In my experience, CM and the modern WTM-style classical often do end up doing some of the same things, but often for different reasons, and the different reasons explain the areas where the two approaches do diverge, like in grammar instruction for young children and all. Yes, you could absolutely take good living books from whatever other program you find them, and apply CM methods to them. It sounds like you are already doing this, so you don’t have to worry about whether you are really “CM” or not. You don’t have to use a CM “program” to be educating in a CM style.
You perhaps aren’t seeing a big distinction because you are already using the books in a more CM friendly manner, but if you reflect on the purposes of studying history, for example, in a more classical style, you’ll notice the differences right away! Classical history education can be “living” and “entertaining” but for the purpose of engaging the child to take in all the facts–“cover” all the periods—-and memorize as much as possible. So, for example, in WTM, a big hairy spine book which may not be a living book, is prescribed, with the child outlining each chapter as it is read, memorizing lists of Russian tsars, vbg, and “covering” everything. THEN, to make it more interesting, biographies and good fiction and other things are added in. But the meat is that spine and those endless outlining pages . . . which is also where I lost my son. 🙂 In CM education, the goal is not so much “covering everything” and “memorizing everything” but grasping living ideas, and learning many things about a time period, dwelling in it in the imagination and experiencing it. Therefore, we don’t have to outline every chapter in a big comprehensive history book, and we don’t have to memorize all the Tudors, but we read living books and narrate. The WTM-style classical method is much more concerned with facts as food–necessary food, and if you don’t have the right ones you have starved. 🙂 While CM is a banquet of exquisite richness–instead of Jetson-style meals-in-a-pill, efficient but dry, a CM education is a buffet of all the colors and flavors one can find, and we’ll each leave the buffet with a somewhat different plateful, but that’s OK because it’s all nutritious AND delicious. 🙂
So, no, you aren’t missing anything, it sounds like you are doing a great job. You aren’t way off at all.
Michelle D
