Smith Academy

It's been a longstanding joke between the brothers that we ought to buy houses next to one another and split up the tasks of childcare and education between all six households. That way every set of parents has one busy day and five days off. And the sabbath, I suppose. Our wives all find this to be a hilarious and innately practical idea as well.

I've actually been doing some preparatory reading about homeschooling recently. I found a copy of Susan Bauer's The Well Trained Mind and read it over the summer. It was helpful to see a structured K-12 arrangement of what a classical education might look like for James. I made notes of the resource lists, and nodded in agreement with her curriculum recommendations. I even tried to do a little bit of introductory phonics with James. This is how it went:

"Okay James, if you can tell me what this letter is I'll give you one raisin."
"I want five raisins."
"You can have five raisins if you spell five letters."
"George is wanna eat five raisins, don't you George?"
<George nods>
"Okay, what's this letter right here?"
"ARREE YOUUU WEADDYYY...FOR CHWISTMAS DAY TO COME!!!"
"James, do you want any raisins?"
"I want five raisins."
"Then what's this letter?"
"SIIIING IT WIT MEEEE, OR IF YOU A MONKEY HUMMM!!!!"
"James, what's this letter?"
"George is not wanna look at the letter C."
"That's right! This is the letter C! And what sound does it make?"
"I want five raisins."
"George George George George George."
"What sound does C make? C says...."
"Daddy, you wanna go outside?"
"After you tell me what the letter C says."
"I need FIVE raisins."

At any rate, Bauer's book confirmed many of the inkling ideas I had about classical education: that the grammar school years should be spent doing, well, grammar. Kindergarten through 4th grade for James (and for any of his cousins who live across the street from us) will be heavy on the reading, spelling, and composition. There will be lots of talk about how to take apart a sentence and put it back together. The mathematics will be about building blocks, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Insofar as there is any foreign language work, it will be more about vocabulary and grammar than spoken fluency or cultural background. There will be very little in the way of tech education, and lots in the way of history and stories. Music lessons will probably be a little heavier on the music theory and a little lighter on the lesson book tunes than a traditional method. Then in 5th through 8th grade or thereabouts the emphasis will shift towards logic and argument in each of the disciplines, ending with rhetoric and specialization in the high school years.

But first I need to buy more raisins.

The preceding blog was brought to you in part by Lucas Smith, who promises to send me a prompt every day for the next thirty days in conjunction with my promise to respond to each prompt with a short blog.