This year I attended a seminar about classical education and I saw again how different it is from contemporary education today. One of the differences is that we focus on teaching skills rather than teaching subjects. We USE subjects like math, writing, English grammar, Latin, science to teach skills that our students will need for life. Here is a breakdown:
Grammar Stage Skills (4-11 yrs old)
be trained to obey parents
memorize songs and stories
be trained to clean/maintain a house
learn to be kind
be taught to read phonetically
develop a daily habit of doing math
be trained to memorize a lot of facts
be taught to write well constructed sentences and paragraphs
be taught spelling and grammar rules
Dialectic Stage Skills (12-14 yrs old)
be trained to manage household
be trained in vocational skills
be taught to write well constructed essays with a thesis (as opposed to a book report)
be taught to defend ideas
be taught public speaking skills
be taught formal logic
be taught research skills
Rhetoric Stage Skills (15-18 yrs old)
be taught leadership skills
be taught to write comparative analyses of ideas
be taught to challenge ideas
What skill can you teach your child today?
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