Fri 4 Aug 2006
The question immediately arises: If I educate according to the principles of true classical education will that look anything like what currently passes for education? If I choose to prepare my children for life, can I afford to ignore current preparation standards for college?
My heart tells me that I must break free of societal norms in order to achieve a truly classical education. My current position is to do what I want to do with my children and when the time comes learn how to translate that into educationese if the child desires to attend college. I do not feel our current home education will keep them from learning in college but I must be able to communicate that to colleges.
In visiting Bryan College this weekend, the financial aid officer suggested that the boys take 3 SATs and 3 ACTs for financial aid purposes. This immediately made me think that my best bet for college financial aid was to make high school a time of test preparation. And so on the wings of the Circe conference I am escorted back down to these troublous times.
And then I read in Jayber Crow:
“The school had eight grades. If it had taught the grades all the way through high school, maybe it wouldn’t have interested me so much. The future presses hard upon a high school, and somehow qualifies and diminishes it.”
Don’t we all feel it?
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Hi Cindy,
I’m enjoying reading your notes and thoughts from the conference. My favorite line so far is the one about classical education making you humble. I’ve sensed a spirit of elitism and arrogance in some classical educators, so I was happy to hear that someone from up front addressed that issue.
I don’t want to sidetrack you from your current task of blogging about the conference, but I’ve got a question for you (when you have time). What do you think about the Bluedorn’s version of classical education?
Jo
Comment by Jo (August 4, 2006 @ 10:04 pm )
Regarding testing and school, I don’t know if this helps or not, but I didn’t do anything special in regards to test prep except one summer my oldest went through some online SAT practice sites. She was in the 98th percentile nationwide for verbal scores. She didn’t do so well in math, but still had an overall score of 1180, which was good enough for a small scholarship. Had her math scores not be truly dismal, just average, that would have brought her scores up enough for a large scholarship.
Just one datapoint, I know, but our personal experience is that test taking isn’t something with a huge learning curve.
Comment by deputyheadmistress (August 5, 2006 @ 3:25 am )
DHM,
We have had the same experience with our tests and our verbal scores also balance out our math scores. I just keep searching for a way to get those math scores up. My last test taker scored in the 75th % on the PSAT which was off the charts as far as our family was concerned but then his scores dropped to our normal family range on the SAT.
Unfortunately our boys have needed more than just some money for college. They have needed almost a full ride. This doesn’t seem to be happening through the academic route.
Comment by Cindy (August 5, 2006 @ 5:54 am )
Jo,
I like the Bluedorns as people. I don’t really follow them but I do glean from them. I receive and like their email list.
One area I do agree with the Bluedorns is that they say that homeschooling takes priority over classical education. Because of the classical education movement many homeschoolers despair and put their children in a classical school. People put their children in school for all kinds of different, valid reasons but if classical education makes someone feel they cannot homeschool it is a mistake.
Homeschoolers may struggle with some aspects of classical educations but the ones discussed at the conference were aspects we do infinitely better than a school. Kind of the Charlotte Mason side of classical education or the poetic knowledge side.
Comment by Cindy (August 5, 2006 @ 6:08 am )
I feel almost guilty because all our kids are going to have a free ride, and it’s purely accidental (by which I mean not of our deliberate action and foresight).
Because my husband is a disabled vet, once we were state residents in this state, all of them can do four years worth of state college/Uni for free (tuition and books, not dorm rooms and such, but since we don’t want our daughters living on campus anyway, that’s great).
We didn’t know that until after we’d already decided to move here, and we certainly didn’t intend for hubby to be a *disabled* vet.
The first three years we were here, we weren’t eligible for that, and our oldest child was only eligible for health insurance if she was a fulltime student, so our oldest did community college, which was cheaper, and paid for it with a combination of scholarships, grants, and the money she made from being a nanny and selling stuff at our antique booth.
Once she got that first semester under her belt she was eligible for more scholarships because of her grades.
Now she only has to make a C average for her fees to be covered under disabled vet status.
I’m wondering if the most effective way to get the math scores up isn’t going to end up being paying for a private tutor. My oldest says maybe she should have spent less time on test taking that summer and more time reviewing her math.
We have a friend with a brother at Bryan- but his grandfather set up a college account for him when he was a baby because it’s grandpa’s alma mater.
My parents weren’t so foresighted.;-D
The fact that they have 11 grandchild from just two kids might have had something to do with that, too. (insert the sound of me laughing at my own funniness).
I am rambling, aren’t I?
Comment by DeputyHeadmistress (August 5, 2006 @ 11:40 am )
DHM,
Sometimes being a white male in this society is rough.
My husband has been trying to get on permanently here for 4 years. He has been told at every junction he is one of the top picks. Then every time he has been passed over usually because of a disable vet, female or minority. He definitely is just fine with the disabled vets getting his job
Thankfully, he also believes in Providence.
Comment by Cindy (August 5, 2006 @ 1:22 pm )
Cindy, you may not need to take those tests that many times. Much depends on how well they do. I think they’re recommending that your kids not take it any more than three times. My three who have graduated and one that will be graduating have taken each twice. We started working on a section or two of practice tests each day about two months before taking them. So one month is for the ACT and the next for the SAT. I’d go over their wrong answers with them and explain (review really) concepts and point out how rules were being followed in the English section. The reading sections will greatly improve with just practice, and they are something that you very much have to KNOW that they are NOT trying to trick you. The answers are fairly obvious. I have one son who always tries to second guess things and my feeling is that he didn’t do well because he was trying to look deeper than the surfact.
Comment by Patti (August 7, 2006 @ 11:02 pm )
To my knowledge, they did NOT “teach to the test” in school, yet I never did any specific test prep and did just fine — both in 7th grade and again in 11th when I took it “for real”
What is being so difficult about the math sections? Maybe they have changed the test since I took it.
Comment by my Boaz's Ruth (August 8, 2006 @ 10:36 pm )