Life After Home Schooling - New York Times

By: Pam Belluck

Published: November 1, 1998

They are pioneers, in a way: the first wave of the modern home-schooling movement, the first generation of children to be taught primarily by their parents.

Some 15 years after states began legalizing home schooling in earnest, these early graduates are starting to make their way in the world.

Some have found the transition challenging, especially when trying to convince colleges and employers that home school is as good as high school, or when trying to get used to working in groups and socializing with peers. Others have had easy success, building on talents nurtured in their home incubators and drawing on a sense of competence fed by their teacher-parents' undivided support.

The experiences of these young adults have paved the way for the increasing numbers of children coming after them. Following years of court battles, home schooling is now legal in every state. While there are no exact figures, estimates suggest that the number of home-schooled children has jumped to anywhere between 500,000 and 1.5 million today, from 15,000 in 1970. Many, if not most, go to college, and schools like Harvard and Yale now have policies for evaluating their work. The Internet has vastly broadened the range of home curriculums.

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State schools shunned for home education

• Polly Curtis, education editor
• The Guardian,

Parents are increasingly seeking alternative forms of education such as home schooling or Steiner schools to free their children from the state sector's regime of testing and targets, academics suggest today. Most English pupils now start formal learning at four years old, among the youngest in the world, and go on to be the most tested throughout their education, according to a series of in-depth reports which will feed into a major review of primary schooling by Cambridge University.

Many parents are now considering alternative forms of education and more are opting to home-educate their children. The government should learn from the way children are taught in alternative settings such as Steiner schools where they learn through play, the academics say.

"Both the numbers opting for home schooling and the range of motivations of those wishing to do so have expanded considerably in recent years. One substantial and growing group is comprised of those who have abandoned formal schooling because they believe it to be too constrained," according to a paper by James Conroy and colleagues at Glasgow University. An estimated 50,000 children are being educated at home. A second paper, also released today, reveals that English children are attending school earlier, and spend more days a year at school, and in increasingly large institutions.

Most children now start school at four, the second study, The Structure of Primary Education, by the National Foundation for Educational Research, finds, despite the legal age being after their fifth birthday. One factor has been rising demand for childcare as more women work full-time.

The school starting age has not changed since it was introduced in 1870 to prevent child labour abuses. The average school size in England in 2006 was 224 pupils, compared with 128 in Scotland and higher than any other country in the study. A third study, on the curriculum and assessment, led by Kathy Hall at the National University of Ireland in Cork, says that English schoolchildren are among the most tested in the world. "No other country appears to be so preoccupied with national standards," it says. The research says home-educated children perform better and that children from disadvantaged backgrounds can improve disproportionately. Home-educated pupils are less likely to watch TV or spend hours on computers.

The Cambridge review, led by Professor Robin Alexander, is the biggest independent review of primary schooling in 40 years.

Looking Back to Move Forward

Al-Azhar University - 1000 years of Scholarship

by: Foundation for Science Technology and Civilisation. Info@fstc.co.uk

Al-Azhar is today the most important religious university in the Muslim world with as many as 90,000 students studying there at any one time. It is arguably the oldest university in the world

When Jawhar the Sicilian, commander of the troops sent by the Fatimid Caliph Almuiz to conquer Egypt, founded Cairo in 358 AH / 969 AD he built Al-Azhar originally as a mosque. The mosque was completed within two years and opened for it's first prayers on 7th Ramadan 361 A.H/ June 22, 972 AD. Historians differ as to how the mosque got its name. Some hold that it is called as such because it was surrounded by flourishing mansions at the time when Cairo was founded. Others believe that it was named after "Fatima Al-Zahraa" the daughter of Prophet Mohammed (peace and blessing be upon him) to glorify her name. This last explanation sounds the most likely as the Fatimids named themselves after her.

Al-Azhar University is a natural expansion of the great mosque of Al-Azhar. It is the oldest and most celebrated of all Islamic academic institutions and Universities all over the world without exception. For over one thousand years Al-Azhar has produced thousands of eminent scholars, distinguished educationalists, preserving Islamic heritage and strengthening Islamic identity.

During the Fatimid times (972 - 1171), Al-Azhar was a miniature University whose objective was to spread the Ismaili-Shiite teachings in Egypt. Its position was thus important to the ruling Fatimid dynasty, but had little importance to the rest of the Muslim world who had its eyes focused on Baghdad as the center of Islamic knoweldge. Through the schools of Baghdad Muslims got to know scholars of the calibre of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Abu Ishaq al-Isfara'ini, Al-Juwaini and Abu-Bakr Al-Baqilani. For the majority of Muslims Al-Azhar was not as famous as the schools of Baghdad. In addition, the Fatimids were looked upon by the majority of Muslims as rulers belonging to a heretic sect. This view is obvious through the declaration made in Baghdad by many Muslim scholars denouncing the Fatimids. The declaration included prominent Sunni scholars like Abu Ishaq al-Isfara'ini in addition to prominent Shii scholars like al-Sharif al-Murtada. This stand regarding the Fatimids hampered Al-Azhar from taking a prominent position in the Islamic world during the time of the Fatimids.
When the Ayyubids assumed power, Al-Azhar was converted to the Sunni (mainstream) Islamic teachings. But with the establishment of the Ayyubid schools in Egypt Al-Azhar's position in the Islamic world became of little importance. It was considered just another school among the many schools in Egypt, Baghdad, Syria and Andalusia.

Read the entire article here....

Harlem to Antarctica for Science, and Pupils

A great story in the New York Times about people who are not afraid to think outside of the proverbial "box," and incorporate new methods with regard to how our young students are educated. I hope this program sets a precedence, and becomes the point of departure from the status-quo and serves to assist our ailing compulsory educational system.

The pitch: Eight weeks in Antarctica. Groundbreaking research into the climate before the Ice Age. Glaciers. Volcanoes. Adorable penguins.

The details: Camping on the sea ice in unheated tents, in 20-below-zero temperatures. Blinding whiteouts. The bathroom? A toilet seat over a hole in the ice.

Stephen F. Pekar, a geology professor from Queens College, was selling Shakira Brown, a 29-year-old Harlem middle school science teacher, on his expedition.

Her response: I’m in.

Dr. Pekar had found just the person for his Antarctica team: a talented, intrepid African-American teacher to be a role model for minority science students.

“I’m tired of having a bunch of white people running around doing science,” said Dr. Pekar, who is white...

Read the entire article in the New York Times

In Test, Few Students Are Proficient Writers

“Overall, American students’ writing skills are deteriorating,” said Will Fitzhugh, the founder of Concord Review, a journal published in Massachusetts that features history research papers written by high school students. He expressed skepticism that the national assessment accurately measured students’ overall writing skills because, he said, it only tests their ability to write very brief essays jotted out in half an hour.

“The only way to assess the kind of writing that students will have to do in college is to have them write a term paper, and then have somebody sit down and grade it — and nobody wants to do that, because it’s too costly,” he said...Read the complete article in the New York Times

The Natural World

Studying insects this year with my students was a great introduction for them into the natural world. Unfortunately this world remains hidden to most of our children. I encourage all parents to take time from there busy schedules and share the wonders of creation with their children. Time spent observing the natural world is truly therapeutic, and opens the child's mind allowing them to ponder and investigate this gift--the creation--that they have been blessed with.

I am not in the UK, but I fond this link for an exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London. The exhibition is titled "Amazing Butterflies," and is running from April 5th unit August 17. If you do attend some feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Here is a look at some of the Butterflies...

Wanted: faith in the future

Tuesday April 1, 2008
The Guardian

More than a third of British Muslims have no qualifications. Is the entire school system failing large numbers of students and what can be done?
Riazat Butt investigates

The Qur'an was revealed over a period of more than 20 years, with the prophet Muhammad receiving the first revelation in AD610 in the Cave of Hira, near Mecca. He was told: "Read in the name of your Lord who created, created man from a clot. Read, for your Lord is most generous, Who teaches by means of the pen, teaches man what he does not know."

Muslim scholars therefore see the pursuit of knowledge as a duty, with the Qur'an containing several references to the rewards of learning.

This sacredness is, however, lost on a third of British Muslims - or if they see it, they are not being empowered to achieve it. According to the Office for National Statistics, around 33% of British Muslims of working age have no qualifications - the highest proportion of any religious group in this country...Click here to continue

Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling

Here is an article that appeared in the March 26th edition of the New York Times--Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling

LODI, Calif. — Like dozens of other Pakistani-American girls here, Hajra Bibi stopped attending the local public school when she reached puberty, and began studying at home.

David Kadlubowski for The New York Times

Karima, right, with her sisters, Kiram, 8, and Kadhima, 14, playing with yo-yos in a study break at their Phoenix home.

Her family wanted her to clean and cook for her male relatives, and had also worried that other American children would mock both her Muslim religion and her traditional clothes.

“Some men don’t like it when you wear American clothes — they don’t think it is a good thing for girls,” said Miss Bibi, 17, now studying at the 12th-grade level in this agricultural center some 70 miles east of San Francisco. “You have to be respectable.” Continue the article...

And here is my response...

I was delighted to find a New York Times article that was emailed to me yesterday; entitled “Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling.” As a homeschooler and a Muslim I was looking forward to the insight and depth that normally accompanies N.Y. Times articles. But unfortunately that was not the case; instead I was appalled by the blatant “spin” that was prevalent throughout the entire article.

If asked, home schoolers—be they Muslim or other--would cite educational freedoms, efficiency, and time management as some of the main reasons for home schooling. There is no denying that within the Muslim community religion does serve to influence a parent’s decision to home school. For the most part that decision is not undertaken to radicalize, isolate or render a child socially retarded, but, rather to shield them from the current trend of moral decline, erosion of societal values, increased violence, and physical/psychological abuses that have become an unfortunate reality of many of our public education systems.

Truly effective home schooling develops the minds of thinking and articulate students who are able to process facts into arguments and communicate those arguments clearly and persuasively. Therefore, for education to be effective, it must go beyond merely conveying facts. One of the goals of home schooling is to transcend the myopic approach of adhering strictly to academic issues and systematic testing that is based solely upon compulsory educational standards. Returning to the ‘primary objective’ of education is what motivates home schooling parents. And that primary objective is to provide the tools and opportunity for students to develop into complete human beings who can engage the world with intelligence, insight, integrity, virtue and compassion in a safe and wholesome environment.

It is not until the nearly the end of the article, that mention is made of any educational achievements for Muslims who have “Turned to Home Schooling.” The article identifies a Chinese Muslim immigrant family who chose to home school, and whose son is currently in the process of applying to medical school.

The article makes mention of a few of the reasons why Muslims home school, such as the parent who paid a visit to a kindergarten were each pupil had assembled a scrapbook titled “Why I like Pigs,” or the young Pakistani-American, Hajra Bibi, who as the article states, “like dozens of other Pakistani-American girls,” are forced to stop “attending the local public school when she reached puberty, and began studying at home.” And the reason for this, “Her family wanted her to clean and cook for her male relatives...” This is the same senseless rhetoric, which Maury Schaffer spewed on 60 minutes, when he labeled a beard worn by Muslim men as radical facial hair, and interpreted Muslim males wearing traditional white tunics as sign of their willingness to commit an act of martyrdom.

If the Bibi’s have chosen to home school because they are in need of a "domestic servant," then it should be clearly stated that is has no basis in Islam and is a cultural practice prevalent among rural South Asian immigrants.

Such an action contradicts the Prophetic tradition that addresses the idea of education—Prophetic traditions are the secondary source of Islamic law after the Qur'an--which encourages the pursuit of knowledge by both genders. The tradition states, “Seeking knowledge is an obligation for every Muslim (male and female).” The correlation that the author draws between Muslims home schooling and this family’s choice to remove their daughter from school and subsequent “banishment to housework and cooking" at the age puberty, is not only a gross misrepresentation, but is a dangerous stereotyping that seeks to further alienate and portray all Muslims in a an unfavorable light.

The false portrayal of Muslim home schoolers continues in the article, “Many Muslim parents contacted for this article were reluctant to talk, saying Muslim home-schoolers were often portrayed as religious extremists. That view is partly fueled by the fact that Adam Gadahn, an American-born spokesman for Al Qaeda, was home-schooled in rural California.”

Yes, Adan Gadahn was home schooled, but he did not convert to Islam until the age of 17, an age when most homeschooled students have completed their studies and are well into preparing for their college application process. So, what does a Jewish kid born in Oregon, whose Grandfather was a prominent surgeon and on the Board of Directors of the Anti-Defamation League; and whose paternal grandmother, Agnes Branch, was an editor for The Chronicle Christian Newspaper, who played Little League baseball and participated in Christian home school support groups, have to do with the reluctance of Muslims to speak about home schooling, or have any relevance, connection or correlation to this article? The answer is clear: absolutely nothing! It is also interesting that the three hyperlinks in the article—which are all related to Adam Gadahn—are irrelevant and serve no purpose addressing the topic of Muslim home schooing. The first hyperlink is for Al-Qaeda, the second is for state of California and the third the is for the F.B.I. We can understand the second link, as a Mr. Gadahn was home schooled in California and some of the families interviewed in the article reside in California. But what is the logic of adding a hyperlink for Al-Qaeda and the F.B.I. in an article that is supposed to be about Muslims turning to home schooling? Again, the answer is clear: absolutely nothing!

The article stated that, “Parents who home-school tend to be converts (to Islam),” yet throughout the entire article a single reference is made to a convert with regard to Muslim home schooling. Asking Muslims who are either under-qualified or not qualified at all to represent and convey an Islamic perspective, is tactic that has consistently been used in the media’s approach towards, “understanding Islam.”

The rhetoric builds to a climax at the end of article:

• “In some cases, home-schooling is used primarily as a way to isolate girls like Miss Bibi, the Pakistani-American here in Lodi (California).”

• “Their families want them to retain their culture and not become Americanized,”

• “As soon as they finish their schooling, the girls are married off, often to cousins brought in from their families’ old villages.”

• “Aishah Bashir, now an 18-year-old Independent School student, was sent back to Pakistan when she was 12 and stayed till she was 16. She had no education there.”

The article finishes by conjuring up an image of an oppressed, coerced and reluctant girl who is: “Asked about home schooling, she said it was the best choice. But she admitted that the choice was not hers and, asked if she would home-school her own daughter, stared mutely at the floor. Finally she said quietly: “When I have a daughter, I want her to learn more than me. I want her to be more educated.”

Anyone who knows anything about Islam understands that “staring mutely at the floor” is known as iqrar. A term in Islamic jurisprudence, which is an act--to stabilize or to accommodate something which is fluctuating between acknowledgment and denial and, it is a form of evidence in any given matter.

As a journalist it is incumbent upon one to collect and confirm unbiased information and subjectively report on the reality of the issue at hand. Sensationalism in a time of heightened polarization and a perceived “us vs. them,” is not only unhealthy, but dangerous and serves to only exacerbate the current state of misrepresentation and prejudice between cultures.

From Where Do We Get Our Culture?

While reading about the concept of a Classical Education, I came across what I feel is an extremely relevant concept with regard to culture and civilization.

The concept is, "the student learns that our Culture and Civilizations is an outgrowth of the classical, medieval and reformation world. Modern students must learn that our culture was not purchased for them by their parents at the mall."

I am a firm believer that we are products of our environment, and what we surround ourselves with has a lasting effect on who we are and how we think.

Recently, I was working with a child, and we were discussing the usage and spelling of a few words such as valley, and crane. When I asked the child "do you know the meaning of the word valley?" the child replied, with complete confidence, "of course, that is when the man comes out and parks your car for you."
The second word, crane was a bit more difficult, because it is a homonym, and can only be understood through its contextual usage. Fair play, but, when then child looks around, and without hesitation blurts out, "of course I know what a crane is, everybody knows what a crane is, look on top of all of the buildings, those are cranes!"

This exchange immediately brought to mind two books, "The Price of Privilege" and "Last Child in the Woods-Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder Syndrome."
The first book, "The Price of Privilege" addresses the concepts of parenting in the age of affluence, and the need for parents to teach children how to manage emotions and impulses, form healthy relationships, think for themselves, and become useful, well adjusted, and moral human beings.
The second book, "Last Child in the Woods" sets out to link the absence of nature in the lives of today's wired generation to some of the most disturbing childhood trends: the rise in obesity, attention disorders, and depression.

As parents we must constantly be aware of what our children are telling us, because it is nothing more than their reiterating what we are telling them. Let's constantly remind ourselves of our responsibility to our children, and never forget, "we reap what we sow!"

War Against Intelligence

“According to a 1993 national survey by the Educational Testing Service
of 26,000 adults with an average of 12.4 years of schooling, only 3.5% of the sample had the literacy skills to do traditional college level work.”-- Bruce N. Shortt, The Harsh Truth About Public Schools

Are your children bright? Most kids are. Chances are that you see their intelligence and strengths. You are aware of their interests and inclinations. You sent them off to school at a young age with the hope that the school would inform them of needed facts and knowledge as well as encourage their strengths and feed their interests. However, the public schools no longer do what parents expect, and that fact is the reason for the school wars.

Today’s schools have reduced the content of all instruction by about four grade levels, compared to fifty years ago. Teachers are now “facilitators” while the children reach “consensus” about their subjects. The CAPT test, Connecticut’s high school “exit exam,” is based on material offered only up to eighth grade. The courses, textbooks and tests have been dumbed down to that level. International testing shows that, compared to students in other advance countries, “The longer our students are in school, the lower their comparative performance,” says Gordon Ambach, former head of the Council of Chief State School Officers. He should know.

It gets worse: The schools have changed in purpose from education to political and social indoctrination, with “equality” as the goal. Schools don’t care how much children learn, they are primarily interested in what kids “are like.” The school’s goal is to transform children’s varied attitudes, values and opinions from those of traditional families to those desired by the government. The government seeks to turn a population of diverse children into a mass of predictable citizens who know the same things and believe the same things, with no one ahead or behind too far. That is why today’s public schools spend lots of our money trying to raise the bottom children up to the middle mass, but nothing to help high-achievers. In fact, they are designed to prevent the brightest kids from reaching their full potential. Now you know why “one-size-fits-all” and “dumbing down” are the major policies of public schools. The only way they can achieve “equality” of outcomes is by lowering their standards.

Today, the schools have a far different agenda for our children from the one we expect of them. They are failing to provide the children with the needed basic skills, knowledge and information, but, worse, they are interested in finding children’s weaknesses and psychological “needs” instead of their strengths and interests. The school system makes the basic assumption that all children have “disabilities” and need the school to provide “treatments” for them. The result is that school has become therapeutic and psychological even to the point of requiring many children to take mind-altering drugs such as Ritalin, in order to control their behavior.

The school system has several reasons to do this – all of which work directly against most parents’ hopes and wishes for their children. The government is seeking to mould the citizens of our country into a docile, easily controlled mass that can be employed or will become soldiers who do exactly what they are told to do, and nothing else. What does this all mean? It means that government school is no longer for the benefit of children. It is for the benefit of a government that seeks to control, instead of being controlled by, the people.

Unfortunately for America, our country needs well-educated people now, not dumbed-down people. There lies the School Wars, pitting the government school establishment against the rest of us. Government school offers Artificial Stupidity – turning bright kids into ignorant robots; our children need the exact opposite. The schools are turning intelligent children into stupid adults by the millions simply by not offering them what they need, while offering them large quantities of what they do not need, or want. I believe the situation is well described by Thomas Sowell: “In an age of artificial intelligence, too many of our schools are producing artificial stupidity.”

vertical vs. slanted handwriting

There has been an age old debate (since 1948) regarding two distinct writing styles for developing early childhood childhood hand writing. The following was taken from the end of an article comparing data (observations) pertaining to this subject.

In conclusion, after examining the available research and answering the most common questions in the ongoing debate of vertical vs. slanted handwriting instruction, educators are left with one final question: Which alphabet will I teach my students? There are two choices: The vertical alphabet which, according to research, is more developmentally appropriate, easier to read, and easier to write for young children as well as being easier for educators to integrate and teach; or the slanted alphabet, which was originally designed with the good intentions of moving children more quickly and easily into cursive but has been shown by research and experience to not only have fallen short of its original goal but also to have created many problems for young children. The alphabet teachers choose should aid the teaching and learning process, not cause unnecessary difficulty, now or later. After all, in the final analysis, there is only one true measurement of whether a skill has been mastered or not--student success.

If you would like to read more information pertaining to the study, Please click here

Al-Ghazali on Disciplining the Soul & on Breaking the Two Desires

Al-Ghazali on Childrearing
Translated by: T.J.Winter (Abdal Hakim Murad)

KNOW that the way in which young children are disciplined is one of the most important of all matters. A child is a trust in the care of his parents, for his pure heart is a precious uncut jewel devoid of any form or carving, which will accept being cut into any shape, and will be disposed according to the guidance it receives from others. If it is habituated to and instructed in goodness then this will be its practice when it grows up, and it will attain to felicity in this world and the next; its parents too, and all its teachers and preceptors, will share in its reward. Similarly, should it be habituated to evil and neglected as though it were an animal, then misery and perdition will be its lot, and the responsibility for this will be borne by its guardian and supervisor. For God (Exalted is He!) has said, Ward off from yourselves and your families a Fire. A father may strive to protect his son from fire in this world, but yet it is of far greater urgency that he protect him from the fires which exist in the Afterlife. This he should do by giving him discipline, teaching him and refining his character, and by preserving him from bad company, and by not suffering him to acquire the custom of self-indulgence, or to love finery and luxury, in the quest for which he might well squander his life when older and thus perish forever. Rather should he watch over him diligently from his earliest days, and permit none but a woman of virtue and religion to nurse and raise him; her diet should be of permitted things, for there is no blessing [baraka] in milk which originates in forbidden food, which, should a child be nourished on it, will knead his native disposition in such a way as to incline his temperament to wrongdoing.

Read more...

Provisions

As parents who are educating their children, how do we reconcile the reality that our life in this world is transitory, and that true realization will be accompanied by understanding when the veil has been lifted (i.e. when we depart from this world)?

No sensible individual would avail themselves to the dangers of travel without provisions and preparation, so why then do we (as the responsible agents of our children) repeatedly send them forth unprepared to the appointed meeting with their Creator?

Indeed, secular knowledge has its benefits; there is no disputing this point. But we must contemplate the following question: “are we preparing our children with the provisions required for the journey that is infinitely more important than their present travels”?

Every individual bares a Divinely legislated responsibility, as made clear by the following Prophetic tradition: Ibn Umar (may God be pleased with him) said that the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: "Each of you is a guardian, and each of you will be asked about your guardian-ship. The leader is a guardian, and the man is a guardian over the people of his house, and the woman is a guardian over her husband's house and children. So each of you is a guardian, and each of you will be asked about your guardianship". (Bukhari, Muslim)

As parents we need to transcend the myopic approach of adhering strictly to academic issues and testing based solely upon compulsory educational standards. With regard to our children it is imperative that we return to the primary objective of education-- providing the tools and opportunity for students to develop into complete human beings who can engage the world with integrity, virtue and compassion, and who will be well informed and comprehend the transitory nature of this abode.

Thus, I remind myself of this timeless advice: “the knowledge which secures salvation and felicity in the Hereafter is immeasurably more significant and useful than any science whose purpose is mere immediate physical well-being”. “Knowledge, then, used appropriately becomes wisdom…wisdom is the force of penetration and discernment of the mind, the ability to place everything in its precisely appropriate location, in the precisely appropriate manner, at the precisely appropriate time. It is also the ability to put first things first, never to allow the ephemeral to obscure the path to the eternal, nor the contingent to take priority over the essential”. [1]

______________________
[1] Badawi, Mostafa, trans. [Fusul al-‘Ilmiyah wa-al-usul al hikmiyah], Knowledge and Wisdom. Chicago: The Starlatch Press, 2001

Spelling Review

When I began homeschooling our daughter this fall, I chose to commit three days per week to spelling. We have been using seven words per spelling lesson from the "Explode the Code" book series. The progression in the books has been very appropriate for our daughter, and she really enjoys the work.

An important point that should be mentioned is this: anytime you feel that a younger child--typically before the age of seven indicates (whether physically or verbally), that they are no longer interested in studying, you should respond to their feelings and end the lesson. Trying to push through it will only have negative affects, in that, disdain begins to grow in the child with regard to studying. Once this happens, it is as if a trust has been violated and then studying becomes a chore rather then an activity which they enjoy.

At the age of five, after five months our daughter is producing work like this (i.e. the above scanned page) consistently. A main point for us has been to listen to what our daughter is telling us. And most of the time we know when she has reached her limit--by observing her actions--not by her telling us.

Built upon the success that we have found pertaining to this spelling process, I have been inclined to try some short sentence dictation with her. In the next post I will--In sha Allah--scan a page of that work.

wa salam.

Dictation

I have been homeschooling my daughter (5 yrs. old) using a series in English--(spelling and writing)--named "Explode the Code". It has been fantastic! After four months of daily "spelling reviews" and short sentence writing, I wanted to try some dictation work with her. The above notebook page was her dictation for today.

Witnessing her development has been, and still is, completely therapeutic. I encourage every parent to become pro-active with regard to their child's education.

The rewards are beyond description!!! The love that is born out of this parent-child relationship is something that we are all in need of.

Information and Knowledge

The difference between information and knowledge is the application of those facts, or discerning reality from conjecture. Truly effective education develops the minds of thinking and articulate students who are able to process facts into arguments and communicate those arguments clearly and persuasively. Therefore, for education to be effective, it must go beyond merely conveying facts.

The Disappearance of Childhood

I recently read a book titled--"The Disappearance of Childhood"--by Neil Postman. In the last chapter of the book , he changes his format style to Q&A, and in the last question he asks:

Is the individual powerless to resist what is happening? I do not want to speak on behalf of the author about what is meant by, "what is happening," so I will share his answer, and allow you to deduce the meaning.

He states:

"The answer to this in my opinion, is "No." But, as with all resistance, there is a price to pay. Specifically, resistance entails conceiving of parenting as an act of rebellion against American culture. For example, for parents merely to remain married is itself an act of disobedience and an insult to the spirit of a throwaway culture in which continuity has little value. It is also at least ninety percent un-American to remain in close proximity to one's extended family so that the children can experience, daily, the meaning of kinship and the value of deference and responsibility to elders. Similarly, to insist that one's children learn discipline of delayed gratification, or modesty in their sexuality, or self-restraint in manners, language, and style is to place oneself in opposition to almost every social trend. Even further, to ensure that one's children work hard at becoming literate is extraordinarily time-consuming and even expensive. But most rebellious of all is the attempt to control the media's access to one's children. There are, in fact, two ways to do this . The first is to limit the amount of exposure children have to media. The second is to monitor carefully what they have exposure to, and provide them with a continuously running critique of the themes and values of the media's content. Both are very difficult to do and require a level of attention that most parents are not prepared to give to child-rearing.

Nonetheless, there are parents who are committed to doing all of these things, who are in effect defying the directives of their culture. Such parents are in effect defying the directives of their culture. Such parents are not only helping their children to have a childhood but are, at the a same time, creating a sort of intellectual elite. Certainly in the short run the children who grow up in such homes will, as adults, be much favored by business , the professions, and the media themselves. What can we say of the long run? Only this: Those parents who resist the spirit of the age will contribute to what might be called the Monastery Effect, for they will help to keep alive a humane tradition. It is not conceivable that our culture will forget that it needs children. But it is halfway toward forgetting that children need childhood. Those who insist on remembering shall perform a noble service."

Extending Childhood

By: John Taylor Gatto

From the beginning, there was purpose behind forced schooling, purpose which had nothing to do with what parents, kids, or communities wanted. Instead, this grand purpose was forged out of what a highly centralized corporate economy and system of finance bent on internationalizing itself was thought to need; that, and what a strong, centralized political state needed, too. School was looked upon from the first decade of the twentieth century as a branch of industry and a tool of governance. For a considerable time, probably provoked by a climate of official anger and contempt directed against immigrants in the greatest displacement of people in history, social managers of schooling were remarkably candid about what they were doing. In a speech he gave before businessmen prior to the First World War, Woodrow Wilson made this unabashed disclosure:

"We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks".

By 1917, the major administrative jobs in American schooling were under the control of a group referred to in the press of that day as "the Education Trust." The first meeting of this trust included representatives of Rockefeller, Carnegie, Harvard, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the National Education Association. The chief end, wrote Benjamin Kidd, the British evolutionist, in 1918, was to "impose on the young the ideal of subordination."

At first, the primary target was the tradition of independent livelihoods in America. Unless Yankee entrepreneurialism could be extinguished, at least among the common population, the immense capital investments that mass production industry required for equipment weren’t conceivably justifiable. Students were to learn to think of themselves as employees competing for the favor of management. Not as Franklin or Edison had once regarded themselves, as self-determined, free agents.

Only by a massive psychological campaign could the menace of overproduction in America be contained. That’s what important men and academics called it. The ability of Americans to think as independent producers had to be curtailed. Certain writings of Alexander Inglis carry a hint of schooling’s role in this ultimately successful project to curb the tendency of little people to compete with big companies. From 1880 to 1930, overproduction became a controlling metaphor among the managerial classes, and this idea would have a profound influence on the development of mass schooling.

I know how difficult it is for most of us who mow our lawns and walk our dogs to comprehend that long-range social engineering even exists, let alone that it began to dominate compulsion schooling nearly a century ago. Yet the 1934 edition of Ellwood P. Cubberley’s Public Education in the United States is explicit about what happened and why. As Cubberley puts it:

It has come to be desirable that children should not engage in productive labor. On the contrary, all recent thinking...[is] opposed to their doing so. Both the interests of organized labor and the interests of the nation have set against child labor. [1]

The statement occurs in a section of Public Education called "A New Lengthening of the Period of Dependence," in which Cubberley explains that "the coming of the factory system" has made extended childhood necessary by depriving children of the training and education that farm and village life once gave. With the breakdown of home and village industries, the passing of chores, and the extinction of the apprenticeship system by large-scale production with its extreme division of labor (and the "all conquering march of machinery"), an army of workers has arisen, said Cubberley, who know nothing.

Furthermore, modern industry needs such workers. Sentimentality could not be allowed to stand in the way of progress. According to Cubberley, with "much ridicule from the public press" the old book-subject curriculum was set aside, replaced by a change in purpose and "a new psychology of instruction which came to us from abroad." That last mysterious reference to a new psychology is to practices of dumbed-down schooling common to England, Germany, and France, the three major world coal-powers (other than the United States), each of which had already converted its common population into an industrial proletariat.

Arthur Calhoun’s 1919 Social History of the Family notified the nation’s academics what was happening. Calhoun declared that the fondest wish of utopian writers was coming true, the child was passing from its family "into the custody of community experts." He offered a significant forecast, that in time we could expect to see public education "designed to check the mating of the unfit." Three years later, Mayor John F. Hylan of New York said in a public speech that the schools had been seized as an octopus would seize prey, by "an invisible government." He was referring specifically to certain actions of the Rockefeller Foundation and other corporate interests in New York City which preceded the school riots of 1917.

The 1920s were a boom period for forced schooling as well as for the stock market. In 1928, a well-regarded volume called A Sociological Philosophy of Education claimed, "It is the business of teachers to run not merely schools but the world." A year later, the famous creator of educational psychology, Edward Thorndike of Columbia Teachers College, announced, "Academic subjects are of little value." William Kirkpatrick, his colleague at Teachers College, boasted in Education and the Social Crisis that the whole tradition of rearing the young was being made over by experts.
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[1] This is the same Ellwood P. Cubberley who wrote in his Columbia Teachers College Dissertation of 1905 that schools were to be factories "in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products... manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry."

Al-Ghazali's View on Children's Education

Amongst the many Muslim scholars who wrote on the education of children, are Ibn Sina, Ibn Khaldun and Al-Ghazali. Here focus is placed on the latter. Al-Ghazali, known in Europe as Algazel, is one of the most illustrious Muslim scholars, who wrote many works, and became renowned for his learning. In his thirties, he became the principal teacher at Madrasah Nizamiyyah of Baghdad, the most renowned institution of learning in eastern Islam (Cordova in the West). His ideas on education dominated Islamic educational thought for centuries after his death. Here, the focus is how he saw the education of the child and the role of the master. The sources for this brief account, other than the original source itself, are C. Bouamrane-L. Gardet; A. Tritton, and A. Tibawi.

According to Al-Ghazali, `knowledge exists potentially in the human soul like the seed in the soil; by learning the potential becomes actual.'

The child, Al-Ghazali also wrote, `is a trust (placed by God) in the hands of his parents, and his innocent heart is a precious element capable of taking impressions'.
If the parents, and later the teachers, brought him up in righteousness he would live happily in this world and the next and they would be rewarded by God for their good deed. If they neglected the child's upbringing and education he would lead a life of unhappiness in both worlds and they would bear the burden of the sin of neglect.

One of the elements Al-Ghazali insists upon is that a child should be taught the words of the Creed in his earliest days and be taught the meaning gradually as he grew older; corresponding to the three stages of memorising, understanding and conviction.

The way the child relates to the world at large occupies a large concern in Al-Ghazali's mind. In concert with Ibn Al-Hajj, he stresses amongst others that a child must not boast about his father's wealth, and must be polite and attentive to all. He should be taught not to love money for love of it is a deadly poison. He must not spit nor clean his nose in public. He must learn to respect and obey his parents, teachers and elders. As he grows older, he must observe the rules of cleanliness, fast a few days in Ramadhan, avoid the wearing of silk, gold and silver, learn the prescriptions of the sacred law, fear thieving, wealth from unclean sources, lying, treachery, vice and violent language. The pupil must not be excessively proud, or jealous. He should not tell off others. He must avoid the company of the great of this world, or to receive gifts from them. He must act towards God as he would wish his servant acted towards him. He should treat every human as he would like to be treated himself.

The perspective of Al-Ghazali is centered upon personal effort in the search for truth; and this presupposes, he insists, a received education and the direction of a master. Education (tarbiya), Al-Ghazali states in Ayyuha l-walad is like `the labour of the farmer, who uproots the weeds, trims wheat so as it grows better and gives a better harvest.' Every man needs a teacher to guide him in the right direction. To try and do without leads to worst illusions. In Ayyuha l-walad the pupil's outward respect for his teacher is evidence of esteem for such in one's heart.

He who undertakes the instructions of the young, points Al-Ghazali, `undertakes great responsibility'. He must therefore be as tender to his pupils as if they were his own children. He must correct moral lapses through hinting… above all he himself must set an example so that his action accords with his precepts.

The teacher should never criticise the subject taught by another. He must adapt his teaching to the pupil's capacity and ability, and not to overburden the pupil's capacity, nor give him fright. He must respect the less gifted pupil, who might if lost, leave safe foundations for standards he would never reach. And after school, Al-Ghazali insists, the pupil must be allowed to have recreation. To prevent play and insist on continuous study leads to dullness in the heart, diminution in intelligence and unhappiness. Even more on this matter, in ‘Ihya ulum al-din', the teacher, Al-Ghazali holds, carries eight duties.

1. First and foremost he is a father for his pupils.
2. He must teach for the sake of God.
3. He would advise the student with prudence,
   
4. He would advise the student to fight the excessive urge to learn too quickly, and to overtake his peers.
5. He would reprimand with moderation, in private, discreetly, not in public.
6. To blame too much is to make the pupil too stubborn in his way of seeing and doing things.
7. And one other duty of the teacher is to make sure that what he teaches he pursues in his life.
8. And that his own acts do not contradict what he is trying to inculcate.

This article was taken from Muslimheritage.com

Problems in The Early Years

Sue Palmer 2004
(TES Opinion piece, 2004)

Problem: many children entering primary schools today are not well-equipped to learn. Both the Chief Inspector of Schools and the Director of the Basic Skills Agency have recently voiced concern about the poor language, behavioural and social skills of five-year-olds coming into reception classes. Further problem: according to the teachers I meet on my inservice travels, there’s no time to sort out these linguistic and social handicaps, because the poor kids have got to knuckle straight down to literacy and numeracy. Key Stage 1 SATs beckon.

We’ve always had a very early start to education in this country – and these days the tests and targets culture that pervades primary education means even less time is being devoted to developing speaking, listening and social skills in the early stages. Children are coming to school unready – perhaps unable – to learn and instead of doing something to help them, we’re doling out reading books and worksheets.

Contrast this with the situation in most European countries, where formal schooling doesn’t start until children are six or seven, but where there’s a strong tradition of pre-school education, starting at three, with structured attention to the development of oral language, attention span and social skills. In a report last autumn on the education of six-year-olds in England, Denmark and Finland, Ofsted pointed out that the Scandinavian children exhibited considerably better behaviour, language and listening skills than their English counterparts, and “teachers were not preoccupied by discipline and control to the extent that many were in England”.

The answer to the problems therefore seems obvious. We should raise the age at which children start formal schooling to six or even seven, and provide a rigorous pre-school curriculum based on the most successful European practice. This would help us sort out any lack of social and linguistic graces, and develop children’s attention span, self-control and ability to concentrate so that they’re able to benefit from education when it starts.

It seems clear that a later start doesn’t ‘hold children back’. European children soon catch up with and, in many cases, overtake us. Indeed, I believe a later start would lead to a rise in standards. At present, too many children fall at the first fence, and we waste a fortune on catch-up programmes which, sadly, don’t seem to make much difference. If children were better prepared for literacy and numeracy, we could prevent much of this early failure. We might also go some way to solving the ‘gender gap’ – international statistics show that in countries where children start school later, there is far less difference between girls’ and boys’ academic performance in later years.

So why in the world don’t we do it? It’s not as if experts in early years education haven’t been recommending it for years. It’s not as if we aren’t capable of putting together a good solid pre-school curriculum – indeed the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage to which schools must by law ‘have regard’, is generally excellent and could easily be the basis of another one or two years’ practice (although, since it was written in a regime where reading and writing start in reception, it needs a bit of beefing up in terms of oral language and listening skills).

Perhaps it’s because we’ve become so obsessed with testing that we can’t think straight. When life revolves round a pencil and paper test, pencils and paper rule. So we dole them out to five year olds who can’t talk, listen, concentrate or sit still for more than a millisecond. God help them, poor little souls. And God help the rest of us, when they grow up and take their revenge...

What is Classical Education?

By: Susan Wise Bauer

Classical education depends on a three-part process of training the mind. The early years of school are spent in absorbing facts, systematically laying the foundations for advanced study. In the middle grades, students learn to think through arguments. In the high school years, they learn to express themselves. This classical pattern is called the Trivium.

The first years of schooling are called the "Grammar Stage" -- not because you spend four years doing English, but because these are the years in which the building blocks for all other learning are laid, just as grammar is the foundation for language. In the elementary school years -- what we commonly think of as grades one through four -- the mind is ready to absorb information. Children at this age actually find memorization fun. So during this period, education involves not self-expression and self-discovery, but rather the learning of facts. Rules of phonics and spelling, rules of grammar, poems, the vocabulary of foreign languages, the stories of history and literature, descriptions of plants and animals and the human body, the facts of mathematics -- the list goes on. This information makes up the "grammar," or the basic building blocks, for the second stage of education.

By fifth grade, a child's mind begins to think more analytically. Middle-school students are less interested in finding out facts than in asking "Why?" The second phase of the classical education, the "Logic Stage," is a time when the child begins to pay attention to cause and effect, to the relationships between different fields of knowledge relate, to the way facts fit together into a logical framework.

A student is ready for the Logic Stage when the capacity for abstract thought begins to mature. During these years, the student begins algebra and the study of logic, and begins to apply logic to all academic subjects. The logic of writing, for example, includes paragraph construction and learning to support a thesis; the logic of reading involves the criticism and analysis of texts, not simple absorption of information; the logic of history demands that the student find out why the War of 1812 was fought, rather than simply reading its story; the logic of science requires that the child learn the scientific method.

The final phase of a classical education, the "Rhetoric Stage," builds on the first two. At this point, the high school student learns to write and speak with force and originality. The student of rhetoric applies the rules of logic learned in middle school to the foundational information learned in the early grades and expresses his conclusions in clear, forceful, elegant language. Students also begin to specialize in whatever branch of knowledge attracts them; these are the years for art camps, college courses, foreign travel, apprenticeships, and other forms of specialized training...
Read on

Malcolm X on Education

Malcolm X is a fascinating person to approach as an educational thinker - not because he was an academic or had any scholastic achievements but as an example of what can be achieved by someone who engages in 'homemade' or self-education.

Malcolm X (1925 – 1965) was born as Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1925. His father was a Baptist minister and a strong devotee of the Black leader Marcus Garvey. Garvey’s message, as many readers will be familiar, was that Black people in America would never be able to live in peace and harmony with white Americans and their only hope of salvation was to move as a people back to their roots in Africa. Malcolm’s father died when he was six and his mother was put in a mental home when he was about twelve. As a result, his many brothers and sisters were split up and put into different foster homes.

Malcolm left school early and eventually drifted North and finally settled in Harlem, New York, on his own, at the age of 17...Read on

Reading Is Fundamental

I do not claim to be an expert in the field of linguistics nor in the field of childhood-literacy, there are people far more committed, and whose personal accomplishments eclipse the infinitesimal efforts I am currently engaged in.

A few months ago I was given a copy of the Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading, the title is self-explanatory and the book is basically a comprehensive step-by-step instructional manual for teaching Phonics-Based Reading.

Within six weeks of using this book, on an inconsistent program schedule (due to my current obligations) my family and I have been rewarded with a priceless gift; the joy of hearing our four year old daughter exclaim; "I read it, I can read. I read that sentence"! What a rush! That little voice-with those few words-penetrated my spirit, stricking my soul with a force of innocence and beauty that still causes it to vibrate with elation.

These words can not convey the feelings that accompanied me during this breakthrough. Her emancipation from illiteracy to literacy has stirred up emotions that lay deep inside cavernous areas of my consciousness; as a child, teenager and even into college; I struggled to read a few books at most!

Now out of college and in the "Big World" what was I to do? After assessing my situation, I felt my only option was to apply the, philosophical teachings of some, "Ghetto Fabulous-Rhodes Scholars" I met, who introduced me to their "collective doctoral thesis"; entitled; "Fake it until you make it"-- to my surprise, it worked, I got out of the situation I was in, and moved on!

I am sure Stephen R. Covey would not agree with my problem-solving approach, but I can not blame him, not everyone is cut out for philosophy.

I feel obligated to share a piece of personal advice: Children, please do not try this at home!

I don't think my "non-reading" was a result of my not wanting to read or a lack of interest in literature, but rather it grew from the overwhelming intimidation I encountered once words were transferred and then compiled into these things we call books.

These "demoralizing monsters" of pulp and ink instilled a fear level in me that numerous threats, personal conflicts and physical confrontations had never reached.

In retrospect, I can identify and pin-point, many factors that contributed to the state of mind I found myself "in" or "out", depending on how you look at it.

Sorry for the tangent, but sometimes they are required, to create "contextual-clarity" for the reader, who then shares in the alchemical-process that produces who we are as individuals.

Anyway, this is about childhood-literacy, and a great book that is founded upon an early tradition (Phonics-Based Reading), a system, which has weathered powerful unyielding storms of criticism to prove its timeless value.

The ability to work with my daughter and help her acquire the tools needed for childhood-literacy has been the greatest form of therapeutical-retribution for myself.

It is my hope, (God willing) that our current efforts will usher in fundamental changes within the lives of my children and their children, enabling them the confidence to firmly grasp and utilize the keys that unlock the treasure chests of analytical reading.

Islamic Education: A Different Look

What We Should Be Teaching Our Children
By Imam Zaid Shakir

When we talk about Islamic education and our children, the discussion usually revolves around strictly academic issues related to technical aspects of curriculum development, testing standards and methodologies, balancing between secular and religious education, and similar concerns. Sometimes we miss the greater objective of an Islamic education. That objective, in terms of what is necessary for the immediate success of our children in this world, and their ultimate success in the next, is nurturing balanced, wholesome, honest human beings who live lives based on principle and who exemplify good character in their dealings with other people...Read on

John Caldwell Holt

John Caldwell Holt was an American author and educator, one of the best-known proponents of homeschooling , and a pioneer in youth rights theory.
Soon after his graduation from Yale University in 1943, Holt joined the Untied States Navy and served on board the USS Barbero, a submarine that fought in the Pacific Ocean. During the war he came to the conclusion that nuclear weapons were the world’s greatest danger, and only a world government could prevent nuclear war. After his three-year tour of duty, he got a job with the New York branch of the United World Federalists. Starting in the mailroom, he became the executive director of the New York branch within six years. However, he became frustrated with the group’s ineffectiveness, and he left the organization in 1952.
At the urging of his sister, Holt became a teacher. After several years of teaching in Colorado, he moved to Boston. It was here that he met Bill Hull, a fellow teacher, and they decided to start a classroom observation project: One would teach and the other would watch...Read on

School is Out!

The demise of public education combined with unprecedented hyper-consumerism, perverted social behaviour and rapid moral digression, should be the cause of extreme concern and force us (as parents) to re-examine--among other things--our educational alternatives to Compulsory Education.

John Taylor Gatto in his interview, Dumbing Us Down, states:

The primary objective (of a compulsory education) is to convert human raw material into human resources which can be employed efficiently by the managers of government and the economy. The original purposes of schooling were to make good people(the religious purpose), to make good citizens(the public purpose)and to make individuals their personal best(the private purpose). Throughout the 19th century, a new Fourth Purpose began to emerge, tested thoroughly in the military state of Prussia (history of the Prussian educational system) in northern Europe. The Fourth Purpose made the point of mass schooling to serve big business and big government by extending childhood, replacing thinking with drill and memorization while fashioning incomplete people unable to protect themselves from exhortation, advertising and other forms of indirect command. In this fashion, poor Prussia with a small population became one of the great powers of the earth. Its new schooling was imitated far and wide, from Japan to the United States.

Mass-Education has conceded that intellectual stimulation is no longer the stated goal, but rather a luxury offered to the social elite in preparation for their future "shepherding the flocks" within the "green" pastures of our--rapidly expanding ever shrinking--global village.

Educational faddists relentlessly bludgeon us with their newly acquired instructional techniques and constantly remind us that; "Education can only be provided by professional educators"; and any alternative route will never lead one to the "Educational Promised Land".

Shattering this myth; of the blissful educational utopia; is John Taylor Gatto's critical essay, Against School, where he writes:

Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so, for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a rationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surely put that banal justification to rest. Even if they hadn't, a considerable number of well-known Americans never went through the twelve-year wringer our kids currently go through, and they turned out all right. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln? Someone taught them, to be sure, but they were not products of a school system, and not one of them was ever "graduated" from a secondary school. Throughout most of American history, kids generally didn't go to high school, yet the unschooled rose to be admirals, like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry like Carnegie and Rockefeller; writers, like Melville and Twain and Conrad; and even scholars, like Margaret Mead. In fact, until pretty recently people who reached the age of thirteen weren't looked upon as children at all. Ariel Durant, who co-wrote an enormous, and very good, multi volume history of the world with her husband, Will, was happily married at fifteen, and who could reasonably claim that Ariel Durant was an uneducated person? Unschooled, perhaps, but not uneducated.

But for those who choose not to offer their young on the sacrificial alter of "Compulsory Education" and refuse to prescribe to the mantra of: "Old lamps for New", an age-old wisdom soothingly reminds them, "that things are not always what they seem".

Jessie Wise one of the co-authors of, The Well-Trained Mind, writes:

"All my teacher education had brainwashed me. I was convinced that parents couldn't possibly teach their own children-certainly not at home. It had to be done in an institution setting, run by professionals, with their resources and specialized training and expertise".

An unfortunate blameworthy mannerism we have collectively mastered, is our ability to present scathing social critiques without offering practical alternatives.

To avoid being guilty of my own claim, it is my opinion that a return to the time-proven success of a Classical Education is the only remedy to restore our health from the current intellectual paralysis that has afflicted us, resulting from prolonged exposure to Compulsory Education. That being said, in my next post (God willing) I would like to define and introduce a Classical Education and the role it can play in guiding this rudderless ship back to port.

Classical Education: An Introduction

Classical education as understood and taught in the Middle Ages of Western culture is roughly based on the ancient Greek concept of Paideia. China had a completely different tradition of classical education, based in large part on Confucian and Taoist traditions. This article concerns the Western tradition.

The overall organization

Classical education developed many of the terms now used to describe modern education. Western classical education has three phases, each with a different purpose. The phases are roughly coordinated with human development, and would ideally be exactly coordinated with each individual student's development.

"Primary education" teaches students how to learn.

"Secondary education" then teaches a conceptual framework that can hold all human knowledge (history), and then fills in basic facts and practices of the major fields of knowledge, and develops the skills (perhaps in a simplified form) of every major human activity.

"Tertiary education" then prepares a person to pursue an educated profession, such as law, theology, military strategy, medicine or science.

Primary Education

Primary education was often called the trivium, which covered grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
Logic and rhetoric was often taught in part by the Socratic method, in which the teacher raises questions and the class discusses them. By controlling the pace, the teacher can keep the class very lively, yet disciplined.

Grammar

Grammar consists of language skills such as reading and the mechanics of writing. An important goal of grammar is to acquire as many words and manage as many concepts as possible so as to be able to express and understand clearly concepts of varying degrees of complexity. Very young students can learn these by rote especially through the use of chant and song. Their minds are often referred to as "sponges", that easily absorb a large number of facts. Classical education traditionally included study of Latin and Greek, which greatly reinforced understanding of grammar, and the workings of a language, and so that students could read the Classics of Western Civilization in the words of the authors. In the modern renaissance of classical education, this period refers to the upper elementary school years.

Logic

Logic (dialectic) is the art of correct reasoning. The traditional text for teaching logic was Aristotle's Logic. In the modern renaissance of classical education, this logic stage (or dialectic stage) refers to the junior high or middle school aged student, who developmentally is beginning to question ideas and authority, and truly enjoys a debate or an argument. Training in logic, both formal and informal, enables students to critically examine arguments and to analyze their own.

Rhetoric

Rhetoric debate and composition (which is the written form of rhetoric) are taught to somewhat older (often high school aged) students, who by this point in their education have the concepts and logic to criticize their own work and persuade others. According to Aristotle "Rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic." It is concerned with finding "all the available means of persuasion." The student has learned to reason correctly in the Logic stage so that they can now apply those skills to Rhetoric. Students would read and emulate classical poets such as Ovid and others in learning how to present their arguments well.

Secondary Education

Secondary education, classically the quadrivium or "four ways," classically taught astronomy, arithmetic, music and geometry, usually from Aristotle and Euclid. Sometimes architecture was taught, often from the works of Vitruvius.
History was always taught to provide a context, and show political and military development. The classic texts were from ancient authors such as Cicero and Tacitus.

Biographies were often assigned as well; the classic example being Plutarch's "Lives." Biographies help show how persons behave in their context, and the wide ranges of professions and options that exist. As more modern texts became available, these were often added to the curriculum.

In the Middle Ages, these were the best available texts. In modern terms, these fields might be called history, natural science, accounting and business, fine arts (at least two, one to amuse companions, and another to decorate one's domicile), military strategy and tactics, engineering, agronomy, and architecture.

These are taught in a matrix of history, reviewing the natural development of each field for each phase of the trivium. That is, in a perfect classical education, the historical study is reviewed three times: first to learn the grammar (the concepts, terms and skills in the order developed), next time the logic (how these elements could be assembled), and finally the rhetoric, how to produce good, humanly useful and beautiful objects that satisfy the grammar and logic of the field.

History is the unifying conceptual framework, because history is the study of everything that has occurred before the present. A skillful teacher also uses the historical context to show how each stage of development naturally poses questions and then how advances answer them, helping to understand human motives and activity in each field. The question-answer approach is called the "dialectic method," and permits history to be taught Socratically as well.
Classical educators consider the Socratic method to be the best technique for teaching critical thinking. In-class discussion and critiques are essential in order for students to recognize and internalize critical thinking techniques. This method is widely used to teach both philosophy and law. It is currently rare in other contexts. Basically, the teacher referees the students' discussions, asks leading questions, and may refer to facts, but never gives a conclusion until at least one student reaches that conclusion. The learning is most effective when the students compete strongly, even viciously in the argument, but always according to well-accepted rules of correct reasoning. That is, fallacies should not be allowed by the teacher.

By completing a project in each major field of human effort, the student can develop a personal preference for further education and professional training.

Tertiary Education

Tertiary education was usually an apprenticeship to a person with the desired profession. Most often, the understudy was called a "secretary" and had the duty of carrying on all the normal business of the "master." Philosophy and Theology were both widely taught as tertiary subjects in Universities however.

The early biographies of nobles show probably the ultimate form of classical education: A tutor. One early, much-emulated classic example was that Alexander the Great was tutored by Aristotle.

Modern Interpretations of Classical Education

Much of the current and modern renaissance of classical education is owed to the Dorothy Sayers essay, "The Lost Tools of Learning", in which she describes the three stages of the trivium, grammar, logic and rhetoric, as tools by which a student can then analyze and master every other subject.

"The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home," by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer (W.W. Norton, 1999), is a modern reference on classical education, particularly in a homeschool setting. It provides a history of classical education, an overview of the methodology and philosophy of classical education, and annotated lists of books, divided by grade and topic, that list the best books for classical education in each category.

"The Grammar of Our Civility: Classical Education in America," by Lee T. Pearcy (2005) provides a theoretical and historical account of classical education in the United States and suggests the need for a distinctly American approach to ancient Greece and Rome.
Marva Collins has successfully taught a rapid-fire classical education to inner-city deprived children, many of them labeled as "retarded."

Also of note is "A New Trivium and Quadrivium," an article by Dr. George Bugliarello (Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol. 23, No. 2, 106-113 (2003)). In it, he argues that the scope of the classical liberal education is inadequate for today's society, and that people should also be conversant with the basic facts of science and technology, since they now form a much more important part of our lives than did the tertiary studies of antiquity. He argues for a new synthesis of science, engineering, and the humanities in which there is a balance between what can be done and what ought to be done, between human desires and earthly consequences, and between our ever-increasing power to affect our surroundings and the ever-present danger of destroying the ecological and environmental systems which allow us to exist.

No discussion of classical education could be complete without mentioning Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins, both of the University of Chicago, who set forth in the 1930s to restore the "Great Books" of Western civilization to center stage in the curriculum. Although the standard classical works—such as the Harvard Classics—most widely available at the time, were decried by many as out of touch with modern times, Adler and Hutchins sought to expand on the standard "classics" by including more modern works, and by trying to tie them together in the context of what they described as the "Great Ideas," condensed into a "Syntopicon" index and bundled together with a new "five foot shelf" of books as "The Great Books of the Western World." They were wildly popular during the Fifties, and discussion groups of aficionados were found all over the USA, but their popularity waned during the Sixties and such groups are relatively hard to find today. Extensions to the original set are still being published, encompassing selections from both current and older works which extend the "great ideas" into the present age and other fields, including civil rights, the global environment, and discussions of multiculturalism and assimilation.

There still exist a number of informal groups and professional organizations which take the classical approach to education seriously, and who undertake it in earnest. Within the classical Christian education movement, David Hicks, author of Norms and Nobility, the Society for Classical Learning, the Association of Classical and Christian Schools, and the CiRCE Institute, founded by Andrew Kern, co-author with Gene Edward Veith of Classical Education: The Movement Sweeping America, play a leading role.

In addition to many middle-schools and high schools across the country, there are at present several universities or colleges in the United States wherein such an Oxfordian classical education is taking place:

St. John's College (two campuses, one in MD and one in NM)
Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, CA
New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, ID
The Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University, in La Mirada, CA
Gutenberg College in Eugene, OR

At each of these institutions some variation of the Canon of Western Great Books is used as the primary course material, and tutor-lead "Socratic discussions" are the primary vehicle for ingestion and digestion of the selected works.

A more traditional, but less common view of classical education arises from the ideology of the Renaissance, advocating an education grounded in the languages and literatures of Greece and Rome. The demanding and lengthy training period required for learing to read Greek and Latin texts in their original form has been crowded out in most American schools in favor of contemporary subjects. Latin is taught at some schools, but Greek rarely.

This article was taken from: Wikipedia.org