from Marva Collins’ Way on drawing analogies:

"What drug takes its name from Morpheus, the god of dreams?"

"Morphine," the children called out in unison.

"From where do we get the words geography and geology?""The goddess Ge," they answered.

"Who was Ge?"
"Greek goddess of the earth."

"What does museum mean?"

"Temple of the muses."

"What else does muse mean, Laura?"

"To think about something," she answered.

"Which of King Priam’s sons has a name which means to bully?

"Hector," the class responded.

"And who killed Hector?"

"Achilles."

"How did Achilles die?"

"Paris shot him with an arrow in the heel," Gary shouted, before anyone else could put together a complete sentence.

"And when we use the phrase Achilles heel what do we mean, Tracy?"

"A weak spot."

…and so it went. This is the key to quality classical education in my opinion. Many published unit studies attempt to help make those connections for the students/teachers but like Marva Collins, I believe the best way to make connections is to read widely. Many homeschool mothers worry that their lack of teacher training is a potential handicap. Marva said that the best training a teacher can have is a solid liberal arts education. If you did not come to home education with such a background you can still do exactly what she did: "read constantly in order to tie together fragments of information and interweave subjects."

That does not need to consist of reading intense literary texts either as we discovered reading aloud the other day. We had a picture book of Rip Van Winkle. When we began the story we learned Rip lived in the Catskills Mts near the Hudson River, which one daughter remembered was named after Henry Hudson who was looking for the Northwest Passage. This had just come up in her history book. That reminded them of the D’Aulaire Columbus book and the other explorers read about lately and a lively discussion ensued about why those men were trying so hard to get to Asia(silks, spices, etc)and how America was accidentally discovered in the process.  They wondered why Hudson was called Hendrick in the book and what the significance of the Dutchmen was, so we discussed New York’s original name – New Netherlands, recalling the artist we studied this year, Rembrandt, who was also born there about the same time.

As we read about Dame Van Winkle’s nagging and scolding we discussed the bible’s definition of a valiant woman who brings her husband ‘good and not evil all the days of his life’. We discussed the significance of the sign over the tavern where Rip hung out – first bearing a picture of King George and later George Washington, hence alluding to the American Revolution. We noticed the illustrator was Will Moses which sounded an awful lot like Grandma Moses about whom we read earlier this year. Reading the book jacket revealed that he was indeed linked to her both by relation and artistically, painting in a similar primitive style. Later in the week a copy of Mary Engelbreit’s Home Companion magazine had an ad for a Will Moses poster which another child immediately noticed and correctly connected back to the book and ‘Grandma’.  And so it goes here. : )

We are reading a bit more slowly these days but exchanges like these are free lessons as far as I am concerned. They require no prep time, just a willingness to enter into the story with the children. I don’t believe any prepared lesson plan can effectively replace being well read, unless you are willing to be tied to a cumbersome lesson manual that will make artificial connections for you. Those will never work as well as the spontaneous connections made with our children as we call to mind similar people, places, and events read about before. We have benefited most in our homeschool journey not from complicated, and costly, lesson manuals but from hours on the couch or around the kitchen table hashing out ideas born from books.