Home :: Books :: Parenting & Families  

Arts & Photography
Audio CDs
Audiocassettes
Biographies & Memoirs
Business & Investing
Children's Books
Christianity
Comics & Graphic Novels
Computers & Internet
Cooking, Food & Wine
Entertainment
Gay & Lesbian
Health, Mind & Body
History
Home & Garden
Horror
Literature & Fiction
Mystery & Thrillers
Nonfiction
Outdoors & Nature
Parenting & Families

Professional & Technical
Reference
Religion & Spirituality
Romance
Science
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Sports
Teens
Travel
Women's Fiction
The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, Revised and Updated Edition

The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, Revised and Updated Edition

List Price: $39.95
Your Price: $23.91
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 .. 8 >>

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A bit intense
Review: But otherwise I like the ideas set forth in this book about a classical home education. We're not using their plan completely but incorporating a little here and there in our homeschool. I think that this is what most homeschooling parents do anyway.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Tutors International's opinion.
Review: This is an excellent that serves as a guiding light throughout your homeschooling journey. Tutors International may also be able to help you. Contact us online...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Practical
Review: Yes, Practical is the word missing from the subtitle: A Practical Guide to...

I've loved this book since I first heard of it. The private school I attended began making the shift to classical methods (i.e. researching original texts instead of dry textbooks, etc...)when I started high school. We didn't know that the method , even that is was a method, had a name back then. I've been a classical education fan for years, and now that we're homeschooling our kids, it made for an easier springboard into the deep end of the pool.

The authors define the mode of classical education, delineate the stages of it, and then walk you through the necessary steps of scheduling, curricula, and you name it.

This is the most frequently used homeschool reference in our home. As a matter of fact, it's the only one. The others I've read were borrowed from friends or the library. TWTM is the only tool that I felt was an essential to have on hand for immediacy and worth spending the copper for.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very helpful and informative
Review: This is a very good book and I have great respect for the authors. They are truly experienced in the homeschooling field.

However, I think that the reader needs to realize that not everything and every suggestion should necessarily be followed to the "t." Each situation and each child is different. This program isn't always going to be reality for all people. For example, they strongly urge all preschoolers to learn to read and they repeatedly say that "reading is easy." But this is not always the case. Many have told me to tear those pages out! If your preschooler is not ready to learn to read (and many aren't), all the pushing in the world may only harm the child. I learnt to read (as did most of us) in the first grade, and I am one of the most voracious readers around. If anyone has read "Cathy Duffy's Christian Home Educator's Curriculum Manual," they will be aware of certain learning styles. The authors and their children seem to all be very similar in learning style - "competent carl." Not everyone fits that mold. This means they learn well with basic, no-frills approaches and like to see the big picture,
strengths would be things like analysis and thinking through situations, science and math or any area where they can achieve competency (as opposed to creativity/artistic expression). It's no wonder that a classical approach, worthless trivia (which this book is filled with lists of prescribed memorization for, not necessarily bad, just you have to admit it's rather trivial in the long run unless you want to be a history major in college),
and straightfoward books would appeal to them.

The other problem I have with this method is that it does tend to cause a lot of burn-out and take lots of time and money to prepare (costly if you don't have access to good libraries in your area).

Other than that, I love this book. I refer to it time and time again. I am glad that I got it. I respect the authors tremendously.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great book for the Christian home
Review: This book is wonderful. It provides step-by-step instruction on homeschooling your children through the trivium (which is the three basic stages through which children learn). I am a christian and the book says that it is impossible to leave faith out of homeschooling. It suggests you show your children a bit of all major religions, like history and their basis (monotheistic, polytheistic). This will equip them so they can better understand and argue their beliefs. The example they used was to argue for creation over evolution. This book makes it easy for all concerned parents to adequately prepare a child for the giant changing world ahead of them. I couldn't give this book higher accolades!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Quod Erat Demonstrandum
Review: Our public schools are run by a leftist cabal so extreme that it's presumably a holdout Communist sleeper cell that didn't get the memo about losing the Cold War. Our fiscal state meanwhile makes private education about as pragmatic and as likely as a family trip to Neptune. This dual catastrophe leaves home schooling as the sole educational option for our twins, who at four are about to enter our tutelage. Descending from a long line of professionally useless gentlemen who were schooled largely in dead tongues and the musings of Sophocles, I leapt for this sturdy volume as soon as I spied its title. As it turns out, the authors stretch the definition of "Classical" rather much (I don't believe that computer programming was discussed much in the Forum, for instance). But they do ground their curriculum in admirably traditional topics like Great Books, Math, and Rhetoric, even as they venture into modern realms that are probably necessary topics if one is ever to adroitly "short" some stock, or whatever it is that one does these days. Old school "homies" like myself will also take heart in the fact that there is a full chapter dedicated to Latin (however at seven pages it's about the shortest one in the book).

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The curiousity of a well trained mind on religion
Review: 3This is an excellent book to give you a plan to follow during homeschool. It starts in preschool (actually starts at birth) and continues through to starting college. It is very helpful to know what levels (not grades) to start certain subjects. The only thing that I had a question about was the chapter about religion. If you are a Christian and want to use this book. Beware that this is a multi-religion book. It says to teach all religious beliefs and be very broad in your religious tendencies. ... This does not agree with my belief that religion is very important. If you can skip this section on religion and use your own judgment as to how to teach religion and how much, then you won't have any problem.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Couldn't live without my WTM book!
Review: I love this book--and refer to it often! I spent 4 years reading about homeschooling, unschooling, and learning at home prior to finding this source. During that time, I found loads of curriculum resources--boxed and boring, too broad based and "choppy", or sprinkled with religion and/or missing scientific research and current zeitgeist ethical contemplations. The WTM book leaves off plenty of jumping room to add your own resources--and you can further your home educational or faith based philosophy/curriculum--beyond what they recommend for core study.

Once I read Susan and Jessie's WTM book, I realized this is where my comfort level is; I do realize this intensive (planning, teaching) type of early years one to one education may not work for everyone--but oh, what a wealth of infomation between book covers!

I find it annoying to jump around a curriculum book to pull "it"--that is a day, week, month or year of "lessons"--all together. This, alas, is true for all good curriculum guides, WTM included. So, I divided the book areas into tabs and highlighted key resources in each subsection. I also cross referenced the book with Rebbeca Rupp material and made a curriculum wish list. Once this was done, I took the list and the WTM book to our local curriculum fair--and researched all the WTM recommended resources, compared those resources, slept on it, and the next day bought a year's worth of curriculum resources in one fell swoop.

Since then we have purchased other Wise/Bauer curriculum materials from PeaceHill Press and eagerly anticipate more resources from the Wise/Bauer mother/daughter duo.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Holistic approach
Review: A great guide for home schoolers or others to approach the education of their children. Well worth the time if you are at all interested.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Guide to Classical Homeschooling
Review: I am really excited about this book! I bought it two summers ago and have poured through it several times. It encourages me to teach, encourages me to learn. That is a great feeling, especially since I was a high school teacher before my children were born. This book has renewed my confidence that classical homeschooling is the best choice for my family.

I love the resource lists and have purchased several books based on the authors' recommendations, including Phonics Pathways and Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready. Phonics Pathways has proved to be EXCELLENT. My five year old is now reading three letter words after only 60 instructional days.

Previously, I had read Douglas Wilson's Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning (great book, by the way). That book convinced me of the value of classical education. The Well-Trained Mind has given me the confidence to go the distance, to know that it is possible for me to educate my children through high school.

Obviously, you won't do EVERYTHING Wise and Bauer recommend, but this is a great guide to classical education. My only regret is that I did not have an education such as this.


<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 .. 8 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates