Mahomet families seeking information about a home-centered education movement called Classical Conversations met at the Mahomet Public Library Wednesday.
Mahomet resident Julie Baker, who initiated the idea implementing Classical Conversations into the Mahomet homeshool community, said about 10 families have committed to the program.
Classical Conversations was developed in 1997 by Leigh Bortins. Bortins, who homeschooled her four sons after leaving her career as an aerospace engineer, invited 11 high school-aged students to her home once a week to meet with her oldest sons so they could discuss American literature, Latin, science, algebra, American government and economics.
Once Bortins saw the benefits of the accountability group, she developed a program at the grammar level for her younger two. The Classical Conversations curriculum now covers a curriculum for students ages 4 through high school.
Today, nearly 70,000 homeschool students participate in the program.
“This takes so much pressure off of feeling like you have to cover it all,” Baker said. “With a classical approach, you have a much more streamlined approach where you’re covering everything, but you’re also able to teach your kids together.”
Baker, who taught deaf and hard of hearing students along with math in public schools, now has four children under the age of seven she will homeschool. Taking a classical education approach where students memorize information in a structured setting at a young age and then learn to have a conversation and produce their own thoughts during their secondary education was important to the Bakers.
The program is set up into three stages: Foundations, Essentials and Challenge.
Students ages four to sixth grade begin in the Foundations or Grammar stage where they learn facts about science, math, English grammar, historical timeline, history fact, geography and Latin.
Each year the program rotates between teaching children about Creation to the Middle Ages, Middle Ages to Present Day and U.S. History. Students who begin the program at age 4 will rotate through the program at least two times.
“There’s a huge focus on mastery in classical education,” Baker said. “So to repeat something is never a bad thing.”
“This concept of mastery is a bit foreign to me,” she said. “In my past, I was forced by my administration to move students on regardless of mastery or even a passing grade. With classical education, the approach is opposite.”
Through memorizing a historical timeline from Creation to present day, students will leave the program with a deep understanding of historical context.
“By the end of one year, they have concrete exposure to 24 major concepts instead of just brushing over lots of things,” she said.
As children move into a naturally argumentative stage by the time they reach adolescence, the Classical Conversations program encourages parents to use those facts students learned when they were younger to develop logic in the Essentials or Dialectic stage.
“They have a ton of information by the time they get to that stage,” Baker said. “This is when they start to dialogue about it with their peers.”
Once students reach the Challenge or Rhetoric stage in high school, they begin to produce materials, which reflect their thoughts on the information they learned during the previous years.
Within each segment of education, the group of students is lead by a tutor, which is usually one of the mothers in the homeschool co-op.
Each week, students are also given a fine arts lesson and are required to give a speech to the class. As students reach the Challenge level, they come into the classroom prepared to teach.
“The idea is just to get them up and presenting,” Baker said. “We want to get them comfortable talking in a crowd.”
Foundations students only meet in the morning, while older students work on sharpening grammar and writing skills through the Institute for Excellence Writing program or the Lost Tools of Writing Program during the afternoon. Essentials students also play math games to sharpen their recall skills.
Baker said the Classical Conversations program is a base for the homeschooling education, but should be supplemented with additional materials at home throughout the week.
Alongside giving students a solid foundation in classical studies, Classical Conversations also focuses on Christian education. The program’s purpose is “to know God and to make Him known.”
While the curriculum does not specifically include lessons in Christian education, teachers, tutors and parents are encouraged to include conversations of God and Jesus Christ during lessons.
Currently, the Mahomet Classical Conversations program has between 20 to 25 students enrolled this fall.
Baker said there is still room left for other Mahomet families who want to join the program. Registration ends on July 16. Classical Conversation will meet once a week on Tuesdays after Labor Day for 12 weeks, then again once a week for 12 weeks in the spring.
To find out more information contact Julie Baker at bakerandchef@gmail.com.
