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What is The Well-Trained Mind, The Essential Edition?

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The final edition of The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home - The Essential Edition has been published!

Since the first edition of TWTM came out in 1999, the book and its subsequent revisions (through the fourth edition) have been tied, in format, to that very first edition--meaning that all of the recommended resources (titles, ISBNs, prices, availability, format) have all been printed in the book.

However, resources are always mutating. They go out of print. Their prices change. They get edited (sometimes out of recognition). Innovative new ones come along. These days, all of that often happens at a very rapid pace. Meanwhile, the core of TWTM – how to teach classically – remains essentially the same. 

Our wonderful publisher, W. W. Norton, has given Well-Trained Mind Press permission to establish an online database at welltrainedmind.com (easily searchable, clear to navigate) with all of the specific resources we've researched, evaluated, and decided to recommend. This makes it possible to keep all of the recommendations up to date. 

The Essential Edition of The Well-Trained Mind contains all of the teaching strategies and plans – not the specific curricula recommendations. The strategies and plans won't need to be updated! (At least not every five years). You can just use the Essential Edition and pick your own resources. You can ignore the Essential Edition and just subscribe to the database for our recommendations. OR you can use both. It's completely up to you. 

If I own the latest edition of TWTM, do I need the Essential Edition?

Not really. If you'd like to keep up with our ongoing curricula recommendations, you should probably subscribe the the database. However, the teaching strategies and overall plan in the Essential Edition are not significantly different than those in the fourth edition of TWTM (although the college prep recommendations are outdated, and have been moved online). 
 

If I own previous editions of TWTM, do I need the Essential Edition?

That's a little trickier. Because we were privileged to hear from so many parents who'd followed the Well-Trained Mind all the way through high school, we did make some significant changes in the fourth edition (primarily having to do with STEM subjects) from earlier editions. But the core strategies? Those are unchanged. Maybe check out the Essential Edition at your library before you decide.
 
What edition should I recommend to my new homeschooling friends?
You should definitely recommend the Essential Edition, with the suggestion that they subscribe to the curricula database for specific recommendations of particular titles, as needed.
 
What is the subscription fee?
$15.99 per year.  
 

 

 

 

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