Classical Education from a New Perspective: Conversation Two on Classical Conversations Revisited

 I was quite confused regarding their naming system and ‘grade levels’.  There are no formal grade levels with Classical Conversations (CC) or other classical education philosophies.  With most homeschooling methods, parents meet the child where they are academically and move forward, reviewing often.  The levels for CC for the Foundations are in the following order:  Abecedarians (a person who is just learning; a novice), Apprentice I, Apprentice II, Journeymen, and Masters. 

Parents and tutors decide at what level to place their child if newly entering CC.  If a student begins with Classical Conversations, he or she follows the sequential levels from the beginning advancing as appropriate.  Abecedarians were for 3-6 years old.  Apprentice I was from 6-7 and so on.  There is overlap for the benefit of the individual child.  A mature child can move on while one who is not ready can stay behind for another year or even a semester.

After The Foundations levels, the Essentials group would be considered the early middle school.  Challenge A & B would be junior high and Challenge I, II, III, IV would be high school levels.   These specific levels are added each year as needed.  

If there are more than eight students, Joy Browning says, they add another tutor and potentially a whole new room.  A tutor to student ratio of 1:8 is quite impressive.  This allows personal attention and clarification if something is not understood, as well as more assistance with projects that are done in class, because, remember, moms also stay to learn the teaching methods for the week - the tips and tricks to the weekly lessons. 

Example of a trifold utilized for Upper Elementary / Middle School Grades; creates a visual of learning goals.

Parents sit in the back of the room, assist with passing out papers, facilitating games or helping students stay focused.

 Amanda Schmidt did a public speaking segment, where the students were allotted a certain amount of time for this week’s goal - impromptu speeches.  The students do a different type of speech each week or so, but ultimately the parents oversee the speech and the topic.  I was completely impressed with the ease of which the students went to the podium.  One student, Andrew Jones, had to talk about his favorite thing do this summer.  He mostly talked about baseball, his family’s history of the love for baseball, who his favorite teams were, his position on the team, and much more.  The tutor had to call time.  The audience sat quietly with eyes focused on Andrew.  A few giggles were heard, but nothing disrespectful.  He asked if there were any questions at the end.

The next public speaker of the hour had the topic “What would you do if you were president?”.  Connor Bradford smiled as he spoke the entire time on presidential things, especially how he would build a wall.  The most impressive thing was a question from his classmate at the end – “What will you be known for?”  Connor thought intensely, still smiling, and mentioned that he would be known for allowing homeschoolers to play public school sports.

Andrew Jones

Connor Bradford

 The Essentials portion I attended featured Amanda Schmidt’s class doing outlines, critiquing a story, as well as discussion of the short story “Genghis Khan and his Hawk”.  She was coaching the students on using conflict, plot, outline procedures, strong verbs, and strong adjectives while recalling the story.   

The writing curriculum was from the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) by Andrew Pudewa.  IEW is a formal writing curriculum which can also be a formal language curriculum if desired.  He discusses parts of speech, how to summarize, how to dress up a writing piece and much more.  From the IEW.com site the following statements were obtained:

Our mission is to equip teachers and teaching parents with methods and materials which will aid them in training their students to become confident and competent communicators and thinkers.

Using the four language arts—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—IEW methods have been proven to be effective for students of all ages and levels of ability, including those who are gifted, have special needs, or are English language learners.

Amanda Schmidt

Math Battleship

The Essentials class also did a numbers game after finishing their segment on public speaking. Miranda Guzman facilitated this game of numbers, where the students were to get their classmates out in Math Battleship.  All the students played and were engaged.

I then went to the Challenge I & II class, but I need an entire blog post for that!  

What do you think so far of these posts?  Let me know your experiences with CC in a community of brothers and sisters working together for one purpose - "To know God and make Him known."