We are officially six weeks into Classical Conversations, and this week is our first break week.
I have thoughts. 😂
If you asked me whether I like Classical Conversations, the answer is… yes?
Mostly?
Some of it I absolutely LOVE. Some of it drives me completely insane.
So, basically, here’s the jist.
Before this year, we primarily used The Good and the Beautiful for our homeschool curriculum, and I think that’s important context here. TGTB is excellent at being “open and go.” The lessons are concise, the expectations are clear, multiple subjects are woven together beautifully, the illustrations are gorgeous, and I can open a book and know exactly what I’m supposed to teach that day.
Classical Conversations is…not that.
And that has been my biggest adjustment.
I love Foundations. Mostly.
Foundations is probably my favorite part of Classical Conversations.
Every week, the kids are introduced to memory work in history, science, geography, math, English, Latin, and a timeline of historical events. The tutors introduce songs and hand motions to help the kids memorize everything, which is AMAZING.
Except.
The songs aren't always the same.
One tutor likes one song. Another tutor likes another. One class learns these hand motions. Another class learns slightly different hand motions.
If you have one child in CC, I don't think this would matter much.
I do not have one child. 😂
So when we review memory work at home, one child starts singing and another immediately says, “THAT’S NOT HOW WE SING IT!”
Then somebody starts doing the motions.
“No! It goes like THIS!”
And suddenly our peaceful little homeschool review has devolved into an argument about the correct choreography for a history sentence.
Another part of Foundations that I really appreciate is presentations. Every single week, my kids stand up in front of their class and present something. Sometimes they've prepared something ahead of time, and sometimes it's incredibly simple—but that's almost beside the point. Standing in front of a group of people and speaking is becoming completely normal to them.
I LOVE that.
Public speaking is intimidating for a lot of adults, and meanwhile my kids are getting up every Tuesday like, “Well, I guess it's my turn.” 😂 They're learning how to organize their thoughts, speak clearly, listen while someone else presents, and get comfortable being the person in front of the room. That's one of those things CC does that I don't think I would have been nearly as intentional about creating on my own.
Ellie giving her weekly presentation during Foundations.
But while I love what happens on community day, figuring out what we're supposed to do with all of it at home has been a different story.
This is such a small complaint, but it points to something bigger that I’ve struggled with during these first six weeks: I like clear expectations.
In Classical Conversations, the parent is called the “teacher.” And as the teacher, I get to decide what we do at home.
We can review everything. We can review nothing. We can skip a week. We can go down a rabbit trail. We can print worksheets. We can read 14 library books about the American Revolution. We can do absolutely none of those things.
And there is something freeing about that.
If we’re sick? Fine.
Going on vacation? Fine.
Having one of those homeschool weeks where everyone has lost their minds and math somehow takes 97 minutes? Fine.
I appreciate that freedom.
But apparently I also want someone to tell me what to do. 😂
I don't want to reinvent the wheel.
This is probably my biggest criticism of CC so far.
It has taken me almost six weeks to figure out how Classical Conversations actually fits into our homeschool.
I have tried different schedules. I have printed worksheets. I have thrown away worksheets. I have checked out stacks of library books and returned stacks of library books. I have looked through resources, tried different systems, abandoned different systems, and generally spent way too much mental energy trying to figure out what our homeschool is supposed to look like now.
And, if I’m being fair, Classical Conversations would probably say:
“That’s because YOU are the teacher.”
I know. Maybe I’m the problem here. Maybe I need to chill out.
But I paid you money. 😂
I don't necessarily want someone else deciding exactly how I educate my children. One of my favorite things about homeschooling is having the freedom to change things when they aren't serving us.
But I also don't want to reinvent the wheel every week.
Give me a really good wheel.
Then I'll decide whether we're using it today.
Six weeks later, I think I've finally figured it out.
The funny thing is now that I've stopped trying to figure out the “right” way to do CC, I think I've finally found a way that works really well for us.
I'm calling them deep dives.
The CC memory work gives us the framework for what we're learning, and then a few times throughout the week we choose something to explore more deeply.
Once a week, we do a history deep dive.
This year is Cycle 3, which focuses heavily on American history, and this has become one of my favorite parts of our homeschool.
I was NOT a strong history student.
There are things my children are learning right now that I know I was taught in school, but apparently my brain promptly filed them under “information needed until Friday's test” and then deleted them forever.
Now I'm genuinely learning this stuff alongside my kids.
And I LOVE that piece of CC.
We use The Good and the Beautiful History once a week to go deeper into whatever history sentence we're learning through CC. Instead of trying to turn every single piece of memory work into an entire unit study, we pick one place to dig deeper.
We also do a science deep dive once a week and a geography deep dive once a week.
Originally, I had a fine arts deep dive too.
Then I looked at my children's lives and realized they already do approximately 47 fine arts activities.
They’re good. 😂
So I dropped it.
That may be one of the biggest things I'm learning this year:
Just because we CAN add more doesn't mean we should.
Essentials has surprised me.
Ellie is also doing Essentials this year, and I have been really impressed with the writing component.
The Good and the Beautiful gave my kids a strong foundation, so I don't feel like we're trying to fill major gaps. Instead, Essentials is asking Ellie to take skills she already has and stretch them.
And then there's Number Knockout.
If you haven't seen Number Knockout, it's essentially a game where kids use numbers and mathematical operations to create other numbers.
Ellie does not naturally love this.
She likes math just fine, but she is not naturally a “let me play around with these numbers and figure out twelve different ways to make 37” kind of person.
I, however, AM.
Number Knockout is my jam.
The hardest part of Essentials may actually be me sitting quietly while my child works because I WANT TO DO IT. 😂
But I appreciate that it pushes her to use her math skills differently. It requires problem-solving instead of simply following the steps she already knows.
And that brings me to something I've been thinking about a lot.
Hard isn't bad. But is it worthwhile?
Almost everyone I've talked to who has been in Classical Conversations for a long time says some version of:
“We do it for Challenge.”
Challenge is CC's program for the older students, and there are parts of it that sound incredible to me.
The literature.
The conversations.
Learning to articulate an argument and defend what you believe.
Growing up alongside the same group of kids.
Having a community of families who value education and are willing to invest deeply in it.
Those things matter to me.
A LOT.
But then I look at some other parts of Challenge and think…
Ehhhhhh.
Six years of Latin?
Drawing the entire world from memory?
The Math Map?
I don't know, y'all.
I really don't know.
And I want to be clear about something: I don't think something being difficult is a reason not to do it.
Actually, I think our kids need to do hard things.
Watching Ellie struggle through Number Knockout doesn't make me want to remove it. It makes me want to encourage her to keep trying because I can see the value in what her brain is being asked to do.
But I'm starting to ask a different question:
Is this hard thing valuable enough to justify the time it requires?
Because our children's time is finite.
We could spend years learning Latin.
We could learn Spanish.
We could memorize every country, capital, mountain, river, and body of water and learn to draw the entire world from memory.
We could read incredible books.
We could study history.
We could spend hours outside.
We could play sports.
We could learn instruments.
We could make art.
We could travel.
We could read aloud on the couch.
We could spend an entire afternoon learning about something simply because one of my kids asked an interesting question at breakfast.
But we cannot do ALL of those things deeply.
And maybe that's becoming one of my biggest homeschool philosophies:
I don't want to ask only, “Is this educational?”
Almost everything can be educational.
I want to ask, “Is this worthy of our time?”
And then there's the community.
This might be the hardest part of Classical Conversations to review because I don't think you can really review “CC community” as one universal thing.
Your experience is going to depend tremendously on your campus.
It depends on your director.
It depends on your tutors.
It depends on the parents who are willing to show up, participate, tutor, help, encourage, and invest in each other's kids.
And I LOVE our people.
That matters.
Homeschooling can become very insular if we're not intentional about community, and I love that my children have a group of kids they see every week. I love that other adults are pouring into them. I love the friendships we're building.
There are things about Classical Conversations that frustrate me.
The people are not one of them.
So…are we staying?
Ask me in April. 😂
Seriously.
Six weeks ago, I felt like I was wading through weeds trying to figure out how to make this program work for our family.
Three weeks ago I told my friends I was OUT after this year.
Today, I feel much better.
I adore Foundations.
I think Essentials is an excellent program.
I love our community.
I'm learning American history alongside my children and genuinely enjoying it.
We've figured out our deep dives.
I've stopped trying to supplement every single thing.
And I finally feel like Classical Conversations is fitting into our homeschool instead of our entire homeschool revolving around Classical Conversations.
But Challenge?
I'm not sold yet.
Maybe six months from now I'll understand why everyone keeps telling me, “We do it for Challenge.”
Maybe I'll decide the things I'm hesitant about aren't nearly as important as the things Challenge does incredibly well.
Or maybe I'll realize that Classical Conversations was exactly what our family needed for this season, but it isn't where we're headed long-term.
I genuinely don't know yet.
And, contrary to my nature, I’m forcing myself to be okay with that.
I'm only six weeks in.
For now, I'm taking the parts that are serving our family, letting go of the pressure to do everything, and giving myself permission to figure the rest out as we go.
Which, now that I think about it, might be the most “homeschool” thing I've ever said.
