I love good music. When I was 12, one of my favorite tapes was Les Miserables. I hadn't seen the play or read the book, but I had the 2-cassette audio set of the Broadway show and I listed to it over and over again. At some point, I discovered that the musical was based on a book. And since I couldn't see the musical (yet!), I just had to read the book.
And that is how, at 12 or 13, I discovered French literature. I probably would not have come across it in school or anywhere else. Les Mis lead to Leroux's Phantom of the Opera (also a book! Who knew?) Phantom lead to Camus, La Fontaine, Nin, etc. I never really had anyone to discuss these readings with (though I'm sure I tried!) To my knowledge I never managed to convince my friends to read these amazing (and often scandalous and sometimes totally inappropriate) stories.
High school happened, though I'm not sure I actually learned anything in the typical classroom setting. I did, however, have one totally non-traditional class. My Honors English/Humanities class consisted of one pupil: Me. It was a small school, and only a handful of us qualified for Honors classes. I was the only one who chose Honors English, so I was stuck in the back of a Senior Humanities class by myself and given independent projects. My teacher knew what I was capable of so these were not easy projects.
She demanded more and more of me to the point where I couldn't stand her at all. We fought often and I'm sure I was awful. Looking back, I realize she was probably the best teacher in that school. Sure, she wasn't my favorite at the time, but no one else consistently put challenging work in my hands and then was thoroughly disappointed in me if I didn't pull it off. I was terribly defiant: I listened to no one. I learned from books, so books she gave me... for years. I was given a book or stack of books, a list of expectations, and left alone (until semester review time came.) Still, I guarantee I learned more in those 5 hours a week than in the rest of the time I was in that building.
When the time came to search for colleges, I fell head over heels in love with Shimer College. It was exactly what I had wanted all along: Read books, then discuss. Period. I visited the campus (this was the old Waukegan campus of the 90's, not the urban Chicago campus of today) and it was a perfect fit for me. Shimer is one of the two main "Great Books" schools, along with St. Johns. There are no lectures, and the classes are based around the "Great Books" & "Great Discussion" and inspired by the work of Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler in the 1950s.
I applied and was accepted. I was offered a decent financial aid package, but it still didn't work out for me. Life changed a lot between 17 and 18. In the end, I decided to go elsewhere. However, how I viewed education was forever changed. I approached learning differently. I read the books recommended at the end of the college history texts. I read the books mentioned by my freshman biology professor. I took charge of my own education. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. But I knew that "lecture-test-forget" had not worked for me.
I want my kids to have the opportunity to have a Great Books education. If it doesn't work, if they don't love it, if they aren't thriving within it as I hoped them to, we will try something else. But it was Shimer and the Great Books that led me to thinking about alternate ways of educating/self-educating which, several years later, led me to Mortimer Adler, Dorothy Sayers's The Lost Tools of Learning, Classical home education, and the many wonderful ways to create a literature based education. This may not be the path on which we complete the journey. However, it was the path which gave us the courage and inspiration to begin.
Other links to helpful sites:
Where We Came From, Where We're Going by Andrew Kern (a good primer on classical education, this piece also discusses the newer "classical Christian education movement." However, it is an informative read for anyone interested in classical education, regardless of religion.)
The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers
For gifted and highly motivated high school students: Shimer College Early Entrant Program
For self-education: The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had by Susan Wise Bauer and Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book
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