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An excellent resource for any family.
Product Description
Offers instruction on how to give children an academically rigorous, thorough education from pre-school onwards.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a great book. I originally borrowed it from a friend and then bought the latest edition. Its a very inspirational book. We have never planned to home educate in a school at home manner and its unlikely we ever will, but discovering this book has given us a very usable spine to keep in the back of our minds and also some great ideas and lists of resources. I really like the passion with which the book is written. It is very thorough and I have now invested in some of the other titles by the same author such as Story of the World and Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading.
I would recommend this to all home educators, its a great read even if you don't plan to follow it exactly or at all. The reviews of resouces are very helpful.
I would recommend this to all home educators, its a great read even if you don't plan to follow it exactly or at all. The reviews of resouces are very helpful.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book is very impressive, and I have found it extremely useful. I homeschool my children in English, as we live in Europe and they go to school in another European language. With the help of this book's comprehensive presentation of the resources available by subject and age, I found the writing course I teach my children from. I also found great critical thinking materials. She gives a guide to materials in each subject for each year.
Susan Bauer's homeschooling programme is very ambitious. It would yield a far, far better education than almost any school. However, I think it's possible. It wouldn't require expertise, because there are resources available (some better than others), and she covers the field and points you very specifically to the ones she likes; but it would be most of a very demanding full-time job and require self-discipline and commitment. However, it's possible to take aspects of her approach and apply them. This is what I've done.
I also got an incredibly useful insight from this book, which transformed my understanding of my children's learning processes. She presents a child's education as a succession of three developmental stages: first, up to age 11, when children absorb data, lots of it, and are learning to reason from the particular to the general (which is intuitive and easy); second, age 11-c. 14, when they should be taught to manipulate what they've learned and to analyse, play with structure, in other words to think down from the general to the particular (which is much harder, and which they aren't capable of when younger); and third, age c. 14 upwards, when they learn to manipulate arguments, to write, to persuade, to write from a point of view. I think this is absolutely, totally right. Perhaps all teachers know this; but I've never heard anyone say it before. Thinking like this made my teaching massively more productive and effective, and allowed me to focus much better.
My children are too old for it now, but if they were younger, I would use this author's writing course, The Complete Writer: Writing with Ease. It's superb. She is really tough, and it would really, really work.
Susan Bauer's homeschooling programme is very ambitious. It would yield a far, far better education than almost any school. However, I think it's possible. It wouldn't require expertise, because there are resources available (some better than others), and she covers the field and points you very specifically to the ones she likes; but it would be most of a very demanding full-time job and require self-discipline and commitment. However, it's possible to take aspects of her approach and apply them. This is what I've done.
I also got an incredibly useful insight from this book, which transformed my understanding of my children's learning processes. She presents a child's education as a succession of three developmental stages: first, up to age 11, when children absorb data, lots of it, and are learning to reason from the particular to the general (which is intuitive and easy); second, age 11-c. 14, when they should be taught to manipulate what they've learned and to analyse, play with structure, in other words to think down from the general to the particular (which is much harder, and which they aren't capable of when younger); and third, age c. 14 upwards, when they learn to manipulate arguments, to write, to persuade, to write from a point of view. I think this is absolutely, totally right. Perhaps all teachers know this; but I've never heard anyone say it before. Thinking like this made my teaching massively more productive and effective, and allowed me to focus much better.
My children are too old for it now, but if they were younger, I would use this author's writing course, The Complete Writer: Writing with Ease. It's superb. She is really tough, and it would really, really work.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
55 reviews
146 of 157 people found the following review helpful
Use Your Own Brain
31 Aug 2009
Format:Hardcover
I've read this book twice. The older copy from my library was so helpful that I purchased the newer one and read it too. I just spent some time reading the 1-star reviews of it and find myself thinking, "These people just don't get it." First of all, you shouldn't take on anyone's homeschool philosophy whole-heartedly without researching and evaluating yourself and your kids. Also, the book does not claim to be Christian. In fact, the chapter on Bible specifically mentions that they are not going to presume to make your religious/faith-based-education choices for you.
Most importantly though, this is a how-to on classical education. The opening chapters say that yes, it's strenuous, yes, it's language oriented. It will be focused on reading, writing, and discussion. And I fail to see how anyone could say you get a shell of an education when the same topics are covered three times with increasing thought given each time. The whole purpose is to introduce ideas and then analyze them.
The authors introduce these ideas and expect you to analyze them too.
Use your own thinking here. If you want to introduce faith AND analytical thought, just teach your children about God's truth AND greek philosophy. We have been studying Egyptian gods this week with my first grader, and she completely understands that there were people with a different way of thinking and that they did not know and worship the one true God. (In fact, of her own thinking, she reasoned that they would not live again in heaven and was very sad. I wouldn't have intentionally addressed that at a young age.) Teaching the ways of other cultures does not water-down faith and it doesn't worship the Greeks, as some critics said.
Also, if the time schedules don't work for your family, don't sweat it! You can teach this method without following the authors advice to the letter! Every home school is different and completely customizable. That's the great thing about it.
I love the ideas behind this book of exploring a topic at early ages, analyzing it at the analytical age, and expressing your own genuine thought at the creative age. So different from my own education where we were not encouraged to have analytical thought until upper level high school.
It's definitely worth a read. But not a hard-and-fast rule for everyone.
Most importantly though, this is a how-to on classical education. The opening chapters say that yes, it's strenuous, yes, it's language oriented. It will be focused on reading, writing, and discussion. And I fail to see how anyone could say you get a shell of an education when the same topics are covered three times with increasing thought given each time. The whole purpose is to introduce ideas and then analyze them.
The authors introduce these ideas and expect you to analyze them too.
Use your own thinking here. If you want to introduce faith AND analytical thought, just teach your children about God's truth AND greek philosophy. We have been studying Egyptian gods this week with my first grader, and she completely understands that there were people with a different way of thinking and that they did not know and worship the one true God. (In fact, of her own thinking, she reasoned that they would not live again in heaven and was very sad. I wouldn't have intentionally addressed that at a young age.) Teaching the ways of other cultures does not water-down faith and it doesn't worship the Greeks, as some critics said.
Also, if the time schedules don't work for your family, don't sweat it! You can teach this method without following the authors advice to the letter! Every home school is different and completely customizable. That's the great thing about it.
I love the ideas behind this book of exploring a topic at early ages, analyzing it at the analytical age, and expressing your own genuine thought at the creative age. So different from my own education where we were not encouraged to have analytical thought until upper level high school.
It's definitely worth a read. But not a hard-and-fast rule for everyone.
40 of 40 people found the following review helpful
World Class Education at your fingertip
9 Jun 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I am a young parent based in Lagos, Nigeria. While I have been bothered with the quality of education in my own immediate enviroment, I have always been thinking about how my kids education will be world class and alas I found TWMT on Amazon, bought and read it and eversince then I have been consulting it and I've even recommended it to friends.
TWMT teaches you how to educate your child from age zero upto adulthood and the good thing is that the methodology is borderless and alot of the recommended literature readings in the book are readily available,even in Lagos for as low as $1.
For me and my family this book as given us key information about education:
1. Rote learning is better and easier done between ages 0 to 10; 2.Short 15-45 minutes consistent classes on daily/weekly basis of any subject is enough to master a subject over a period of 12 years; 3. It intorduced the concept of developing a reader in a child by recommending a jewel of a book "The Read Aloud Handbook" by Jim Trelease; 4. The Authors' keep a very active online forum based on TWMT [...];5. The Authors' are very responsive to your challenges even for someone like me in Lagos, Nigeria,they still responded to my family's educational challenge by profering a solution that actually worked after i mailed them on an observation.
Lastly, for those that think the system is rigid, please you don't need to follow the methodology to detail, kindly adapt to your family's challenges. And if you think it's too Language/History focused then you can get curriculum books by "Bernard Nebel" as they are science focused to use along with this "Lost but found Treasure of a book".
Good enough this book is Eurocentric but then you can replace it with titles that are from your own geographical location and faith inclination i.e. I have a list of classic Islamic books to use with my kids based on the prestine Islam for religious studies and I also keep a list of African Writers' Series by Heinemann to use for my kids at the appropriate time along with some of the other classic books recommended in TWMT. May be your bilingua interest isn't Greek, Latin... like in my case then make do with your interest(s) i.e. Arabic and Yoruba Languages in my family's case.
CAVEAT: TWTM will not make your kids people of letters alone, as Bob, Jessie's first child is a software architect, Susan is a Prof. of Literature & Writing and the 3rd child is a Police officer.
So if you want a qualitative and quantitative education for your kids then get this "Treasure of a book".
TWMT teaches you how to educate your child from age zero upto adulthood and the good thing is that the methodology is borderless and alot of the recommended literature readings in the book are readily available,even in Lagos for as low as $1.
For me and my family this book as given us key information about education:
1. Rote learning is better and easier done between ages 0 to 10; 2.Short 15-45 minutes consistent classes on daily/weekly basis of any subject is enough to master a subject over a period of 12 years; 3. It intorduced the concept of developing a reader in a child by recommending a jewel of a book "The Read Aloud Handbook" by Jim Trelease; 4. The Authors' keep a very active online forum based on TWMT [...];5. The Authors' are very responsive to your challenges even for someone like me in Lagos, Nigeria,they still responded to my family's educational challenge by profering a solution that actually worked after i mailed them on an observation.
Lastly, for those that think the system is rigid, please you don't need to follow the methodology to detail, kindly adapt to your family's challenges. And if you think it's too Language/History focused then you can get curriculum books by "Bernard Nebel" as they are science focused to use along with this "Lost but found Treasure of a book".
Good enough this book is Eurocentric but then you can replace it with titles that are from your own geographical location and faith inclination i.e. I have a list of classic Islamic books to use with my kids based on the prestine Islam for religious studies and I also keep a list of African Writers' Series by Heinemann to use for my kids at the appropriate time along with some of the other classic books recommended in TWMT. May be your bilingua interest isn't Greek, Latin... like in my case then make do with your interest(s) i.e. Arabic and Yoruba Languages in my family's case.
CAVEAT: TWTM will not make your kids people of letters alone, as Bob, Jessie's first child is a software architect, Susan is a Prof. of Literature & Writing and the 3rd child is a Police officer.
So if you want a qualitative and quantitative education for your kids then get this "Treasure of a book".
48 of 50 people found the following review helpful
How Children Ought to be Taught
9 Oct 2009
Format:Hardcover
If you want to school your child to be an intelligent and more than competent member of society this is the way to do it. The best thing about this kind of education? No text books! The child learns out of books which have been written for the sake of learning facts and have not been polluted with some sort of agenda. The child gets a pure education the way children are designed to learn. Then when they are older they learn how to think and react logically. It's painful how children grow up and never learn how to think critically. We chose this curriculum because there are lists of resources starting from preschool aged kids all the way to 12th grade. These lists are key, however, you should not stick to them completely but use your creativity and find other books or projects that might be better. For example, I did not like their suggestion for grammar stage anatomy. The Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia. In fact, I find that I don't care for the Kingfisher series of encyclopedia's very much at all. There is a serious lack of content in them. I chose the First Human Body Encyclopedia by DK instead. But here is the beauty, you really don't even need the kids encyclopedia. There are enough resources out there that allow you to make you're own curriculum for anatomy fun. Get books like "Uncover the Human Body" by Luann Columbo, "My Body" by PATTY CARRATELLO, "Head to Toe Science" by Jim Wiese, and since kids love visuals get an adult illustrated anatomy book like "Human Body" by Martyn Page, being careful with the reproductive pictures of course. The adult anatomy book then can be used in grades 5 and 9 to give the student a more in depth study of anatomy and you save money by not getting a kids encyclopedia. This is assuming that your kids aren't squeamish. My 7 year old is just fascinated with whats inside his body and finds the adult anatomy books much more interesting than the children's books which tend to give dumbed-down information under the guise of "age appropriate material". Kids are capable of understanding so much more than we give them credit for. Mine surprise me on a daily basis. The down side of The Well Trained Mind? It takes time to research your books...lots of time! Time to: find books at your library, place holds and wait for them, choose the best ones, look through them once you get them and teach out of them. It's worth it when you see just how much better your kids understand the subject and you'll swoon when your child repeats facts to his friends from some random lesson a few weeks ago. Its worth it if you are prepared to spend the time making it successful. The program is designed to help your child get a world class education, but it's up to give it to your kids.
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