Many years ago, I studied, taught, did teacher training, and gave talks on Liberal Education, the Trivium and Quadrivium, as well as the Catholic methods or approaches of education. I shall share the latter with you on this blog per request of a reader.
When I did home schooling, and when I taught Socratic Method and the Classics, I used a paradigm based on Benedictine educational paradigms, which I shall save to last.
The primary reason for presenting these ideals is to show that a home schooling family needs to choose a way which suits them both practically and spiritually. A religious or philosophical approach to education must be present in order to unify coursework, the day, the entire formation of the child.
That is the main point. Education is NOT about stuffing information into a child in order for him to pass exams.
Education has several goals, and the normative child, to use a Montessori phrase, learns these goals. Let me share those first.
Maria Montessori developed, by watching and through inspiration, the list of character building goals for a parent raising a child and for a teacher. Now, the advantage of the baptized Catholic is that a parent can help form with life of the virtues with the grace given in baptism and the sacraments. Incrementally, the child grows both spiritually and in maturity.
The virtues are connected to the levels of maturity and to character building.
For example, patience is learned through tasks and chores.
Obedience and humility are learned through submission to learning.
Fortitude, or perseverance, is learned by sticking to tasks and overcoming obstacles.
Knowledge is a combination of study and infused knowledge through the graces.
And so on...
Here are the list of pre-school goals in formation. The awareness in the child towards these goals starts around age three.
(1) a love of order;
(2) a love of work;
(3) love of silence and working alone;
(4) mutual aid and cooperation;
(5) profound spontaneous concentration;
(6) obedience;
(7) independence and initiative;
(8) spontaneous self-discipline;
(9) attachment to reality;
(10) sublimation of the possessive instinct; and
(11) joy
I have witnessed young children achieve these goals in a very short time with the help of parents.
I myself experienced these goals because of two excellent teachers in kindergarten and first grade, as well as an observant.
Notice how these goals fit into the growth of the virtues. Notice also, how these fit into a Benedictine paradigm, as well as the Jesuit methodology.
http://www.slu.edu/colleges/AS/languages/classical/latin/tchmat/pedagogy/schw/schw1.html
The pragmatic approach of the Jesuits is based on Memory, Understanding and Will.
First of all, Memory. The child is capable of tremendous memorizing and picks up knowledge quickly. One can see this even in the youngest Millennials, who know all the statistics of Barcelona Football, or the intricacies of games. Most parents and teachers underestimate the value of memorizing. The Jesuit method gives great emphasis on details, especially in literature and history, realizing that the training of the mind in such things as reading and grammar lead to greater skills.
Memory is also important in the reading of Scripture, the Catechism, and prayers. Memory follows the teacher's presentation, or praelectio. The classics, especially age appropriate, but challenging, are explained and
presented.
Jesuit teaching is NOT Socratic Method, but much more directive.
Self-motivation takes over by the internal reward of learning, which does not take that long. An average child can learn poetry, grammar, syntax from one selection in a week, easily. Two characteristics of this type of learning is competition and modelling, or emulation. Positive feedback for work well-done is part of this method. Sadly, most Ignatian institutions no longer follow the strict regime of the Ratio Studiorum. I shall continue in the next post on the Understanding and the Will.