Reading and Reading Again

In January or February of each year, I try to re-read a few homeschooling books. I like the reminder of why we're doing this, and reading about different approaches and solutions can be helpful. Sometimes I find an answer that wouldn't have been the answer for us the last time I read the books. I do try to consistently re-read both The Well-Trained Mind and The Latin-Centered Curriculum, even if other books vary.

Yesterday, I read The Latin-Centered Curriculum once more. Poor approach - it's our runner-up. The bridesmaid, never the bride. If you told me that I could not follow the framework of The Well-Trained Mind any longer, then we would probably go with an LCC approach... but only then. This reading brought me to no different conclusion.

Reading Campbell's reasons for studying Latin does help to remind me why we study Latin (important, since we're setting our courses for next year), but it never does convince me to give Latin primacy in our homeschool. It does make me want to include ancient Greek, but not at the expense of studying a modern foreign language. In our very math and writing centric homeschool, other language arts and science fall into the slots as of secondary importance, leaving most else to be tertiary or even quaternary. I simply won't give Latin (or Greek) a place beside math or writing, and I have yet to be convinced that writing can be enhanced through Latin study versus direct instruction.

The Latin-Centered Curriculum can be a good reminder not to clutter up our schedule with too many subjects, and I think it's an important message especially for kindergarten and first grade. For EG, though, I am not sure that paring back wouldn't do her a disservice. It's about 12:45 right now, and she's completed penmanship, spelling, Classical Writing, memory work, poetry study, Latin, algebra, math drill, literature reading, and logic work; she's currently reading about science and will likely finish before 1 pm. She's also had about an hour, total, to play with her siblings, time to practice piano, and time for both breakfast and lunch. She's not overworked or overchallenged; this amount of work actually seems to be just about right for her. Yes, if we pared back, she would spend more time on Latin, but not a huge amount more.

In short - what we are doing is working for us, and working well. Sometimes reading about a slightly different way reminds me, though, just how well it is working.