Scooby Doo and a Classical Education

I’ve been reading a great many books about homeschooling, and some of the ones that resonate with me speak of a classical education. In particular, Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise suggest in their book “The Well-Trained Mind” that a twelve year education be split into three repetitions of the same four-year pattern based on historical periods:

• The Ancients
• Medieval through early Renaissance
• Late renaissance through early Modern

I like the idea, but I also find sympathy with the “unschoolers” who suggest that children be allowed to explore what interests them when their interest is peaked.

Now, given that what my son is most interested in right now is Scooby Doo, how can I channel that passion into something a little more timeless?

I’m not opposed to feeding his Scooby Doo habit with books. In fact, I spent about $50 on Scooby Doo books this week alone.

But what I’ve decided is to expand one theme from each TV episode (and maybe from each book too) to see if I can add literature beyond the cartoonish.

For example, for the first episode from the first season (What a Night for a Knight), I found a few other books that included a black knight.

The first book I chose was one of The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne, “The Knight at Dawn.” I realize this isn’t exactly classic literature, but it is a very easy and simplistic introduction to medieval life.

Once we’d read that a few times, I told him a few of the tales from Canterbury Tales, including the Knight’s Tale… since I couldn’t find an age -appropriate version, I made one myself.

Then we set to work making a cardboard replica of a castle. We followed a pattern from a recent issue of Make Magazine, but this Build a Medieval Castle software looks great too, and we’ll probably give it a try in the near future.

Finally, we took on the beautifully illustrated kids version of Ivanhoe adapted by Marianna Mayer with paintings by John Rush. It is a little skimpy on plot, but what remains is all the action and adventure parts of the story, so David enjoyed it, even though it’s meant for kids a few years older than he. The first time I read it I ‘translated’ some of the larger words so he could grasp the plot better. Once he knew the story, I read the vocabulary in with few problems.

Now, in Ivanhoe, the Black Knight is King Richard, and Robin Hood makes an appearance as well, so that too could lead to further exploration… at least a book or movie or two.

It’s not exactly the trivium, but it’s getting David interested in all sorts of new things without taking him away from the things he really loves.

Tags: scooby-doo, classical education, homeschooling, homeschool

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This entry was posted on Saturday, March 10th, 2007 at 2:57 pm and is filed under Books and Literature, Homeschooling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.