Book Review: Classical Education and the Homeschool by Wesley Callihan, Douglas Jones, and Douglas Wilson

Classical Education and the Homeschool is a short little 61 page book(let) introducing ideas about Christian Classical Education. Funny how that works out 🙂 I did think it was a bit lacking on the “and the Homeschool” portion. It introduces parents to ideas that are a part of the Classical tradition (logic, Latin, rhetoric) that they may be unfamiliar with after having a modern education.

I, frankly, was mostly disappointed by this book. I’ve read a lot in the topic over the past 5 years and studied Classical Education and continue to study it which is why I picked this up. There was some good information here, introductions to Class-Ed components, etc. But, there was no detail as to how a parent would approach these topics in the homeschool, particularly how to self-educate on these topics. There was no discussion as to how the homeschool would compare with a classroom setting for teaching.

It might be good for someone starting their journey into Classical Education. I would hand it over with qualifiers though because there is a bit more Wilson than I care for here, especially in their discussion of reading fiction. I *agree* that Christians are free to … certainly ought to … read fiction, but I find the way they make the argument distasteful. I would hand someone An Introduction to Classical Education: A Parents’ Guide by Dr. Perrin more readily than this book.

I’m not disappointed to have read this, and may reference parts as we come to those Arts & Sciences, but it won’t be one of the regularly referred to books on my shelf.