There is an interesting discussion going on in a Yahoo group about "classical" and "neo-classical"--especially about the definition of "Classical Education" and the meaning and use of the Trivium. I made this response...
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Last summer, it occurred to me that what Sayers was talking about as the Trivium was not exclusively age-stage related. Track with me here--the thing I think I got was this: When one tackles *any* new subject/activity, there is a natural progression--learning the grammar, learning how it all fits together, and learning how to personalize the subject/activity. I think it clicked with me when I realized that I, as a *very* grown up, had gone through all the stages as I learned to quilt. First I learned all the terms, the words and actions for all the things you have to use, know and do to make a quilt. THEN, in my "logic" stage, I learned how these things work together--relate to one another--in the making of an actual quilt...and in modifying an existing quilt pattern to accommodate shortage or preference of material. NEXT, maybe someday, I will enter the "rhetoric" stage, where I can take all that I have in my head and hands and actually create a quilt that is expressive of my own ideas about beauty.
I was well into my 40s for all three stages (and may be in my 50s before I get to rhetoric on this one). But I think Sayers' point is that there is a natural progression of learning that is described in these "trivium" terms. That we are teaching our children HOW to learn *whatever* they tackle by teaching them in this pattern. And because they are younger, and are building knowledge, have brains that are still developing, and personalities (in the "Capital Letter Personality" sense of the word) that are emerging, their process IS more identifiable by age...but not DEFINEABLE by age.
My own son is able to go grammar-logic-rhetoric in some areas already. But others, he's strictly grammar--and most, he is progressing clearly into grammar-logic as he tackles new subjects and ideas.
Maybe this is putting too fine a point on it...but I think the trivium as stages has great value in helping a student (me) learn how to tackle any subject. But marrying it to a particular grade or activity is silly. We are on our fourth rotation in the 4-year history cycle. But my kid is rapidly moving out of "pure grammar" stage--and it would be stupid to finish the rotation in "pure grammar" mode just to say we had done it.
I will also say that I think the main genius Susan Wise Bauer showed in the way she wrote TWTM is that she put as much of "classical" education into terms that we who are so far from it (as a general rule) could understand. So she talked about it in terms of grade levels--which become less and less meaningful the longer you stay the course and choose a "classical" path. I think the "ages & stages* of the trivium is presented in this same way... and had it not been done so, I don't think I could have taken the leap to classical as a homeschooler. Now that I have, I am getting "past" it as a once-necessary crutch and am going away from neo-classical to true classical. But I think I only would have made it by way of neo.
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4 comments:
I totally agree with you, although sadly I feel like I am in grammar in a lot of things! LOL!
Patty, I think you have a good point here about the broader application of learning stages throughout life. And I think you're on to something about how it's possible to "get past" the need to see these stages as age/grade related.
I do think there's validity to to linking them to age, though. Piaget's work with children's stages of development tracks so closely with the stages of the trivium. You remember from psych class, right? (grin - I'm cheating here cuz I was a psych major) Piaget was the one who observed that young children don't possess the ability to think abstractly - they process the world concretely, through their sense. It isn't until adolescence that they begin to develop the ability to deal with the larger world of ideas. This fits well with logic-stage thinking, don't you agree?
But I do think you're right about adults still following the pattern, which gives it a higher value in teaching children because we ARE teaching them "how to learn" when we follow the trivium pattern of copying/rote, then forming relationships, then creative expression.
JULIE--I know how you feel. But that's part of being "always learning"--unless you dig into one particular subject...
MAMABIRD--It's funny because I think we are saying the same thing in different words. The reason that the Trivium stages get identified with ages is because of the reality of brain development...and there is a close tracking. The "big leap" I think I made last year was that the process is the same once you were grown up--it's just that you have all the abilities necessary to progress through all three stages. Children don't, because they are still developing. But the people who get it backwards are the ones who *assign* a stage to an age, rather than recognizing that an age is likely, but not required, to be in a particular stage, until adulthood is reached.
BTW, I very much appreciated your posts about the romance being gone from homeschooling. It was clarifying for me. I'll probably have a less insightful post about my current malaise one of these days...but it is less full of malaise because of the work you did.
Why, thankee, Patty! For your kind words about the romance posts. You know, I should post about that one more time... it helped me TREMENDOUSLY to work through all that. Our year has started off really well, and my motivation has been recharged. I have to believe that talking it through made all the difference.
Thanks again.
MB
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