Evaluation: 1st 100 Days of Classical Education Plan

First things first: I finished the 1st 100 days of my classical education plan! Yea Me! 👏

I didn't know how much I didn't know. Like the pre-Socratics! Who knew?! (hmmm . . . I guess that would be people who've studied the classics)

My experience was adventurous (The Iliad, the Odysessy, the Aeneid,  the Persian War, the Peloponessian War);

dramatic (Prometheus Bound, Antigone, Oedipus Rex, Electra); 

spiritual (Mythology is, after all, the religion of the ancient Greeks and worship of the Greek gods is woven into their history, their arts, and their way of life.); 

puzzling (ideal forms? the analogy of the cave? Meno's paradox?); and

enlightening (I learned about The Toronto Philosophy Meetup, the r/ClassicalEducation subgroup on reddit, and Open Yale Courses)

So much for my mini-celebration, back to task . . . 

Second: so what worked/didn't work?

• Having the plan developed to weekly goals worked to a point: 
• In order to manage myself I augmented the plan with a daily log
• My son volunteered to 'monitor' my progress (i.e. he would periodically view my log and leave a comment of an emoji: 👍 ). I was surprised by the positive effect on my progress!
• Instruction that included audio-video lectures worked well:
• Coursera
• Yale
• Great Courses
• YouTube 
• Courses that included quizzes and discussions encourage deeper learning
• Coursera
• Courses that include questions and written assignments encourage deeper learning. The challenge is the resistance to writing (Something that I seldom overcame)
• Coursera
• MIT
• Hearing lectures while doing chores had mixed results
• I had to listen to lectures more than once before I 'heard' them
• Reading philosophy is difficult
• part of the difficulty is having to learn the meanings philosopher assign to words
• Finding lectures and reading lecture notes that 'interpreted' the philosopher was helpful

Third: Lessons Learned to incorporate in 2nd 100 days

• Keep the focus on the three streams:
• History
• Philosophy
• Religion
• Dig for questions before I begin (brings to mind part of Meno's Paradox: how can you find something if you don't know what to look for?)
• If the action item isn't a lecture, search for an audio-video to accompany it
• Intersperse reading and listening in real time. Examples:
• listen to a lecture on Nicomachean Ethics while reading it on Tuft University's Perseus
• listen to Le Morte d'Arthur while reading the book
• Enhance my daily log to include
• a summary of what I learned
• questions and answers
• Write!
• do a blog post every two weeks