Well Rounded Education

One of the areas we felt was falling apart or downright failing in the public school system was the concept of a well-rounded education.  We, like many others found ourselves massively disappointed with the test-centric metrics for success being used by the schools.  This ultimately meant any class not directly mapped to a government mandated test or other program, was continuously on the chopping block.  The other  programs and classes were underfunded or outright eliminated.   Even within the “protected” subjects, the precise curriculum and activities were focused on the end of year, testable outcome.

As part of our research, we stumbled onto educational methods such as the “Trivium” and “Classical Education.” These seemed to be exactly what we were looking for. Unfortunately, we were a bit late to the party here.  These methods start with Elementary School and we were starting with Middle and High School.  So the question we had (and still have) was, is it possible to jump into the middle of this?  Our choice was ultimately to give it a try.  And our choice of curriculum was the one from Memoria Press. It is the same program (or mostly so) as offered by their brick and mortar schools, The Highlands Latin School as well as the Highlands Latin Cottage Schools (for Homeschoolers) and their online Academy.

In practical application, it meant some things in the standard program will be “substituted” for what they have done in the past or which we have planned going forward. In other cases though, we are just behind and in essence, need to start at the third grade level.  You can’t just start with Latin V because that’s what the program dictates for your age.  This does break some of the continuity and for us, remains to be seen if the disruption is relevant or not.  Our hope is, once we get going, we will be working at an accelerated rate.  Since we have no goal of finishing Middle and High School early, this will create the time needed to deal with the backlog. This is also what we hope will allow us to take additional science and elective courses.