Classical Education Works at Home, Too
Dante, Augustine, Cicero, Shakespeare, Dickens, Sophocles, and More
As you can tell from last week’s post, I’m pretty hyped up about Ivy Classical Academy’s launch last month. Yesterday, I was able to go to the campus for the first time since classes began on August 21 and see the teachers, staff, and students in action with my own eyes. I visited four classrooms—three different grade levels—and saw dedicated teachers with engaged students.
One fourth-grade class engaged me in conversation about Treasure Island, and I listened to the students explain why they liked or disliked certain characters. Another class had a designated greeter who came up to me and introduced himself when I entered the room. The whole experience confirmed my estimation of the great things that are happening at the school.
But brick-and-mortar schools like Ivy aren’t the only way for a young person to get a classical education. Sons #3-5 (16, 15, and 12) are currently homeschooled, and I work with them through a classical curriculum on a daily basis. For several years, we have used the Memoria Press curriculum, but I am much more hands on with the boys this fall now that my wife is working outside the home for the first time in more than 20 years. I decided I would read their assigned books along with them so I could help them through the Socratic discussion questions in their workbooks, and I’m finding that I can barely keep up.
Son #3 (11th grade) is not doing a physical science class right now, but his curriculum is pretty intensive otherwise. In addition to math, composition, and music theory and sight singing, he is working through the following books right now:
Dante’s Divine Comedy
St. Augustine’s City of God
Cicero’s On Obligations/Duties
Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities
Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics
He has memorized the first three stanzas of the Inferno, and he recently told my wife that everyone should read Cicero. (Son #3 does not consider himself academically inclined, and he does not currently plan to seek a college degree.) He is also singing in Faulkner’s chorus this year.
Son #4 (10th grade) is taking math, chemistry, composition, and material logic. He also is working through the following books:
William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
Sophocles’s Oresteia
Henry Chadwick’s The Early Church
Eusebius’s History of the Church
R.H.C. Davis’s A History of Medieval Europe
He finished reading Agamemnon this week and is about to move on to the Libation Bearers.
Son #5 (7th grade) is doing math, spelling, composition, and Latin. He has American history and science to work on one or two days per week. He is doing an intensive study of Macaulay’s “Horatius at the Bridge” and memorizing portions of it. He is also reviewing the whole Bible this school year and memorizing a number of passages. Finally, he’s reading an age-appropriate book on the Trojan War that begins with the Judgment of Paris and goes through the whole war.
Obviously, that’s a lot for me to work on in addition to my normal job. I suppose that’s what evenings and weekends are for, though.
Although we use Memoria Press, there are several other solid classical homeschool curricula out there. This was not the case when we first started homeschooling around 2006 or 2007. I don’t know that I’d call our era a golden age, but it’s certainly easier to get quality materials now than in the past. I am curious to see how the school choice legislation in Alabama and elsewhere creates more incentives for publishers and developers of curriculum.