Wolf and the Dog", where the dog is fat and the wolf is thin and the dog tells the wolf he can have all he could ever want to eat, but he must have a master and be kept on a chain. The wolf decides that he would rather be a bit hungry and still be free. Grinmaster knew right away the moral of the story, and Allboy could tell you almost sentence by sentence the main passages. But even using other examples like asking Allboy if I could give him a dollar to walk him up and down the street on a leash flew right over his head. Allboy likes dollars, and would let me walk him all day long if that meant he could buy candy. He couldn't understand that some good things are not worth the cost. Not because he is stupid by any means, but because he can't reason well enough to think through the consequences. He would get a dollar and be happy, but would be embarrassed to be treated like a dog. (well actually it was worse than that he thought it was the funniest thing ever and wanted to play it right away) That isn't a lack in him, it is a lack in me if I design lessons or teaching experiences that do not fit the stages each of the boys are in. The trivium is something that I learned about at the beginning for our homeschool journey, but I didn't really apply it to our homeschool. I am going to take another look because I am finally understanding on a practical level what it means and how a deeper understanding could help me avoid wasting money and time.
No comments:
Post a Comment