The Well Trained Mind Seminar

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A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to a homeschool conference that included a seminar presented by Susan Wise Bauer. Since we're using the Well Trained Mind curriculum recommendations, I jumped at the chance to hear her speak.

The topics were:

* A Plan for Teaching Writing: Grades K-12
* A Plan for Teaching Writing: Focus on the Middle Grades
* A Plan for Teaching Writing: Focus on the High School Years
* Homeschooling the Real (Distractible, Impatient, Argumentative, Unenthusiastic, Non-Book-Loving, Inattentive, Poky, Vague) Child
* The Well Prepared Student (High School): How to Get Ready for College
* Teaching Students to Work Independently

Some points I took from each talk:

I was mostly interested in the first Plan for Teaching Writing talk, Homeschooling the Real Child, and Teaching Students to Work Independently, but the talks about middle and high school ages were also helpful. I was able to get a good long range view of what to aim for over the next 12 years.

The first Plan for Teaching Writing talk gave me a good idea of how to integrate grammar, spelling, writing into our schoolwork. The next two talks were good things to keep in mind for the future.

Homeschooling the Real Child was quite interesting. Susan gave several descriptors of different types of children- purposeful, immature, single-minded, multi-talented, independent, and creative. At this point, the one that most applies to Little Miss Sunshine is "single-minded", which didn't really come as a surprise, since Mr M and I have frequently commented on her one-track mind :)  Susan then gave several strategies to use in dealing with our children. This was very enlightening, and gave me some great ideas to try with LMS.

Despite high school being years in the future, I actually took a lot of notes during the next talk about the well prepared high school student. Great things to keep in mind as we press forward- how to prepare for standardized tests, how to prepare a transcript showing coursework completed, and so on. She divided this talk into three sections: the practically well prepared student, the academically well prepared student, and the emotionally well prepared student- all things that need to be addressed over the coming years.

We're very much in the "Parent at Elbow" stage of schooling , but we will be working towards teaching LMS to work independently, so the last talk was of a lot of interest to me. In a few more years, we'll start moving into "Hovering Parent" stage, and then gradually become more and more hands-off. Susan gave some great ideas for teaching children to eventually be independent self-starters, starting in the elementary school years, and I can't wait to start using them! Of course, that will be just in time to start over with the next kiddo (hopefully- this isn't an announcement or anything), but it will make it easier to only have one parent-intensive kiddo in school at a time.

All-in-all, the time and money spent to attend this seminar were very well spent, and I'm glad I was able to attend.

Have you ever had the chance to hear Susan speak?