Customer Reviews

The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home (Third Edition)

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've read this book twice. The older copy from my library was so helpful that I purchased the newer one and read it too. I just spent some time reading the 1-star reviews of it and find myself thinking, "These people just don't get it." First of all, you shouldn't take on anyone's homeschool philosophy whole-heartedly without researching and evaluating yourself and your kids. Also, the book does not claim to be Christian. In fact, the chapter on Bible specifically mentions that they are not going to presume to make your religious/faith-based-education choices for you.

Most importantly though, this is a how-to on classical education. The opening chapters say that yes, it's strenuous, yes, it's language oriented. It will be focused on reading, writing, and discussion. And I fail to see how anyone could say you get a shell of an education when the same topics are covered three times with increasing thought given each time. The whole purpose is to introduce ideas and then analyze them.

The authors introduce these ideas and expect you to analyze them too.

Use your own thinking here. If you want to introduce faith AND analytical thought, just teach your children about God's truth AND greek philosophy. We have been studying Egyptian gods this week with my first grader, and she completely understands that there were people with a different way of thinking and that they did not know and worship the one true God. (In fact, of her own thinking, she reasoned that they would not live again in heaven and was very sad. I wouldn't have intentionally addressed that at a young age.) Teaching the ways of other cultures does not water-down faith and it doesn't worship the Greeks, as some critics said.

Also, if the time schedules don't work for your family, don't sweat it! You can teach this method without following the authors advice to the letter! Every home school is different and completely customizable. That's the great thing about it.

I love the ideas behind this book of exploring a topic at early ages, analyzing it at the analytical age, and expressing your own genuine thought at the creative age. So different from my own education where we were not encouraged to have analytical thought until upper level high school.

It's definitely worth a read. But not a hard-and-fast rule for everyone.

If you want to school your child to be an intelligent and more than competent member of society this is the way to do it. The best thing about this kind of education? No text books! The child learns out of books which have been written for the sake of learning facts and have not been polluted with some sort of agenda. The child gets a pure education the way children are designed to learn. Then when they are older they learn how to think and react logically. It's painful how children grow up and never learn how to think critically. We chose this curriculum because there are lists of resources starting from preschool aged kids all the way to 12th grade. These lists are key, however, you should not stick to them completely but use your creativity and find other books or projects that might be better. For example, I did not like their suggestion for grammar stage anatomy. The Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia. In fact, I find that I don't care for the Kingfisher series of encyclopedia's very much at all. There is a serious lack of content in them. I chose the First Human Body Encyclopedia by DK instead. But here is the beauty, you really don't even need the kids encyclopedia. There are enough resources out there that allow you to make you're own curriculum for anatomy fun. Get books like "Uncover the Human Body" by Luann Columbo, "My Body" by PATTY CARRATELLO, "Head to Toe Science" by Jim Wiese, and since kids love visuals get an adult illustrated anatomy book like "Human Body" by Martyn Page, being careful with the reproductive pictures of course. The adult anatomy book then can be used in grades 5 and 9 to give the student a more in depth study of anatomy and you save money by not getting a kids encyclopedia. This is assuming that your kids aren't squeamish. My 7 year old is just fascinated with whats inside his body and finds the adult anatomy books much more interesting than the children's books which tend to give dumbed-down information under the guise of "age appropriate material". Kids are capable of understanding so much more than we give them credit for. Mine surprise me on a daily basis. The down side of The Well Trained Mind? It takes time to research your books...lots of time! Time to: find books at your library, place holds and wait for them, choose the best ones, look through them once you get them and teach out of them. It's worth it when you see just how much better your kids understand the subject and you'll swoon when your child repeats facts to his friends from some random lesson a few weeks ago. Its worth it if you are prepared to spend the time making it successful. The program is designed to help your child get a world class education, but it's up to give it to your kids.

I am a young parent based in Lagos, Nigeria. While I have been bothered with the quality of education in my own immediate enviroment, I have always been thinking about how my kids education will be world class and alas I found TWMT on Amazon, bought and read it and eversince then I have been consulting it and I've even recommended it to friends.
TWMT teaches you how to educate your child from age zero upto adulthood and the good thing is that the methodology is borderless and alot of the recommended literature readings in the book are readily available,even in Lagos for as low as $1.
For me and my family this book as given us key information about education:
1. Rote learning is better and easier done between ages 0 to 10; 2.Short 15-45 minutes consistent classes on daily/weekly basis of any subject is enough to master a subject over a period of 12 years; 3. It intorduced the concept of developing a reader in a child by recommending a jewel of a book "The Read Aloud Handbook" by Jim Trelease; 4. The Authors' keep a very active online forum based on TWMT [...];5. The Authors' are very responsive to your challenges even for someone like me in Lagos, Nigeria,they still responded to my family's educational challenge by profering a solution that actually worked after i mailed them on an observation.
Lastly, for those that think the system is rigid, please you don't need to follow the methodology to detail, kindly adapt to your family's challenges. And if you think it's too Language/History focused then you can get curriculum books by "Bernard Nebel" as they are science focused to use along with this "Lost but found Treasure of a book".
Good enough this book is Eurocentric but then you can replace it with titles that are from your own geographical location and faith inclination i.e. I have a list of classic Islamic books to use with my kids based on the prestine Islam for religious studies and I also keep a list of African Writers' Series by Heinemann to use for my kids at the appropriate time along with some of the other classic books recommended in TWMT. May be your bilingua interest isn't Greek, Latin... like in my case then make do with your interest(s) i.e. Arabic and Yoruba Languages in my family's case.
CAVEAT: TWTM will not make your kids people of letters alone, as Bob, Jessie's first child is a software architect, Susan is a Prof. of Literature & Writing and the 3rd child is a Police officer.
So if you want a qualitative and quantitative education for your kids then get this "Treasure of a book".

I really didn't think I was going to like this book. I guess I thought a classical education sounded stiff and boring. But a page or two into this book, I realized that I completely agreed with the authors about how to teach children, and how they learn. When they described teaching your child to read, I realized it was exactly the way I taught my kids -- a method that worked great! This book is very thorough for those who are starting homeschooling and wondering how to do it. I really appreciated the section on high school and grading, and how to apply for colleges. My eldest is still just in sixth grade, but I think it's good to be prepared, especially since I plan to homeschool her through high school. It helped encourage my husband, too, with our decision to do this because he could see how homeschooling will not put her at an academic disadvantage -- by any means.

This book is definitely an excellent reference for those considering the homeschool option because it lays everything out so clearly. I appreciated how the authors give different options for curriculum, and highlight the strengths and weaknesses therein.

Still, I do have some issues with TWTM, especially now that I've been using it for a year. I disagree with teaching Latin. I see the point the authors are making about why it's important, but I think it's much more valuable to teach living languages. The spelling workbooks we are using provide background on where words come from, and I think that as my children learn languages such as French or Spanish, they will be able to find the patterns and the Latin base.

I also don't know, having done science this way this year, if TWTM's got the best plan. My eldest especially wants to have more of a book to study. We're doing what they recommended and using science kits and library books, etc., but have had terrible luck with the kits that were recommended by the authors. So many times I've had to say, "So what this experiment was supposed to demonstrate is..." which doesn't seem to me like a good way to teach science. Also, I don't think that teaching just one subject (i.e. physics one year, chemistry one year, etc.) for the whole year is that great of an idea because it can get... well, a bit boring after a while. My kids, four years apart, have both been working on Earth Science/ Astronomy this year. They are growing weary of it. Granted the year's almost over, but I can't count the times they've said, "Can we plant something for science?" or "When are we going to study... (some living organism, or a human body issue)?" They are really inquisitive and do lots of reading outside of school, but it would be nice if that work counted for their work this year.

Basically, though, my biggest critique is with some of the suggestions the authors make for curriculum. As I mentioned, the science kits have been disastrous. But also, when I was trying to decide what encyclopedia to get for my 6th grader's history, I found that the authors' suggestions were not the best-reviewed. We have liked Saxon Math, but the Language Arts I've been doing with my 2nd grader (Primary Language Lessons) is not one I plan to use for my youngest -- at least not when she's in 2nd grade (maybe 1st, we'll see...). But that's another review. It's interesting, though, because I've spoken with a good friend who is thinking of starting TWTM with her pre-K son, and she has had the same feelings about the suggestions.

Anyway, this is a valuable starting point. But I think that in the coming years, we're going to tailor it to meet our needs and interests a little better.

To be honest I came across this book by total curiosity. I saw our pastor's wife carrying it with her to and from church so I asked her what it was. After she showed it to me I decided to check out the library copy to read for myself. Since I had attended an "accelerated" public school which taught classical education I was curious as to what it would look like in the home setting.
"The Well Trained Mind" is authored by former public school teacher and homeschooling mother Jessie Wise, with additional commentary from daughter Susan Wise Bauer. The book begins with Jessie telling her own story of how she home educated her three children in the early 1970's when homeschooling was virtually unheard of. Susan adds her own commentary by giving the reader a personal look at classical education. From there the book is divided into the three components of classical education: Grammar Stage: Kindergarten-Grade 4, Logic Stage: Grades 5-8, and Rhetoric Stage: Grades 9-12. The book ends with the chapter on "How to Home Educate Your Child" and appendices. The Well Trained Mind is an excellant, non sectarian resource for those who would like to learn more about home education with a classical emphasis.

If I could have only one homeschool "teacher" resource, this would be it! Don't let the size of the book scare you. It's easy to read and FULL of recommended schedules, book lists, and resources. I read The Well-Trained Mind three years ago for the first time. I read it again (cover to cover) to plan and prepare for our next year of homeschooling. It's worth it's weight in gold!

This book changed me from very against Homeschooling, to being a Homeschooler.

Do not be put off by the thickness of this book. It is divided by age group, so parts may not pertain to you yet.

A reader has the chance to glean from the experience and wisdom of the author, and her adaptive approach to the Trivium Method of homeschooling.

After much research we are using this book as our manual to closely follow the Trivium, and looking into the many suggestions for curriculum that supports the Trivium Method.

This is my #1 choice if you want an academically rigorous homeschool. As it turns out, that's what we want! Not everyone wants or needs that though, so check out some general homeschool books first.

Although this is an excellent book, please PLEASE PLEASE do not attempt to do every thing in the book exactly like they do. The authors even admit on their web site that they did not follow the schedules in their book. They stuffed the book with all the info. that you could ever need so that you can pick and choose what works for your family.

This technique is all about classical education, and mean it is history centered, writing intensive, and includes Latin, logic, grammar, and classical literature.

This is the first book I got when we began homeschooli ng 9 years ago. It has been extremely useful and well worth the price. Get the newest version for the most current curriculum suggestions.

This book will introduce you to the concept of the trivium. This is a four year cycle of history study that repeats 3 times in your child's education. It outlines a full curriculum for Kindergarten through high school.

The best part of the book is the curriculum and book suggestions. The history and literature suggestions are fantastic and they hit upon the most used homeschool curriculum in each area. Every year I open up this book and start ordering up a storm at Amazon (and the library!).

The science section is a little lacking if you have a very science-y kid. My oldest son wants to be an engineer, so we have looked elsewhere for more hands-on science. However, the list of science classics is very useful. The authors' also have written their own curriculum to use in several subject areas (phonics, language arts, writing).

Is it Christian? No. Can it be used by Christians? Yes! This is a book for a parent to read and learn a educational technique. Learn the technique and then make your school a Classical Christian Homeschool if that's what you want. No bible curriculum suggestions are included in WTM but here are a few from me: A great bible study for little kids is Leading Little Ones to God: A Child's Book of Bible Teachings.
For the whole family- Long Story Short: Ten-Minute Devotions to Draw Your Family to God

The important thing to remember is to not drive yourself crazy with this book! I read it every year and then I read The Unschooling Handbook : How to Use the Whole World As Your Child's Classroom to counteract it. Somewhere right in the middle is where we try to stay!

This book is a valuable resource for anyone desiring to learn about Classical Education. It gives many resources to help a an educator new to the classical schooling model get started. One thing I didn't like about the newer edition is that it so obviously promotes using the author's other writings as texts as opposed to previous editions that list a wider variety of curriculum resources. Definitely worth reading, however you should review recommended curriculum before buying.

This book is fantastic. Plain and simple. It outlines more clearly in the first two chapters why the progressive model for education doesn't work than many other entire books. The authors then go on to give you their personal stories and then a wonderful and easy to read guide to the Classical model for learning. One that is chronologically accurate, logical, and makes sense so that children are able to retain the information they are learning. As children grow, they use logic to ask questions and dig deeper into their knowledge base, thus they learn more and also understand the whys and hows of what happened. Finally, as the child grows into a young adult, they are trained to express their original thoughts through excellent writing and speaking skills. What high school is doing that?!? Not many.

Such a great read. Mine is already underlined, highlighted, and dogeared!