When Stu and I got married, I started thinking about what I would teach my children academically. At first, I was just thinking I would supplement their less than perfect private school education. I started a notebook with ideas of required summer reading and scientific subjects I wanted to cover on the weekends or during the summer. I complained horribly to my mother the year I was homeschooled, but I learned a TON of information and it was very interesting (thanks mom for putting up with me!) Call us snobs, but our ideal "pre-child" education for our children at the time would rival statesmen and nobility with private tutors and training in personal defense.
We moved back to Bksfld.; enter MaryJo and her clan...She invited me to attend Polished Cornerstones. I learned along with the homeschool girls about being a Godly Women through short teachings from (She also expanded my palate much to my husbands delight!)
Then, we moved to Tennessee and I was enlightened by a whole new way of thinking about everything: politics, American History (esp. the Civil War:), country living, gardening/composting, bread-making and bread-eating!, self-reliance, liberty and personal responsibility, variations in Reformed theology and a variety of other things.
On the recommendation of Audrey and a few other homeschool moms I admire, I read The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Susan Wise Bauer. (I was pregnant with Therelene and James was not yet 2). I proceeded to purchase the Story of the World and the "adult" version, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome. I was over-whelmed by the THEA conference in Chattanooga a couple of times with some direction from Audrey, advice from Nancy and Gretchen and a few others. I was soaking up information from my dearest homeschool-mom friends about the trivium and practical classical education. (I was also blessed to receive a lot of information about montessori-style learning from which I gleaned some good direction on toy and music purchases!)
It was hard to narrow-down the best approach to all of the information I wanted my kids to learn and how to manage teaching 3 or 4 children different curriculum all at the same time using the standard textbook model. Stu was a distance Calvert School pupil and he benefited from it, but we didn't like the "non-sectarian" worldview of the school. I like Christian Liberty Press but, the standard textbooks/grade-oriented curriculum program didn't get me super excited about homeschooling (our kids might be advanced in math and grade-level in reading). I thought of homeschooling as an option because I wouldn't be able to afford a good private school. In the past, I had toyed with developing my own unit study "curriculum" with varying depth based on age, ability, interest and grade-level for each child. I don't think this really would have been sane as I would be constantly having to reinvent the wheel. (I've been know to overextend myself; okay.. so I AM known, at least to my family, for overextending myself.)
FINALLY, Audrey and Chris introduced us to Classical Conversations. The philosophy and once-a-week program was an answer to our "one-room schoolhouse" stuffed into modern, grade-level oriented textbook problem. What a blessing! I believe this "program", due to the weekly public speaking practice and emphasis on questioning and "owning" all subjects including the hard ethical and religious ones during the Middle School years, and teaching and presentation during the High School years is more likely to help produce young adults that aren't hindered by the "awkward, overly-sheltered homeschooled child" stereotype. (Of course, as Cal wisely instructed us, I don't think they are mutually exclusive, but if I have to choose between a socially well-adjusted child and one who has been taught the Bible and God's Worldview, I choose the awkward one who has been taught God's Word and His Worldview.) May God grant us the grace to teach my children social adjustment and His Worldview.
More importantly however, Classical Conversations "allows" God His true place in all of learning: at the center and intertwined throughout all "subjects"; it is most important for me to teach my children the correct Biblical worldview in all "subjects" and life issues while they are young. The goal isn't to overly protect my kids from all outside secular influences, but to teach them how to correctly respond to these bad and good influences "on the spot" because I as a loving parent am there (to be in the world and not of it).
Succinctly, our goal is to teach our children God's Word and His Worldview when we sit in our house, when we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
