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An Intro to Homeschooling, For Me and You
In less than a month, I’ll be starting homeschooling with my eldest. She’s almost five, kindergarten age, and I cannot tell you how relieved I am to see everyone her age going to school and I get to keep her around.
For a lot of reasons; mostly cost, quality of education, the length of the school day and the lack of outside time, we decided against Jewish day school and public schooling. Over the last few years, I’ve had a lot of questions about what we plan to do, and so, here is an intro to our plan as a family and the methodology we’ll be following.
Several years ago I took a webinar offered by an Orthodox Jewish homeschooling mother that was basically Homeschool 101. During that webinar, she mentioned Charlotte Mason; an English educator from the 19th century. I read more about her on the Ambleside Online website (a curriculum based on her writing) and fell in love with the literature-based philosophy:
Charlotte Mason was a British educator who believed that education was about more than training for a job, passing an exam, or getting into the right college. She said education was an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life; it was about finding out who we were and how we fit into the world of human beings and into the universe God created. But this kind of thinking was pretty much eclipsed during the 20th century by demands for more exams and more workers. In 1987, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay wrote a book called For the Children’s Sake, which reintroduced parents to Charlotte Mason’s methods and philosophy, and it started to gain a foothold with a new generation of homeschoolers.
Charlotte Mason believed that children are able to deal with ideas and knowledge, that they are not blank slates or empty sacks to be filled with information. She thought children should do the work of dealing with ideas and knowledge, rather than the teacher acting as a middle man, dispensing filtered knowledge. A Charlotte Mason education includes first-hand exposure to great and noble ideas through books in each school subject, and through art, music and poetry.
The knowledge of God, as found in the Bible, is the primary knowledge and the most important. History is taught chronologically, using well-written history books, source documents and biographies. Literature is taught along with history, using books from or about the same time period. Language arts skills are learned through narration, which consists of the child telling back a story, first orally and later in written form; copywork, or the transcribing of a well-written piece of literature; and dictation of passages from their books. Memorization was used by Charlotte Mason not so much to assimilate facts, but to give children material to meditate or “chew” on, so her students memorized scripture and poetry.
Science in the early years emphasizes nature study with an emphasis on close, focused observation of creation as a means to knowledge of God. Charlotte Mason was very excited about science. She felt that all the new things people were discovering in her lifetime were part of God’s revelation, including the theory of evolution which was accepted by many Christians at the time. Christians using her methods now can still identify with her emphasis on nurturing curiosity and a sense of wonder, although most will teach that from a creationist viewpoint rather than an evolutionary one.
There’s a short explanation of the ABCs of the philosophy here as well. I’m sold by B, books.
We will be using either the Ambleside curriculum or the Charlotte Mason Institute’s new curriculum called the Alveary. I’ve attended several seminars over the last several years of studying Mason’s methods, and I’ve been impressed by the CMI staff and perspective. While there is a fee to use the CMI curriculum ($200 per family per year) there is more structure and support for families than the free Ambleside curriculum. As a new homeschooling parent, that is very appealing.
For those interested in podcasts, I’ve found the Delectable Education podcast to be the best for learning more about Mason’s methods, especially the first two episodes introducing it.
Before diving into Charlotte Mason’s writing, which can be a bit dense, this is a great introductory book. When you’re ready for the real thing, buy this edition (there are six volumes altogether); there have been several poorly edited versions of her writing over the last few years.
Over here, we’re already breaking the rules, starting homeschooling with our five-year-old; not waiting until six as instructed by Ms. Mason and her followers. We need a soft open for my daughter’s sake, and mine. She’s the guinea pig; sorry honey.
Because the Alveary doesn’t have a kindergarten curriculum, we’ll be following the “Year 0” booklist on Ambleside’s website with Jewish living books, Torah portions and Hebrew additions.
I’ve been building a curriculum for the next year, a Jewish Mason-inspired kindergarten. I’ve been updating a Google doc with our lesson plans for the upcoming year (it’s, as you can see, a work in progress). Please feel free to comment with suggestions on books, activities, music, or anything else that comes to mind!
Published in Education
That was always my take. I don’t even mind the property taxes that I still pay so those ‘bad job’ parents’ kids at least have a place to semi-safely hangout for 12-13 years.
What a topic. The value of, or not. Perpetual housing bubbles and…your value received for property taxation.
Discuss.
Write the OP dude.
Isn’t the idea that you pay just enough property tax to buoy the value of your home via roads, police, fire, and school services? Civilization in other words? It ought to be like an equation.
I’m not sure the Democrat party and the Keynesians see it that way.
Exactly. The trade-off we make in protecting our right to raise our kids our way, even if other people don’t like it, is that others get to raise their kids their way even if we don’t like it.
This is also the reason that some 85% of kids in foster care are not adoptable. The parents have failed to provide the statutorily mandated safe environment for their children without having been so awful as to justify denying them their constitutional right to raise their children, and the courts give them lots of opportunity to mend their ways.
Speaking of public schools: Walter Williams talked about the latest “Nation’s Report Card” about six months ago
Education mafia. Graft.
As the spouse of a teacher I can confirm this. Fortunately it’s not the majority of parents, but every year my wife has some patents that don’t bother to sign up for parent-teacher conferences, never look at the notes and papers she sends home, never help their kids with homework, never sign forms, and generally ignore everything. On the flip side there are the parents who are working multiple jobs and still manage to read every note, check every homework assignment, sign every form and attend conferences. Unsurprisingly they’re also the ones who usually send a very nice note at the end of the year thanking my wife for teaching their child.
And grift.
A recent MN Supreme Court ruling threatens educational freedom for decades to come. Katherine Kersten joins us with the details. Tune in to Education Nation, this Saturday at 6pm on @1280ThePatrio
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An Education in One Evening, Courtesy of Jordan Peterson
https://twitter.com/OccupyWisdom/status/1038799570145366016