I am linking this post to the "Works for Me Wednesday" link up over at the We Are That Family website. Give them a visit, sometime, eh, what? The idea is to link to a post that gives advice or tips that made life easier in some way. The article below details some thoughts and ideas that have made our lives as homeschooling parents easier.
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Those considering home education might be daunted for a variety of reasons, some legitimate, some vague and probably unfounded. But those who have actually tried it are tempted to a host of specific worries and concerns. One of the most real and pressing of these is the question of which home education philosophy or method to follow. Charlotte Mason? Classical? What about the “unschool” philosophy? Perhaps something geared more towards self-directed learning, like the Robinson or A2 curricula? Or should we take the “school in a box” approach, with scripted lesson plans for every subject, instructional DVDs for the hard stuff, online games and quizzes, and blueprints for building an Egyptian pyramid in your back yard without slave labor?
Our family has certainly had our share of this sort of uncertainty. And I have brooded and fretted over the years—more than I should have—over which direction to take. There are two reasons why it was hard for us to settle on an approach to Homeschooling with which we felt a reasonable measure of confidence. The first was the simple fact that there are so many options, both in terms of philosophy, and of methodology, from which to choose. And even within each philosophical or methodological option, there are a myriad of practical choices to make, in terms of books and curricula. For instance, even if you settle on, say, a classical approach, will you use the books and curricula of Veritas Press, or those based on the “Well-Trained Mind” approach? Or something else entirely? Will you use Shurley Grammar, Rod and Staff, or Beka? Saxon Math or Math-U-See? Institutes for Excellence in Writing or Writing with Ease? In many ways, this can be simply overwhelming.
The second reason why it was hard for us to settle on an approach to Homeschooling was the realization that the Home Education movement is in about year 30 of what we hope to be a multi-millennial project. We are the infants of the Home Education movement. Our descendants a hundred, or five hundred years from now, will look back on us with (hopefully) thankfulness and honor; but also with a more mature wisdom than we now possess. They will have figured out a lot of things that are (or should be) dark and mysterious to us. A lot of the things we feel certain of now will be proven, by our descendents, to have been wrongheaded, or perhaps simply wrong.
But ironically, this second realization was what brought a measure of peace to us. It suddenly struck me like a thunderbolt that we cannot know what we cannot know. And with this insight came freedom. I cannot now possess the wisdom that will only come to our people a hundred years from now. I cannot now act on the insights that will only occur to our children three generations hence. But neither am I called to do so. God wishes me to lead and educate my children, now, with the wisdom and insight He has given to our generation, and to those who have gone before us whose wisdom we do have access to. And He has called me to do this in faith, believing that He is capable of bringing up a people of imperfect wisdom into Biblical and cultural maturity.
As I said, this realization brought freedom to us: freedom to work hard, to bring such wisdom as we have to bear on our educational choices; to actually make those choices; and to live confidently and faithfully with what we have chosen, making adjustments or even wholesale changes as new light is received. If I live to be, say, eighty or ninety, doubtless I will look at the advances of my grandchildren and great-grandchildren in the arena of home education, and say, if only I’d known all this fifty years ago… But I trust I will also be able to laugh at my own folly, and praise the obvious grace of God in the generations that have succeeded and surpassed me.
