Name: CHEC Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-06-12T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-06-14T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Denver, CO

Tagged: classical vs CM

This topic has 6 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 3 months ago by Richele Baburina.

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

Author
Posts
March 6, 2015 at 9:54 am
MrsB
Participant
In learning more about CM versus Classical education philosophy, I’m stumbling upon something on which I need more clarification. I watched the entire Living and Learning series this summer and really enjoyed it. One of the ideas that I latched onto was the idea of spreading a feast. For me, this meant offering my children a wide breadth of subjects and letting them grab onto what appealed to them.
As I’m listening to more Classical educators, I keep bumping into the idea of doing less, but doing it well, or diving deeply into fewer subjects. Are these two ideas at odds with one another? Can I reconcile them or use both ideas in my homeschool? How do you deal with breadth vs. depth in your homeschool?
Thank you!
March 6, 2015 at 10:29 am
MissusLeata
Participant
For the most part, I let the kids delve deeply into things in which they are interested. To me, spreading the feast gives them exposure to more ideas and sometimes, one of those sparks their interest and we can take it deeper.
March 6, 2015 at 10:59 am
JenniferM
Participant
I’m interested in others’ responses as well.
I think of spreading the feast being the atmosphere and life of the home. Picture study, music study, nature study, reading poetry aloud, reading aloud classic children’s books… These are the feast to me and are also “subjects” that can be part of the Family Culture rather than assigned school work. The depth comes when we spend extended time with one artist or one composer or one poet. We are not rushing through lots of artists, looking at samples of Impressionists. We spend a season with one and learn to appreciate the style.
Individually, we emphasize depth when we aim for mastery in math, spending as much time with a concept as the child needs. My son has been learning about weather this year. We have read various living books, discussed them, tried a few activities, and learned a lot. I think our approach has been very CM and yet also deep and spread out throughout the year.
I am not currently using a Family Handbook for history, but it looks as though SCM certainly takes time to dig deeper rather than hurrying through any time period or any particular book.
Just some thoughts…
March 6, 2015 at 12:35 pm
butterflylake
Participant
The words breadth, depth, and diving deeply got my thoughts going to a swimming analogy.
With young children we have them play in wading waters where they can sit, run, splash and it’s all about fun. The focus is not on learning to swim, but all those things will provide a foundation for swimming. Much like our early years, we read without expecting the child to read, we introduce without the expectation of deep understanding.
As the child grows we allow them into deeper waters, but they need to be able to touch the bottom often. Playing in the wading waters is still delightful, but the challenge of swimming, diving and deep water play is needed to become a swimmer. Throughout their school years we need to encourage and train our children to explore the depths, but also enjoy the breadths of their education. Each person is different in desires and abilities, so one student may love to dive deep into several subjects, but keep the extras to a minimum, while another wants to dabble in many areas, and explore just a few in depth.
Since education is lifelong we all deal with balancing into what we dive deep, and in what we enjoy wading in.
Sorry this got long
March 6, 2015 at 12:51 pm
missceegee
Participant
I love your analogy butterflylake. Perfect.
March 6, 2015 at 1:06 pm
rutsgal
Participant
I completely agree with Missceegee – very well said !! Thank you!!
March 6, 2015 at 7:35 pm
Richele Baburina
Participant
I enjoyed all of your responses thoroughly!
Richele