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13 Year Old Memory Master, Nacho Eater, Guitar Player

May 1, 2010
Last Sunday we added another teenager to our family – Cooper! And come July, we’ll have three in double digits when Kayla turns 10. Wow! Time is truly flying by. (Well, most days.)

This was also Cooper’s final week of Classical Conversations – the homeschool program we have been a part of this year. The Foundations program consists mostly of memorizing facts or the “grammar” of several subjects. (“Grammar” is the first stage of a classical model of education called The Trivium.) Cooper decided to work toward something called “Memory Master” which requires that the student have all 400-500 pieces of grammar memorized to perfection. (They can make only one mistake, or be prompted one time.) Well, on Tuesday he aced his “proof” with the director of the program. When she got through testing him, Debbie, our director said to him, “I’m really sorry, Cooper, but you are a MEMORY MASTER!” He won $50, a Classical conversation t-shirt, and a water bottle. I can not begin to tell you how proud we are of his hard work – and most of it completely self-studied and motivated!

Here is a list of what this memory work entails:

The 160 timeline cards that he is holding above. (From Creation to Constantine to Cold War)
All 44 U.S. Presidents
All 5 Latin declension endings
I John 4:7-21 (let us love…if you love…abide in love…God is love…Yikes!)
24 History sentences – For Example:

“During the Age of Imperialism, the British established rule over India in 1858 and Queen Victoria was declared the Empress of India in 1877. Assassinated in 1948, Mohandas Ghandi and his passive resistance movement helped win India’s independence.” (Yeah, 24 of those!)

42 Prepositions
23 Helping Verbs
12 Linking Verbs
120 Geographic Locations (Fertile Crescent…Kyoto Japan…All S. American Countries, etc)
119 Science Facts (types of clouds, types of rocks, invertebrate classifications, etc.)
Math facts: multiples of numbers through 15 x 15, cubes through 1000, squares through 225, 9 math formulas, and 3 math laws.

(All that and he made only ONE mistake. I believe it was a Latin mistake!?!)

Cooper has also been working on his “Quest” and will have an art/music/movie exhibit in a few weeks to show all of his hard work from the year of challenges, but we wanted to celebrate with him on his actual day as well. He woke up to breakfast and presents – actually just one present; the LONG-desired iPod touch! His brother has had one for 2 years, and it was the one present Cooper wanted. He cried when he opened it.
(And now we have one more piece of technology to monitor around here. sigh.)
And as far as his party requests: make-your-own-nacho-bar and ice cream cake. (I also threw in some root beer and cream soda – another very rare and special treat around here!) We had several friends and families over for the occasion, and Cooper is consequently the owner of an OBSCENE amount of iTunes credit! (thanks to Grandad and Aunt Melinda as well!)
He has worked very hard this year, and we are really proud of this kid. Math (above) is definitely his least favorite subject, but he’s making lots of progress. He’d much rather play his guitar, and looks forward to his lesson from Levin every other week.
And just like Memory Master, Coop is a master at playing music by ear. So is Levin, but Levin is also quite gifted in music theory, which makes him the perfect teacher for Coop! A couple of weeks ago after a lesson Coop said, “I just like to play guitar, but Levin likes to THINK about guitar.” Oh good. It’s a perfect match! He works with Coop’s natural ability while nudging him to improve by really learning the music and its theory.

Happy Birthday Coop!
Congrats on Memory Master – What an accomplishment!
We love your amazing mind, creativity, humor, and thoughtful spirit.
You are a really awesome teen!

6 thoughts on “13 Year Old Memory Master, Nacho Eater, Guitar Player”

  1. That is a mind-blowing list of things to memorize! Wow!

    I'm sure it will serve him very well in the years to come. (Well, and so will the iPod, of course.)

  3. Kayla ALMOST had it all memorized, but decided not to try for Memory Master this year. She has two more years to try.

    Kory's program is altogether different – rhetoric stage: lots of reading, writing, speaking, debating, science, philos., govt, etc.

    They are all doing such great work – so proud of them!

  4. Wow, that is amazing! You must be so proud of him.

    I hope he enjoys his iPod. My boys received one a few years ago from an uncle already filled with awesome Christian music. I was thankful that job was already done for us.

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