Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home

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The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, Revised and Updated by Susan Wise Bauer
Hardcover: 864 pages
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.; Revised and Updated 10th Anniversary Edition edition (May 4, 2009)

Give your child a classical education---rigorous, language-rich, and comprehensive---regardless of your own training! Discover techniques, curriculums, and resources for tailoring your teaching to your student's cognitive development: elementary "grammar" stage (concrete thinking, memorizing facts); middle school "logic" stage (analytical thinking); and high school "rhetoric" stage (abstract thinking, articulation). Practical and thorough, this revised edition features updated book lists, resources, publications, and Internet links. 800 pages, hardcover from Norton.


Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Wise, a former teacher and current home education consultant, explains that she decided to home-school her three children because the local public school "was a terrible environment socially" and ranked academically as one of the lowest in the state, and the private school she and her husband had chosen seemed unable to stimulate and challenge her children. Bauer, her older daughter and now an instructor at the College of William & Mary, adds the student's perspective. Together, they provide detailed information on a home-school curriculum for a type of classical education called the "trivium." Within each of the three stages of learning (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) are suggestions for lessons, how-to tips, and lists of resources. A common criticism of home schooling, that children have inadequate opportunity for social and emotional development, is also addressed here. For home-schooling a child or supplementing the education of one attending a public or private school, this book is a good purchase for most public libraries.ATerry A. Christner, Hutchinson P.L., KS

Review
An excellent resource for any family.


Outstanding ... should be on every home educator's reference bookshelf. —Homeschooling Today

This educational bestseller has dominated its field for the last decade, sparking a homeschooling movement that has only continued to grow. It will instruct you, step by step, on how to give your child an academically rigorous, comprehensive education from preschool through high school. Two veteran home educators outline the classical pattern of education—the trivium—which organizes learning around the maturing capacity of the child's mind. With this model, you will be able to instruct your child in all levels of reading, writing, history, geography, mathematics, science, foreign languages, rhetoric, logic, art, and music, regardless of your own aptitude in those subjects.

Newly revised and updated, The Well-Trained Mind includes detailed book lists with complete ordering information; up-to-date listings of resources, publications, and Internet links; and useful contact information.