Whooaaa Nellie... I missed some questions down there.

I forgot about my homeschool page for a few weeks. Thus I missed the questions posed in the comments from my last post. As a self-appointed homeschool evangelist, I mustn't let good questions go unanswered. Let me know if I don't exactly address what you were looking for. Or if you come up with something altogether new.

Here we go.

The lovely monikered Kristi-but-not-me says:

I often find myself rejecting straight memorization as not functional. As in, why make a child memorize the introduction to the Declaration of Independence (I sub and this was something the 5th graders were doing) when they will most likely not use that knowledge in the future.

In other words, what's the point? Proponants of classical education contend memory work is important for a number of reasons. I'm just going to go over a few.

Memory work develops the capacity to memorize, which is useful in all academic settings. Memorization takes practice and discipline. A child who has been memorizing their whole lives will be better equipped at retention as adolescents and college students. So the actual act of memorization is like brain-exercise.

Memory work introduces children to a rich and complex world of language that they would not be getting otherwise. Beautifully metered poetry exposes kids to rhythm and cadence and a million other things that they don't get in our crazy paced world. From the process of reciting poetry they hear how language and syntax work...this is absolutely critical in the development of writing skills.

Beyond the skills acquired from using memory work in a curriculum, the memory work itself is worth the effort. Charlie is working on Casey at the Bat right now. He picked the poem because he loved, loved, loved the story it was telling. Memorizing literature and important speeches or documents may not have future utility in the sense that a particular skill set has use. If your toilet is backed up you need a plumber, not freakin' Abe Lincoln with his Gettysburg Address. On the other hand, most people taking the time to read this far into this post is very, very, very interested in raising well-rounded kids with as strong an academic background as you can muster. So why not challenge them? See how far they can go. I'd memorize the Gettysburg address right now because it was important and it's beautifully written. And if no one is memorizing the Gettysburg address, how long will it be before we forgot it ever happened?
If we don't teach the little ones Latin or ancient history, will anyone care enough to teach it 100 years from now? Crazy people like me think about these things.


I thought I'd take care of all the questions in one post. But I can't. Stay tuned.