General Background

The homeschooling movement now includes over a million K-12 students in the United States, and is estimated to be growing at a rate of over 10-15% per year, making it the fastest-growing form of alternative education.  (California Homeschool Network website, FAQ’s, paragraph 1)

Modern homeschooling had two branches of “founders”: one is evangelical Christian, such as Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore and Susan Shaeffer McCauley, daughter of the prolific author and theologian Dr. Francis Schaeffer.  The other leading founder was progressive educator John Holt, who approached homeschooling from completely the opposite direction, and advocated “unschooling.”  From what I’ve seen, perhaps a third to a half of homeschoolers are evangelical Christians, belonging to groups such as Christian Home Educator’s Association (CHEA) and Christian Family Schools (in San Diego).  There is also a small contingent of Catholics.  Another quarter to a third of homeschoolers are “unschoolers,” and the rest are in between.

My informal analysis is based upon my year as a homeschooler, and my continuing involvement with the homeschooling community through working as an Independent Study Teacher at the Julian Charter School, a charter school for homeschoolers.

People homeschool for a wide variety of reasons, some of the most common being 1) religious orientation to life, and wanting that to be reflected in schooling, 2) feeling that school is too structured, and ultimately a detriment to learning, 3) wanting to spend more time with one’s children, a la “attachment parenting,” 4) having children with learning disabilities who are either not being well-served by schools, or simply seem to do better at home, and 5) fear of safety factors and peer influences in public school, and no money for private school.

Paradoxically, most homeschoolers espouse a more relaxed lifestyle.  While it might seem overwhelming to take on the job of teaching one’s children, they point out that with having to oversee homework and participate in PTA, school fundraising and classroom volunteering in traditional school, homeschooling actually takes no more time.  While it does make it harder for mothers to work, and many do not work, others of the homeschooling moms that I know (especially the more academically successful families, I’ve noticed) work part-time, squeezing their jobs in somewhere, or having Dad or grandparents take a homeschooling day or two per week.

As far as the legal vehicles for homeschooling, there are five methods in California: The first is public schools, such as Mt. Everest in San Diego or the County Home Education Program, available in two locations in San Diego County.  In these programs, teachers give textbooks and assignments to parents, so it is like “public school at home.”  The second is public charter schools.  One of the oldest is Horizon, which the school I work for was modeled on.  These schools offer parental choice in curriculum and assignments, with an educator who visits the family monthly to cooperatively create assignments, order and deliver parent-requested curriculum, and keep state-mandated records.  A third option is private Independent Study Programs, many of them religious, in which for a small fee (usually $100-$200 per year) the school will keep state-mandated records, and provide advice on curriculum and teaching methods, with the family obliged to follow the school’s particular program.  Fourth, families may file “R-4” forms, which means they are declaring themselves a private school, and have the most freedom of any option.  Lastly, credentialed teachers may teach their own children under the “private tutorial exemption” without having to file anything.

There is bitter divisiveness among certain homeschoolers about legal methods.  When I first started homeschooling, I saw a notice on an e-mail list about a calendar of “park days” for Christian Family Schools, and thought I’d like to attend.  But then at the end of the message, I noticed the caveat, “Students of charter schools are not welcome at park days.” What?!  My son was enrolled through a charter school that I also worked for. This was my first inkling that all was not paradise in the land of homeschooling.  More on this later.

There is also the other side that promotes itself.  At an early stage I attended a workshop for new homeschoolers, produced by California Homeschool Network, one of the major organizations for homeschoolers in California.  In a session on homeschooling methods, I was shocked as speakers relentlessly promoted the “unschooling” philosophy, giving virtually no attention to any other approaches.  Finally, in a session on “legal methods,” one of my biggest concerns, the speaker devoted about five minutes to trashing charter schools and ISP’s, and then announced that she would spend the rest of the hour discussing “the backbone of our homeschooling freedom, ‘R-4’ filing.”  Feeling that I couldn’t venture to say anything non-self-serving since I was a charter school employee, I was so angry that I got up and left.  I remained in a rage for over two days, unable to shake it, until I finally wrote a long and scathing letter to the president of CHN.  She responded with a long letter explaining their rationale, but sounded a bit chastened.

As far as the outcomes I’ve seen, my feeling is that it’s probably comparable to public school.  Among my own students I have a few families that are highly motivated and produce outstanding students, and an unfortunate few who are out-to-lunch, let their kids watch TV all day, and we transition them out of Julian Charter School, as they are not fulfilling state requirements.  I also see quite a few students with learning problems, and it is debatable whether this was caused by homeschooling, or whether the parents took the students out of school because they were already failing.  The majority of homeschoolers are probably average students.

My own involvement began when my then seven-year-old son, Jake, somehow learned about homeschooling and started to lobby me to homeschool him.  Jake had always been an excellent student and very popular, but seemed to simply always want to be at home, even during his preschool years.  Being a sane person, I had zero desire to take on this responsibility.  But then I started to wear down, realizing that as my sweet and conscientious middle child, Jake was frequently overshadowed by his loud and/or difficult older and younger siblings.  So I agreed to try homeschooling, thinking I would at least be able to give him a year of attention he deserved, and then go back to my normal life.

Well, I was wrong on both counts.  First, I made the disastrous decision to take Nina, our four-year-old daughter, out of Preschool, since she never wanted to go, now that her brother was at home.  This led to what felt like a year of every-day, all-day battles with an extremely headstrong four-year-old, which has been the most difficult age for me with all of my children.  Due to coping with Nina, my new job and my own schooling, Jake still didn’t get an overabundance of attention.  On the positive side, Nina adores her brother, and they became even closer.  I also felt much less of a sense of tragedy in sending her off to Kindergarten this year, since I had spent so much intensive time with her.

My other mistake was in thinking I would ever be the same after homeschooling.  It irrevocably changed my life in many, many ways, and also “taught me everything I know about education,” is the way it feels at this point.

Homeschooling has been around forever, though anyone who has homeschooled for 10-20 years is considered a pioneer.  In the “old days,” there were few books on homeschooling, no curriculum specialized to the needs of homeschoolers, and many publishers refused to even sell books to families.  The movement really took off in the last five to ten years, and now the situation is the reverse: there is a plethora of how-to books and specialized curriculum, and every publisher around is trying to sell to homeschoolers, who are a huge market.

There are many books about homeschooling philosophy and methods, but some of the best information resources are the curriculum catalogs.  Most homeschoolers do not use textbooks, for reasons detailed later, so they rely on catalogs of curriculum for homeschoolers.  Almost all of these catalogs are family businesses run by homeschooling families.  They are a fascinating read.  Products – hundreds of them –  are reviewed by family members and friends, who share their impressions of the curriculum and experiences in using it with their usually numerous children.

The catalogs also usually have an introduction, with a photo of the family, a narrative of their saga with homeschooling, and what the Lord has done in their lives this year or in the past (almost all the major curriculum sellers are evangelical Christians).  There are often sections of the catalog which describe different homeschooling philosophies, and give suggestions on teaching methods.  By the time you get done reading one of these catalogs, you feel like you know this family surprisingly intimately, by their self-description, their reviews, and the books they’ve chosen to include, which in addition to academics can range from childrearing to religion to time-management to herbs.  That’s why once you get drawn into this homeschooling stuff, and start reading these darned catalogs, it starts affecting your life in wider and wider areas, in an ever-enlarging and engulfing circle, like throwing a stone into a pond.  Maybe I need deprogramming!

“The life of the homeschooling curriculum seller” could also be a case study in itself.  These families usually spend half the year traveling to homeschooling conventions, displaying books at curriculum fairs and meeting their customers, all their kids in tow.  They end up being advocates of unschooling or “relaxed schooling,” because with all this time on the road, that’s what they end up doing, like it or not!

Going to Christian homeschooling conventions is also an other worldly type of experience, something like suddenly landing in Amish country … Mennonite women in buns and these little white caps they wear … Legions of republished, archaic Christian books … At the end of the CHEA conference I recently attended, I finally realized why the atmosphere there was so spooky.  There was not a hair out of place on the heads of any of the men there!  They all looked like salesmen.  None of the tousled look for them!  No three days growth of beard!  My parting thought was,  “I just want to mess up someone’s hair!”

 

General Homeschooling Philosophy

There are several major differences between homeschoolers and the rest of the world.  Overall, I would describe homeschoolers as having different priorities, or a different paradigm.  They tend to emphasize work, religion, character development and community service over academics.  The Elijah Co. catalog has an article outlining these priorities, which I have paraphrased:

 

I.  Relationships first

1. Our first and primary relationship is with God
2. Our second relationship is with self … what motivates and drives us, our value and belief systems …
3. Our third relationship is with others.  Our culture encourages us to consider people disposable, as commodities, and makes possessions and personal pleasure more important than people …
4. Our fourth relationship is with things: how we relate to time, money, work, and to our possessions …

II.  Skills second

A.  Relational skills

1. Religious skills such as knowledge of Bible and church history, active prayer and worship life.
2. Communication skills such as language arts (reading, writing, speaking, listening), good manners, good character, social skills and business skills.
3. Thinking skills such as self-initiated learning, research skills, logic skills, organizational skills, and understanding world views.
4. Gender skills.  For boys, mechanics, woodworking, sports, etc.  For girls, cooking, home management, interior decorating, childcare, sewing, etc.

B.  Aptitude/Interest/Gifting Skills.  Special areas of interest that people have.

1. Academic skills, such as reading, writing and math.

III.  Information last

Information is the lowest priority, even though diplomas, degrees and SAT scores hinge on the accumulation of vast amounts of information.  The 3 R’s are foundational and must be mastered, but after that, children can pick up any other information they need when it becomes useful or is required.  (Davis, p. 17, 2000)

Secondly, the focus for homeschoolers is on having a learning lifestyle, around the clock and throughout the year, rather than school as a separate part of life.  Most families don’t stop homeschooling for the summer.  They also homeschool in the evening, doing a lot of family reading, crafts, and music; in the car, a good place for workbooks and books-on-tape; on trips, as they visit museums and tour parks; and in the grocery store, as they have children engage in practical math.

Lastly, homeschoolers are all obsessed with time management, home management and child management, for obvious reasons.  If they don’t become quite good in all these areas, they will burn out and go under.

Daria’s experience:

The first time I read about the different priorities of homeschoolers, it bowled me over. The philosophy made so much sense to me.  I’d never heard anyone involved in education say that one’s relationships, especially one’s relationship with God, should come first.  This whole ordering seemed like the reverse of what I’d been taught, and was like a window on another world, a more sane way of seeing things, a big relief.

I was also relieved to hear plain talk about “gender skills,” after our crazy-making politically correct world.  Although my husband once said that I was the only girl he’d ever seen actually crawl under a car and fix it; although I’ve always been fairly extensively involved in mechanics, carpentry, and other traditionally male pursuits; to deny the differences between the sexes is turning reality on its head.

As far as management, I have to say that it is very inspiring to see parents who, as well as being terrific teachers, are expert homemakers, parents, and incredibly efficient in general.  I have always been a planner type of person, and thought I was pretty good at it.  But when homeschooling, you’re never good enough.

A new book came out called Managers of Their Homes, which made a big stir in homeschooling circles.  They advocate a method where every half-hour, all day long, is blocked in with prescribed activities for each family member.  Sounds horrifying, but they make a convincing case for it.  I did try it, wasn’t ruthless enough to enforce it, and abandoned it.  But the commentary in the book had a big influence on me.  Some key concepts are to schedule older siblings to play with younger ones to keep them occupied, and that nap or quiet time needs to be mandatory.

As for childrearing, I got fair warning of what was in store for me when I read the following: “If … your kids won’t mind you and you decide to homeschool, you had better figure out who’s boss or you won’t survive.”  (Shackelford, p. 123, 1988)

But I felt like I was struck between the eyes, or perhaps smashed over the head with a large bottle, when I read the following:

… I have had a lot of first-hand contact with the mothers and children who are the result of laissez-faire child-raising theories.  I can often pick them out on the street, at the park and in stores.  The kids tend to be peevish and unhappy, demanding and unfriendly.  The mothers are constantly making excuses for their child’s antisocial behavior: “Oh! He hasn’t eaten yet.”  “It’s past her nap time.”  “I haven’t given him enough attention this morning.”  These moms are terribly guilt-ridden.  After all, if they were doing it right, their children would not be so bratty; they would be sweet, loving and friendly.  (Shackelford, p. 129, 1988).

It was the perfect description of my children and me.  Undeniable.  Nailed.  I had already begun on the path of completely changing my childrearing methods, following models that had been developed to deal with severely disturbed, attachment disordered kids.  This was a definite confirmation of the changes that were needed.

 

Delayed Academics

The concept of delayed academics was pioneered by Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore, who have been leaders in the homeschool movement for decades.  Dr. Moore was a teacher, school superintendent, university professor, and federal educational officer.   Mrs. Moore was a teacher and reading specialist.  They stumbled upon their philosophy when Mrs. Moore noticed that almost all of her reading handicapped pupils were very young, and almost all of them were boys.  The Moores began to do research, and say that in their review of over 8000 studies of early versus later school entrance, not one study that showed the efficacy of early schooling.

Chronological age is a poor indicator of learning readiness, according to the Moores, who say that every child has an Integrated Maturity Level (IML) at which time he is fully ready to learn.  They recommend delaying formal academic work until the age of 8, 10 or even 12, and claim that the ideal time for learning is the middle school years.  They cite examples of children who had no formal education at all prior to that time, and made up all their missed work and more during those few years. They cite educational researcher William Rohwer as follows:

All of the learning necessary for success in high school can be accomplished in only two or three years of formal skill study.  Delaying mandatory instruction in the basic skills until the junior high school years could mean academic success for millions of school children who are doomed to failure under the traditional system.  (Rohwer op. cit. in Moore, p. 43, 1996).

They also note that “It is well-established and generally assumed that boys trail girls about a year in overall maturity at five or six, two years at twelve, and three years at twenty-one.”  (Moore, p. 51, 1994).  (I can also attest to the fact that the maturity differential widens at the ages of 30, 40 and 50 …)

The Moores cite various instances in which individuals or schools tried to create “super babies,” and failed miserably.  The subjects always turned out to be mentally disturbed and/or academically unmotivated.

Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of The Magical Child, is in agreement with the Moores:

According to Pearce, the first seven years of life is a sacrosanct period for leaving the child alone and allowing him or her to “just play.”  There are virtually no cultures on earth that have ever violated this intuitive, emotional, prelogical state, according to Pearce.  The period of four to seven years of age is the time in which children develop a metaphoric, symbolic language structure upon which later operational and creative thinking is based.  Pearce believes that early academic training disrupts the development of this langauge.  (“Mothering,” p. 96, Sept/Oct. 2000).

The Waldorf educational philosophy also follows the delayed academics approach.

The Moores are strong proponents of family chores, family “cottage businesses” and community service work.  Like most other Christians, they recommend that children start learning to do family chores “from the time they can walk.”  Their recipe for success is the work-study-service formula, in which children spend approximately a third of their time doing household chores or paying jobs, a third of their time studying, and a third of their time doing community service work.  They say about work:

Constructive, skill-building entrepreneurial work builds children’s self-confidence, creativity and self-control, and does it more quickly.  It is the most dramatic and consistent cure for behavior and personality problems … Start your children to work when they learn to walk … No cash allowances!  Let them earn their way, helping you make or grow or sell cookies, muffins, bread, wooden toys, vegetables, or service lawns, baby-sit, etc.  By six or eight, many can run businesses.  (Moore, p. 275, 1994).

They are enthusiastic about the value of manual labor, and say:

Students who work with their hands develop common sense and practical skills and do much better with their heads … Manual work brings nobility and self-respect no other activity can match.  It unites and balances head and hand … As most families have moved in from the country to the city, they have left their chores behind and substituted sports and amusements which often build selfishness more than selflessness.  And we pay a big price.  (Moore, p. 117, 1994)

Regarding service, the Moores say, “This begins at home and neighborhood with daily/weekly visits to needy neighbors, nursing homes, pediatric wards or other community or personal service.  It makes self-centered kids self-less and moderates any tendency their businesses bring toward materialism.”  (Moore, p. 275, 1994)

They promote a relaxed and student-led style of learning, which they feel is necessary to prevent parent and child burn-out, and to increase children’s motivation to learn.  According to the Moores, children should be read to extensively from an early age, and responded to warmly.  Children should work and worship alongside parents daily.  Formal instruction can begin when the student is ready, teaching language arts and math basics, and incorporating science, social studies plus as much language arts and math as possible into a “unit studies” approach.

The Moores are convincing proselytizers for homeschooling in general.  They detail the dangers of “peer dependence,” which happens when children spend more time with their peers than their parents during the elementary school years, according to one study.  They also describe how homeschooling children at gatherings are usually more apt to be caring for younger children and listening to adult conversations than group schooled children.  The Moores are Christians, and talk quite a bit about the value of children spending their early years with their parents, absorbing their values.

Delayed Academics and character education:

This approach is very character based, from the emphasis on young children being around their parents and absorbing their values, to the work-service-study formula.

Among my homeschooling students, I remind some of my more “relaxed” families that the highly successful unschooling families don’t just let the kids do what they want; they usually follow the work-study-service formula.  The well-known Colfax family, authors of Homeschooling for Excellence, whose three homeschooled sons graduated with honors from Harvard, say about the boys’ early lives, “We live on a working ranch … and they work so hard [four to seven hours a day] that it is a real pleasure for them to come into the house and read.”  (Colfax in Moore, p. 38, 1994).

 

Daria’s perspective:

I believe this issue of early vs. delayed academics is one of the most fundamental controversies in education and child development.  You really can’t have it both ways.  Either Children Who Start Ahead Stay Ahead, to quote the title of a book by Teach Your Baby to Read author Glen Donan; or Better Late Than Early, to quote the title of another of Raymond Moore’s book on this subject.  Either we need to start academics at earlier and earlier ages to lay the groundwork for eventual academic success, as promoted by those who believe in starting public pre-kindergartens; or we are making our children miserable unnecessarily and burning them out by these practices.

Among homeschoolers, there is story after story about one child in a family (usually the girl) clamoring to read and write at the age of four or five, and another child (usually a boy) who shows no interest or ability in reading until age nine or ten, but then quickly catches up.

I guess my own opinion lies along two lines.  One is that an early learning atmosphere is critical to children’s success.  This would include an absence of television, video games, computers and electronic, push-button toys; lots of loving interaction, physical contact and discussion with adults and other children; character formation in the form of behavioral expectations; stimulation in the form of books read aloud, art projects, music, and games; and toys that lend themselves to active and imaginative playing, such as blocks, dolls and costumes.  Also, a la the Moores, I have come to believe that children need to achieve a self-discipline and work ethic from a very early age; although this may not best be achieved through academic work.

My other line of thinking is that there is a world of difference between the early environments of children from highly educated homes, who are exposed to a huge range of both words and points of view, and who are generally encouraged to express themselves; and children from homes which are both language and idea impoverished, and where their obedience and sometimes silence is most valued.

In my own family, much as I believe in a rigorous education, both of our own boys essentially cracked from the early demands of public school, perhaps in connection with teachers who were a poor fit.  Our oldest son, faced with an unsatisfactory teacher in third grade, started crying every morning that he didn’t want to go to school, and throwing fits about the homework every evening.  Finally we couldn’t take it any more and put him in private school.  Our second son begged and pleaded to stay home until I homeschooled him for a year in second grade.

But moreover, the story of homeschooling is, in a sense, the story of relaxed schooling or unschooling.  Most homeschoolers seem to arrive at that point, in one way or another, sooner or later.

 

Charlotte Mason Method

The Charlotte Mason method, also called the “Living Books” method, is becoming increasingly popular among homeschoolers.  Charlotte Mason was a Christian educator who lived in England from 1842-1923.  Education in England at that time was through public schools, private schools, governesses or homeschooling by parents.  As in our time, many parents didn’t want to send their children to public school and didn’t have the means for private school, so they homeschooled.  Mason operated day schools, and homeschools that were conducted correspondence style.  She created an organization for homeschooling parents, the Parents’ National Educational Union (PNEU), and has been called the “founder of the homeschooling movement.”  She also established a teacher training college for governesses, and started a monthly magazine, the “Parents’ Review.”

Charlotte Mason did not have a particular curriculum, but promoted certain principles of education.  She is thought of by many people as one of the great, original thinkers in the field of education, and is often described as ahead of her time.  She wrote a six volume set of books called The Original Homeschooling Series.  Her work was revived primarily by Susan Shaeffer McCauley, author of For the Children’s Sake, and Karen Andreola, author of A Charlotte Mason Companion.  Some homeschoolers refer to themselves as “Classical in content, Charlotte Mason in method,” as they try to combine the rigorous goals of a classical education with the relaxed methodology of Charlotte Mason.

Hallmarks of a Charlotte Mason education

• “Living books.”  Charlotte Mason opposed the use of textbooks and promoted the use of “living books.”  Living books are books written by one person with a passion for his subject.  They are written in a literary way that touches the heart, emotions and intellect, and stimulates the imagination.  By contrast, textbooks are usually written by committee, are dry, impersonal, and touch the intellect only.

Other characteristics of living books are that they are a) ageless (appeal to both children and adults), b) timeless (transcend time and culture), c) whole (tell a complete story), d) inspiring (morally uplifting, inspires the reader to higher ideals and virtues), and e) creative (creative writing style).

Books to be avoided, according to Charlotte Mason and her contemporary followers, include textbooks, abridged or “dumbed down” books, “formula fiction” (series’ of questionable literary value) and commercial books (based on characters from television, comics or movies).   Mason referred to such books as “twaddle.”  (Clarkson, p. 78, 1994)

• Short lessons; emphasis on attentiveness and not dawdling.  Mason believed in keeping lessons to 15-20 minutes per subject.  She thought this short time span fostered attentiveness, considered all-important, and prevented dawdling.
• Free afternoons, school ends at 1:00.  Afternoons are to be spent in outdoor play, nature study, music, handicrafts, and caring for those in need.  Mason wrote repeatedly about children’s need for hours of outdoor exploration and unstructured time.
• No homework, no grades.  Mason felt that evenings spent with parents and a good book were infinitely preferable to the drudgery of homework.
• Many subjects; goal is to lead children to care and be interested in as many things as possible.

Teaching methods

• “Narration” means the retelling of passages which have been read aloud by parents or independently by children.  Narration takes the place of reading comprehension exercises.  It is a help in retention of material, public speaking, and provides a natural foundation for writing.  Mason recommended “spontaneous narration” for children ages under age six, and required narration for ages six and up.  Starting at age ten, children should do written narrations.  The concept of narration completely permeates the Charlotte Mason method, and children may also narrate field trips and other events.  Narration can also be through creating art projects or dramatic productions.
• Copywork, dictation.  Copywork, or copying anything from favorite passages to great literature to quotations, is how writing was always traditionally taught, until recently.  Mason felt that copywork allowed students to absorb everything from elegant literary styles, to vocabulary, and correct grammar and punctuation.  Dictation, another old-fashioned language arts practice, is used by Mason adherents.  Dictation is thought to give effective practice in handwriting, spelling, and punctuation.
• Nature study.  Children were given plenty of time to play and explore outdoors in all seasons, in as interesting and natural environments as possible.  They were encouraged to look at plants, insects and rocks with a magnifying glass, and keep a “nature journal.”  The nature journal could consist of everything from drawings or paintings of plants, animals and landscapes; to written observations about the weather, seasonal changes, the scents of nature, or feelings evoked; to nature poems; to plant specimens pressed between the pages of the journal; to logs of the time and location of the setting sun .
• Music & picture study.  Mason believed in children’s continual exposure to classical music and great art.  She recommended always having several large prints by one artist on display, and leading children through observation exercises.

Charlotte Mason Mottoes and Ideas

• “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a way of life.”  This is the parent’s motto.  The “atmosphere” means that which the parent creates through the home or school environment and her example.  “Discipline” means the careful formation of habits in the child.  “Life” means “ideas,” see below.
• “I am, I ought, I can, I will.”  This should be the motto of the child, and concerns doing the right thing.  “I am” means knowing ourselves; “I ought” is listening to our conscience and the precepts of virtue; “I can” is knowing we have the power to carry out the dictates of our conscience; and “I will” is determining to voluntarily follow our conscience.
• “Living Books education”:
  • CM believed that education consists of putting children in touch with great minds; and the way to do that is through great books.  She did not believe in teachers or other authors watering down the original thoughts of great minds.  CM said, “Ideas must reach us directly from the mind of the thinker, and it is chiefly by the means of the books they have written that we get in touch with the best minds.”  (CM in Gardner, p. 42, 1997).
  • “A book-less education is a contradiction in terms.”
  • “Don’t get between the child and the book.”
    • “Education is the science of relations.”  These relationships should be between the child and:
      • The great minds of history through books
      • God
      • Nature.  Mason wrote about how children should know things personally, rather than knowing about them, especially regarding science and nature.  Knowing should be a combination of knowledge and experience.
      • People of all types, from all places, past and present.

I think we should have a great educational revolution once we … realized ourselves as persons whose great business it is to get in touch with other persons of all sorts and conditions, of all countries and climes, of all times, past and present.  History would become entrancing, literature, a magic mirror for the discovery of other minds, the study of sociology, a duty and a delight.  (Mason in Gardner, p. 55, 1997).

She also felt strongly that children should get to know people from all social classes, having various occupations and hobbies.  This would teach how to get along with everyone.

• The earth, through sports and work.
• Mason wrote extensively about ideas:

What is an idea?  A live thing of the mind … We say of an idea that it strikes us, impresses us, seizes us, takes possession of us, rules us … To excite this ‘appetency toward something – toward things lovely, honest, and of good report, is the earliest and most important ministry of the educator … Education is a life; that life is sustained on ideas; ideas are of spiritual origin, and that we get them chiefly as we convey them to one another.  The duty of parents is to sustain a child’s inner life with ideas as they sustain his body with food.  (Mason in Gardner, p. 45, 1997)

• In relation to character, “A habit becomes morally binding in proportion to the inspiring power of the idea which underlies it.”  (Mason in Gardner, p. 36, 1997).
• “Masterly inactivity.”  Mason felt that teaching should not be obtrusive, that teachers should not talk too much, should rarely lecture at all, and should “not get between the child and the book.”  She was strongly against nagging, scolding or exhorting children, and thought that was not necessary with adequate habit formation.  “The art of standing aside to let a child develop the relations proper to him is the fine art of education.”  (Mason in Gardner, p. 138, 1997).
• Mason believed that children should essentially be taught to self-educate.  “Let the lessons be of the right sort and children will learn them with delight.  The call for strenuousness comes with the necessity of forming habits …”  (Mason in Gardner, p. 64, 1997).  “The teachers give sympathy and occasionally elucidate, sum up or enlarge, but the actual work is done by the scholars.”  (Mason in Gardner, p. 158, 1997).
• Mason taught that children are born persons, and are not “containers waiting to be filled.”  She saw children as having the potential for both good and evil.  Furthermore, she thought that children had weak wills, and tended to be idle, tell fibs, and dawdle.  “The problem for the educator is to give the child control over his own nature.”  (Levison, p. 72, 2000).  Mason did not have a romantic view of children, nor did she fixate on their flaws.
• “Mother culture.”  Mason believed that homeschooling mothers needed to take particular care of themselves, and refresh their own spirits with time out of doors, reading, music and a satisfying social life.

Charlotte Mason and Character Education

• A Charlotte Mason education is almost synonymous with character education.  As schools are teaching values all the time, whether they acknowledge it or not, Mason taught that parents are forming habits in their children all the time, either actively or passively.

Every day, every hour, the parents are either passively or actively forming those habits in their children upon which, more than upon anything else, future character and conduct depend … It is necessary that the mother be always on the alert to nip in the bud the bad habit her children may be in the act of picking up from [others].  (CM in Gardner, p. 31, 1997)

• Mason wrote endlessly on the subject of habit.  She believed that good habits, including prompt, cheerful obedience, sweet temper, and attentiveness, needed to be inculcated from the very beginning of a child’s life.  She also believed that parents needed to form the habit of constantly attending to their children’s formation of habit.

You will find her [Mason] often likening habits in the human life to rails for the train.  The same way it is easier for the train to stay on the rails than to leave them, so it is for the child to follow lines of habit carefully laid down than to run off these lines.  It is the very serious responsibility of the parent to lay down these tracks.  (Levison, p. 72, 2000).

Deal with the child on his first offense, and a grieved look is enough to convict the little transgressor; but let him go on until a habit of wrong-doing is formed, and the cure is a slow one … To laugh at ugly tempers and let them pass because the child is small, is to sow the wind.  (Mason in Gardner, p. 31, 1997)

… the habits of the child produce the character of the man, because certain mental habitudes once set up, their nature is to go on for ever unless they should be displaced by other habits.  Here is an end to the easy philosophy of, “It doesn’t matter,” “Oh, he’ll grow out of it,” “He’ll know better by-and-by,” “He’s so young, what can we expect?” and so on.  (Mason in Levison, p. 73, 2000).

“The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days; while she who lets their habits take care of themselves has a weary life of endless friction with the children … The mother devotes herself to the formation of one habit at a time,” and to watching “over those already formed.”  Mother will pick up the habit of training her children in good habits.  It will get easier.  Some habits children will naturally pick up through out example.  Others require training.  (Gardner, p. 32, 1997).

• Changing habits: Habit is so easy to influence when the child is young that he barely notices.  It is much harder to change bad habits at a later age, but must be done.  The way to change bad habits is one at a time.  The parent should decide on one habit to work on; speak to the child about it; and gain the cooperation of the child’s will.  Then see that the bad habit is replaced by a good one for six to eight weeks.  The parent should never nag, or even mention the habit, but merely say, “I said I should try to remind you …” or find some other pleasant way of being “a friendly ally to help his bad memory.”  The parent should be careful to not relax her vigilance or allow any lapses before the habit is formed.
• The purpose in habit training is to be able to leave the child alone, to practice “masterly inactivity”:

The education of habit is successful in so far as it enables the mother to let her child alone, not teasing them with perpetual commands and direction; but letting them go their own way and grow, having first secured that they will go the right way, and grow to fruitful purpose.  (Mason in Gardner, p. 32, 1997).

• The tie-in between books and habits: “… great character comes out of great thoughts, and that great thought must be initiated by great thinkers …”

Daria’s reflections:

I attempted to use the Charlotte Mason method in my year of homeschooling.  I don’t feel it was wildly successful, and yet it made so much sense to me, and still does, that I use it now.  We still do extensive reading aloud, and I often ask the kids to narrate.  My boys hated copywork, but seem to like dictation.  Our nature study was not terribly successful, nor was picture study, but I was homeschooling pretty young children.  Rereading the brilliant and liberating ideas of CM, plus the endless drudgery of public school and homework, gives me the urge to homeschool again, let me tell you!

 

Classical Education

Ever since I was a child, certain things about education drove me crazy: the “look, say” method of reading; science through books instead of physical activities; constant American history to the exclusion of the rest of the world; and the way that what we were taught seemed to skip around, to name a few.  When I stumbled first upon Core Knowledge, and then Classical Education, these methods seemed to answer so many of my own frustrations with school.

I first read a recently published book about classical homeschooling, The Well-Trained Mind, in search of answers for my overly-laid-back, writing-challenged students.  I was totally inspired by this book, which to me is the most elegantly organized system of exactly how to do school, in a way that makes sense, that I’ve ever read.  I typed up a digest of the most applicable and useful information from this 700-page volume, and distributed it to my parents-teachers, thinking they would be similarly inspired.  Wrong!  My parents were so threatened by these ideas that I was afraid I would have a mass exodus of students and lose my livelihood.  Luckily that did not materialize, and I think they’ve been influenced in subtle ways.

Classical Education has its roots in Greek and Roman scholarship.  It was developed into an educational system by the Catholic medieval universities, and remained the standard educational method through the renaissance, as the scholarship of antiquity was rediscovered on a wider scale.  It wasn’t until quite recently that Classicism was undermined by progressivism at the elementary level, and the German university model of “majors,” “electives” and an emphasis on science at the college level.

Several dominant figures have contributed to the recent revival of classical education, in a number of different forms.  British mystery writer Dorothy Sayers published the oft-cited article, “The Lost Tools of Learning,” in 1947.  Other main contributors are listed in a later section.

Some tenets of classical education:

• Classical education is based upon the “trivium” and “quadrivium” as the arts or processes of education; and the sciences as the content.  These ancient arts and sciences are very different from our present conception of the organization of schooling.  After a student had mastered this comprehensive body of learning, he was finally ready to study a profession, such as law, medicine or theology.
• The trivium consists of grammar, logic (or dialectic) and rhetoric.  According to many modern classicists, the trivium can be understood in three ways: as elements of language arts; as components of every subject; and as developmental periods in a child’s life.
• The trivium in the traditional sense represents communication, or the language arts.  Grammar means learning the mechanics of correct writing.  Logic means the systematic study of arguments, and what are valid or fallacious arguments.  Rhetoric means putting these facts and arguments together into convincing and elegant self-expression, through writing or speaking.
• Every subject also has its trivium.  Each subject has a grammar component, which consists of the basic facts, vocabulary, and stories of that subject.  The logic component is the “why’s” of the subject, the reasons behind the facts or events, and how it fits together with other subjects.  The rhetoric part of the subject is where different opinions collide, where debate occurs, and students may speculate on where research may take us in the future.
• Other one-word descriptions of the trivium are “knowledge, understanding and creativity” or “memorization, organization and expression.”  Or to put it in “higher order thinking skills” parlance, “data accumulation, analysis, decisionmaking, and communication.”
• As far as child development, many classical educators believe that children have a “grammar stage,” corresponding to the grammar school years, in which they are like sponges, able and needing to soak up tons of information and stories from every field.  Dorothy Sayers called this the “poll parrot” stage, and said that children love to memorize.  Classical education focuses at this time less on self-expression, and more on memorization, plus achieving basic competence in reading, writing, and computing.  Jessica Wise says:

Young children are described as sponges because they soak up knowledge.  But there’s another side to the metaphor.  Squeeze a dry sponge, and nothing comes out.  First the sponge has to be filled.  Language teacher Ruth Beechick writes, ‘Our society is so obsessed with creativity that people want children to be creative before they have any knowledge or skill to be creative with.’  (Wise, p. 52, 1999).

• The next stage, corresponding to the middle school years, when children start constantly asking “why” and talking back, is when they are ready to explore the reasons behind all the information they have memorized.  It is “… a time when the child begins to pay attention to cause and effect, to the relationships among different fields of knowledge, to the way facts fit together into a logical framework.”  (Wise, p. 44, 1999)
• The next stage, the high school years, is when children may start dying their hair purple, doing multiple body-piercings, contracting venereal disease, and various other horrors.  Wise says:

Since self-expression is one of the great desires of adolescence, high school students should have training in the skills of rhetoric so that they can say, clearly and convincingly, what’s on their minds.  Without these skills, the desire for self-expression is frustrated.  Expression itself becomes inarticulate.  External objects – clothes, jewelry, tattoos, hairstyles – assume an exaggerated value as the clearest forms of self-expression possible.  (Wise, p. 451, 1999)

• In addition to the trivium, there is the ancient quadrivium of mathematics, music, astronomy and geometry.  In ancient times, the “music” category included poetry, and the “geometry” category included architecture and visual arts.  The quadrivium can be thought of in a larger sense as representing computing and abstract thought (mathematics), aesthetics (music), science (astronomy) and spatial relationships (geometry).
• After studying the arts of the trivium and quadrivium, students studied the “sciences,” consisting of natural science, moral science (which included history, politics and law) and theological science.

Hallmarks of classical education:

• Content of knowledge is emphasized over the processes of learning, with lots of memorization involved.
• World history is studied in order, from the beginning to the present, with U.S. history taking its rightful place in the sequence of events.  Many classical programs organize the entire curriculum around history, as the unifying story of mankind.  The Well Trained Mind recommends studying world history in a four-year cycle, which can be repeated three times during a student’s 12-year schooling, each time in more depth.  In the grammar stage, the emphasis is on exciting children’s stories of history.  In the logic stage, students explore the reasons behind the events.  In the rhetoric stage, students read original source material.  Many programs also tie all other subjects to the study of history, having students read the classic ancient writings of math and science when they study ancient history, for example.
• Latin is a vital part of the program, partly in order to be able to read classic works in their original language.  It is also felt that Latin, with its logical and complex structure, is a good mental exercise for students, and helps prepare them for the study of other foreign languages.
• Logic and rhetoric are mastered, with students completing a curriculum of formal logic in middle school, and formal rhetoric in high school.
• Realistic drawing is mastered as a skill, and art and music history are studied.
• A “Great Books Program” is almost synonymous with a classical education.  “Classics” can either be conceived of as the great Greek and Roman writings of antiquity, or as Mortimer Adler describes it, “a classic is anything of enduring value …”  (Adler in Veith, 1997)
• Electives are few or non-existent, with all students usually studying the same core curriculum.

Teaching curricula and methods:

• Saxon math and Shurley grammar are popular curricula.
• Class grammar activities: “Mnemonic devices – songs, chants, and tricks – and constant practice, recitations, and drills assume the dimensions of a vast game.”  (Veith, p. 22, 1997).  Homeschool activities may include reading, writing, flashcards, creating labeled drawings and listening to mnemonic audiotapes.
• Class logic activities may include “coaching” or tutoring and Socratic Seminars.  Homeschool activities include issue-oriented family discussions.
• Class rhetoric activities include debates, mock trials, individual presentations and lots of writing.  Homeschoolers are encouraged to join debate clubs at this point.

Types of Classical Education:

Gene Veith, author of the excellent Classical Education: Towards the Revival of American Schooling, divides the classical education revival into four main movements:

1)    Christian Classicism.  The main proponent of this movement is Douglas Wilson, pastor of Community Evangelical Fellowship in Moscow, Idaho.  He opened Logos School in 1980, which has been the model for many Christian Classical schools that followed.  He formed the Association of Christian and Classical Schools, which now has over 100 member schools, plus dozens more in various stages of formation.  Wilson also wrote the influential book, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning: An Approach to Distinctively Christian Education.  (This book is so full of fundamentalist Christian doctrine that I haven’t read it.)

Christians have traditionally been drawn to classical education because it teaches that there is objective truth in every field, which children need to master, rather than engaging in “discovery learning” or “construction of meaning.”  Similarly, Christians believe that there is an objective truth and meaning in life, as contained in the Bible.

2)    Democratic Classicism.  The main proponent of democratic classicism has been philosopher Mortimer Adler, with the 1982 publication of his book, The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto.  Adler’s unifying purpose is that students need to prepare themselves for full participation in our democracy.  “… they must be able to make informed judgments about policies, understand the complexities of public issues, and be able to contribute to the deliberations of the republic.”  The goal is for students to participate in “the Great Conversation” of great minds through the ages.  His content emphasis is the “Great Books curriculum,” and one of his main teaching vehicles is Socratic Seminars.  Adler opposes vocational schooling, and “the forces of utilitarianism, elitism, scientism, specialism, and any other dogma infesting American education.”  (Adler in Veith, p. 27, 1997)  He opposes all “tracking” of students by ability level, and the teaching of all electives.   A vital part of Paideia’s educational goal is the development of  “moral and intellectual virtues.”  Virtues are described as “good habits,” and the foundation of happiness.  Adler’s proposal grew into the Paideia Group, Inc. and the National Paidea Center, with just over 100 public schools using his methods.

3)    Moral Classicism.  This school of thought is promoted by David Hicks, who has been headmaster of four private schools, three of them Episcopalian.  His thoughts are contained in Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education, published in 1981.  Hicks sees education as primarily a path to virtue, and his views center on the classical concept of education as a striving for the ideal.  He believes that education lost its focus when the classical Ideal Type was replaced by the scientific method.  “The new definition of man’s humanity excluded the rich complexities of the human spirit – will, conscience, and moral character – from the realm of education.  The most important dimensions of human life were no longer considered valid subjects for ‘the great conversation’ of the humanities curriculum unless they could be made consistent with the new ‘scientific method.’  Religion, history, and literature no longer were expected to tell the truth about man’s nature and purposes.“  (Veith, p. 34, 1997).  So in essence, striving for goodness, virtue and beauty is no longer included in the curriculum!

Hicks takes on the primacy of “objectivity,” and teaches that the first characteristic of a classical school is its reliance on dialectic.  Objective analysis can be applied to measurable knowledge, but virtue, goodness and beauty cannot be measured in this way.  Dialectic involves a sincere striving for the good in place of cynicism, and drops the notion of supposed objectivity.  “Using his conscience and the process of dialectic, and guided by the universal vision of the Ideal Type, the student grows toward the Ideal.”

4)    Liberating Classicism.  This branch was begun by African-American educator Marva Collins, who founded Westside Preparatory School in the Chicago ghetto in 1975.  Until recently, Mrs. Collins never referred to her methods as “classical,” and indeed Westside Prep predated Logos School, the Paideia Proposal, and Core Knowledge.  However her curriculum and teaching methods are thoroughly classical, and she now identifies herself with this movement.  Collins believes that the problem with modern education is its propensity to excuse all failure – student’s, teacher’s, and administrator’s.  She says that “learning disabilities” are “teacher inabilities,” and her motto is that no student is allowed to fail.  Her teaching methods are demanding, and involve constant drill and repetition, lots of writing, speech classes and regular debate.  No Ebonics here.  “Every child in our school is articulate.  Every child speaks standard English … We have been correcting the children’s grammar until they realize that there is the standard grammar that must be spoken universally if we are going to function.”  (Collins in Veith, p. 45, 1997).  Subjects include logic, Latin, art and music appreciation, and the study of great literature, including an emphasis on Shakespeare.  She calls her teaching method “coaching.”  Teachers spend a significant portion of time working with the students individually, employing a highly personal and caring style.

5)    Core Knowledge.  I am adding Core Knowledge to this list, although for some reason it is not included in any surveys of classical education that I’ve seen.  Core Knowledge is based on the idea that there is a core body of “intellectual capital” that every child needs to possess in order to be able to participate fully or be literate in our society.  Founder Don Hirsch provides numerous convincing arguments concerning the failure of progressive education.  The Core Knowledge curriculum includes the study of world history, beginning in kindergarten; a full art and music component; and foreign language including Latin. Hirsch also promotes whole-class as opposed to small group or individual instruction, though he ultimately believes in using whatever teaching methods work to impart the core knowledge.  Hirsch was accused of elitism for years, while he countered that ethnic minority groups were particularly in need of this type of instruction, and helped by it.  Ultimately, minority groups have become some of the strongest supporters, and most numerous participants in Core Knowledge schools.  Test scores and enthusiastic students, teachers and parents have borne out the value of Core Knowledge.  Core Knowledge schools often use “Core Virtues,” which is a value-of-the-month type curriculum.

Classical Education and Character Education:

In an overall sense, “Rigorous study develops virtue in the student.”  (Wise & Bauer, p. 47, 1999).  Classical education has high expectations and respect for our ancestors at its core.  In addition to this, each type of classical education has its own brand of idealism: the “Ideal Type” focus of moral classicism, the citizenship emphasis of the Paideia schools, and the evangelism goal of Christian classical schools, to name a few.

Another way to look at Classical Education relates to our “lesser expectations” of young people, as written about by William Damon, and the question of why this lowering of standards and expectations has taken place.  Veith provides an extremely comprehensive answer to this question, which I will briefly describe.

He describes our society as being in a state of “intellectual relativism, moral collapse and social alienation.”  He says that “American education today is deeply troubled.  But its problems are not caused primarily by incompetent teachers, uncaring parents, or television-dazed children.  Education’s underlying problem is intellectual.”  The solution is to return to a model of education that works, “the bedrock of Western culture: classical education.”  Classicists believe that progressive education has failed, and that we are “living off our intellectual capital,” from the time when classical education was the norm.

Veith argues that the denigration of education began with “modernism,” of which John Dewey was the most important proponent.  Modernists scorned tradition and the achievements of the past, and promoted scientific empiricism – that which can be tested and measured – as the only legitimate standard.  Veith says that Dewey “abandoned any claim to be able to know what was good, true and beautiful.”  Modernists also promoted the idea of progressive education, or student-led learning.  Classicists tend to equate progressive education with moral relativism, arguing that progressive education allows students to draw any conclusions they want about anything.

Veith argues that we are now in a “post-modernist” period:

This is an outlook that reduces even further the realm of human knowledge and morality.  Modernism celebrated science as the measure of all things.  But postmodernism celebrates the social sciences because it regards man’s will as the measure of all things.  Modernists believed in the idea of objective truth, although they reduced truth to what can be measured by science.  But postmodernists reject altogether the idea of objective truth.  Postmodernists say that truth is really “a construction” of the mind or society.  The culture in which we live determines the meaning of everything.  (Veith, p. 3, 1997).

Essentially, he’s saying that education used to consist of a struggle to know and embody the ideal, in terms of knowledge, virtue and aesthetics.  Modernists abandoned virtue and aesthetics as “unmeasurable,” and promoted an individual search for meaning in education.  Postmodernists have abandoned science and knowledge as well, and are wandering in a netherworld of “constructed meanings,” accountable to no objective standards whatsoever.

Veith also takes on the “victim mentality.”  He describes how we are combining “postmodernism” with “post-Marxism.”  That Marxists classified everyone as either oppressors or the oppressed, but Post-Marxists “substitute the categories of race, gender and sexual preference for the Marxists’ focus on economics and social class.  But both agree that cultural norms and social institutions are nothing more than masks for power, by which one group (e.g. white heterosexual males) oppresses others.”  He continues that “The biggest trend in postmodernist education today is ‘multiculturalism.’  With few exceptions, this has little to do with actually studying or appreciating other cultures.  Instead, it is a way to teach a kind of heavily politicized relativism…”  He argues that “… advocates of multiculturalism urge women and minority students to submerge their personal and moral identities into the presumed character of their race, gender or ethnicity.”  Then comes the relativist assertion that “Every culture has different ideas and beliefs that are true for it.”  Then comes a criticism, “What makes you think our way of thinking about this subject is superior to another culture’s way?”  And this finally becomes an attack on Western civilization and its “oppressor” mentality. (Veith, p. 4, 1997).

So in other words, everyone is encouraged to identify with “oppressed groups. The behavior of these groups is declared to be “okay,” with no regard to objective standards.  Then mainstream society is criticized for oppressing these groups.

Veith also does an analysis of how all of the educational reform movements have emphasized one leg or another of the trivium, and underdeveloped the others, while all are vital for success.  “Back to basics” emphasizes grammar.  “Critical thinking” purports to emphasize logic, but doesn’t even teach formal logic.  “Student-centered” philosophies emphasize rhetoric, which amounts to sharing ignorance, since students lack knowledge and understanding.

Daria’s Reflections

The older I get, the more I detest “bleeding heart liberalism.”  I saw a license plate yesterday that said, “IM 4 KIDS” and it made me want to throw up.  In analyzing why I have this reaction, I realized, “Yes, I’m for kids too, and women, too.  But I’m also for men.  I especially “sympathize” with outstanding leaders.  I’m for everyone.  I’m for reality.”  The saddest thing about this creation and elevation of victims is that it doesn’t work.  These folks who feel they are “helping” these oppressed groups are doing the opposite.  They are indulging misguided ideas, fostering weakness and bad character, and creating even more hatred, because people who aren’t so “idealistic” (deluded) aren’t deceived about what’s going on.

My present opinion is that the Classicists at least have the intellectual integrity to have the right goal – which is absorption of vast amounts of information.  I think this should be done in the most painless way possible.  We don’t want a pressure cooker atmosphere or academic burn out among little kids.  But we do need to be honest about what the goal is, independently of what kids can handle.

My own feeling and experience is that “learning the processes of learning” takes care of itself if you learn content.  To me, it’s like this emphasis on “computer literacy,” which I think is a complete fraud.  Computers are the easiest things in the world to learn to use.  Focusing on “computer literacy” is merely avoiding more difficult and fruitful learning pursuits.  Using computers at all is laziness for children, and focusing on “how to use them” is even worse.

Another reason for my appreciation of classical education relates to my own learning difficulties, and why I’ve come to think that they exist, which include no memorization of history, no spiral learning of science, no logic, Latin, no Great Books, I could go on and on.

Waldorf Education

The first Waldorf school was founded in 1919 in Stuttgart, Germany, by Rudolf Steiner.  Steiner, educated as a scientist, is often described as one of the preeminent thinkers of our time.  His accomplishments were prodigious, and ranged from his editing the works of the German scientist and writer Goethe, to his status as a Christian mystic, to developing new methods in education, health, architecture and agriculture, and writing over 40 books.  He was also a tireless lecturer in Europe prior to World War II, and his speeches were collected in over 300 volumes.

Waldorf is an international movement, which now includes over 640 schools in 32 countries, including over 125 in North America.  Waldorf claims to be the world’s largest and fastest-growing independent, non-denominational school system that extends through all the grades.

My own experience of this philosophy was at the private Waldorf School of San Diego.  There is also a “Waldorf-inspired” charter school in San Diego, Harriet Tubman Village.  It differs from “pure” Waldorf in not including the religious content, not incorporating delayed academics, and accepting primarily local families who do not practice the “Waldorf lifestyle,” explained later.  At any rate, my children and I attended parent-toddler classes at the Waldorf school, and my older son Nick attended third grade there.

Waldorf education embodies non-traditional views of theology, child development and educational methods, and is almost more of a way of life than merely an educational philosophy. The focus in Waldorf schools is on the imagination; learning through the arts and physical activity; classic literature; a natural, low-technology lifestyle; and a balance between academics, the arts and practical skills.

As far as theology, Waldorf is based on Anthroposophy, which Rudolf Steiner originated.  Anthroposophy combines Christianity with the Eastern concept of reincarnation, and grew out of Steiner’s experience with Theosophy.  Anthroposophy is not in any way taught or even mentioned in Waldorf schools, however, which administrators go out of their way to explain to cult-wary parents.  The schools have a Christian outlook, but do not consider themselves to be parochial schools.  However, spirituality is ingrained in the fabric of Waldorf.  Stories of the Bible and the saints are part of the curriculum at the lower elementary level.  Spiritually oriented verses, often with a nature theme, are chanted by students throughout the day.

Regarding child development, Waldorf adherents believe that children go through three distinct periods:

• The period of birth through age seven (or when adult teeth start to come in) is a physical stage.  The focus is on the will, on physical development, and the child learns through movement and imitation.  School focuses on nurturing the child’s imagination and fantasy life, with no teaching of cognitive skills at this point.
• Age 7-14 (or until puberty) is the feeling period.  Children learn through beautiful images, engaging their feelings as well as their imaginations, and relating to an authority figure that they can respect and learn from.  Everything is taught in the most aesthetic and dramatic way possible.
• Ages 14-21 is the thinking period.  The child is finally capable of abstract thought, of seeing cause and effect and patterns.  The student needs a teacher who will challenge him, and support his idealism.

The Waldorf schools’ focus on imagination is done in many ways.  Kindergartens are an enchanted environment with areas for housekeeping, castle play, and other themes.  Beautiful handmade toys include knitted dolls and stuffed animals, and wooden doll houses.  Teachers storytelling, often using puppets, is one of the main methods of instruction.  In higher grades there are student produced plays, with students writing the dialog and creating costumes and props.

Waldorf schools emphasize beauty in the school and in how subjects are presented.  Classrooms are sponge-painted in vivid colors, each grade being assigned a different color of the rainbow.  In each class is a blackboard upon which the teacher has drawn an invariably breathtaking “picture of the week” with brilliantly colored chalk.  These usually include typically Waldorfian themes of nature, gnomes or fairies.

There is a strong natural or old-fashioned theme to Waldorf schools.  Schools use all natural materials for desks, games, music instruments, art supplies, and cooking utensils: wood, metal, natural fibers, beeswax, and so on.  No plastic is used anywhere, which gives the school a distinctive look.  Students must dress in clothes containing no logos (just try to find a T-shirt in your drawer without a logo), to avoid commercialism, and bring their lunches to school in actual baskets with cloth napkins.  Students also play old-fashioned games before school, spinning tops, playing marbles, balancing on stilts, and so on.

Waldorf schools are very strongly opposed to the use of television and computers by young children.  Families at Waldorf schools have to sign a pledge that they will essentially eliminate television from their lives.  Television is seen as a detriment to learning, and thought to interfere with the child’s imagination.  Use of computers is not allowed until at least age 12.

The “rhythm” of a Waldorf education is different in that:

• Teachers stay with the same group of students from grades 1-8.  This is supposed to remedy the problem of the year ending just as teachers are getting to know their students.  In practice, however, teachers come and go to some degree, so this doesn’t always happen.
• The day is divided into a 90 minute “main lesson block” in the morning, for core subjects such as English, math, science and social studies, and shorter time periods in the afternoon for foreign language, arts and practical activities.
• Core subjects are taught consecutively, with each being done intensively for three to four weeks at a time, and then rotated.
• The year is punctuated with various festivals such as Harvest Festival, May Day (Renaissance theme), Michaelmas, and so on.

The curriculum of a Waldorf school is different:

• No textbooks are used, nor many books at all.  Instruction is mostly through teacher storytelling.  Students create their own books, often via copywork or dictation, usually one for each subject, often beautifully illustrated.
• Art and music is emphasized throughout, with students learning flute, recorder, and singing, and doing daily painting or modeling with clay or beeswax.
• All through elementary school, there are daily practical activities and “handwork” such as gardening, caring for farm animals, building small structures, cooking, knitting, crocheting, and sewing.  Both boys and girls do all of the above.
• Learning is much more physical than in traditional school.  The day starts with special circle and marching exercises accompanied by chanted phrases, which are said forwards and backwards, as a brain exercise.  Multiplication tables are learned through recitation along with stamping and clapping.  A special gymnastics type of activity called Eurhythmy is part of the curriculum.  There are also liberal amounts of recess throughout the day.
• Regarding administration, there is no principal.  Waldorf schools are governed by groups of teachers and parents, which gives a sense of unity, as opposed to the adversarial atmosphere I’ve always experienced between parents, teachers and administrators in public school.  There is fairly extensive teacher support from mentors.  Since teachers oversee a different grade level each year, they usually have training each summer at a Waldorf college in the child development stage and curriculum of the next grade.
• Some people perceive Waldorf adherents as a bunch of hippies, and that case could perhaps be made.

Waldorf schools develop a child’s character through the following:

• Insistence on a lifestyle free of TV is an intense discipline in itself, compared to our cultural norms.  Families do not necessarily adhere to the “no TV” constraint, but they are much more likely to do so than non-Waldorf families.
• Waldorf schools also do not duck the “good and evil” themes embodied in fairy tales, folk tales and classic literature, as many politically correct environments have done by “sanitizing” the classics.  They fully develop these themes of good and evil as embodied in classic stories, from the time children are in preschool or kindergarten.
• There is a constant emphasis on goodness, beauty, and spirituality.  Children chant verses with uplifting themes throughout the day, say grace before meals, and schoolwork involves plenty of memorization of verses.
• There is a strong and caring relationship between teachers and students.  Teachers greet students with a handshake every morning, and engage children more directly than traditional education throughout the day, as the emphasis is on teacher narrated information rather than books.  Rather than “report cards,” teachers write long reports on the student once or twice per year.  Teachers often make home visits.

My experience with my own son was that his teacher seemed to know him thoroughly, noticed his situation both academically and socially in minute detail, and had many helpful insights as to how to deal with him.  By contrast, his public school teachers never seemed to have the slightest clue what was going on with him, and were no help to talk to.

• There is a “virtue of the month,” as listed in Rudolf Steiner’s original curriculum.  Perhaps he was the first promoter of value-of-the-month!

Daria’s experiences with Waldorf:

My son’s third grade year at the Waldorf school was, to me, incredible.  His class did a “clothing” unit in which they went to a farm and watched sheep being sheared; collected the wool; washed and dyed it with dye they had made from vegetables; carded it; pressed it into felt; and created a butterfly with it.  In another project, children raised silk worms.  There was cooking period, in which each day they cooked a different grain (wheat, rye, barley, etc.), made it into something tasty and ate it.  Children were learning cursive, and the teacher made a “letter house,” or a beautiful drawing of each letter enclosed in a distinctive type of house, accompanied by a rhyme describing how the letter was formed.  Nick learned to play a wooden flute, learned many folk songs, and enjoyed lots of old-fashioned games.  For his birthday, his teacher composed a special birthday poem for him, which he had to memorize during the week before his birthday.  We watched impressive student-produced plays, teacher puppet shows, and participated in festivals.  Nick created a beeswax family of foxes, helped build and paint a children’s playground structure, and created numerous books of his own, from math and English books to a cookbook, writing in different colors of beeswax crayon.

I was sufficiently inspired by the Waldorf school to embark on a career in education, which I don’t think I would have otherwise even considered.  The main things that inspired me were, to begin with, their view of child development.  To me, traditional schools tend to see children as “inadequate adults,” and treat them accordingly.  In Waldorf schools, I feel that the stages of child development are appreciated for what they are, due to their emphasis on the child’s imagination at the lower grades.  Secondly, the atmosphere at Waldorf schools embodies beauty and creativity, in a way that would always start my own creative impulses flowing.  Thirdly, I have been greatly influenced by reading about children’s types, which is an integral part of classroom management for Waldorf teachers, and later on, Eneagrams, another “typing” philosophy that has achieved some popularity within the Catholic church.  I feel I have gained a better understanding of myself and other people through typology than by any amount of insights or therapy.  Fourth, Waldorf is simply fascinating.  Adherents usually end up studying the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner and its application to education and many other fields, which one could study endlessly.  He was a visionary whose views continue to be borne out by future later research, from what I’ve seen.

The end of our story is that, to my surprise, my son didn’t like the Waldorf school and didn’t want to return.   This was despite the fact that there was no homework, which had been one of his big issues in public school.  In fact, he said he “wasn’t learning enough.”  As things have turned out, all of my children think Waldorf education is “weird” and want nothing to do with it.  So much for my plans to be a Waldorf teacher.  Not that their views would have stopped me, but I’ve had some second thoughts myself, including not necessarily being impressed with the graduates I’ve met.  But in a larger sense, I think there is much in Waldorf worth imitating.  The information that was disseminated in parent meetings was extraordinarily helpful – lectures on child development at various stages, the drawbacks of television, etc.

Daria Doering meets the Christian Right II, and guess who wins?

There are many varieties of Christian homeschoolers, but the more vocal ones, and the authors of all the books and catalogs I’ve read are “fundamentalist,” meaning that they accept the Bible as literal truth.  So that is the perspective I’m referring to in this paper.

Hallmarks of Fundamentalist Christian Homeschooling:

• Bible emphasis. There is a great emphasis on reading of the Bible, with virtually every Christian book promoting the need for a daily period of individual Bible reading for each family member, plus group Bible study and prayer.  In fact, some Christian marriage books list this as the first priority for husbands (“Give your wife time to read the Bible”) to the exclusion of conversation, taking the kids off her hands, appreciation … amazing.

I didn’t quite understand this emphasis until I learned that reading the Bible was one of the foundations of the Protestant reformation, as it symbolized individuals having a direct interpretation of religion, rather than having to rely on priests.  In addition, developing the ability to read the Bible was also one of the prime motivations behind public education.  Well, Bible reading is still alive and well!

• Evangelism emphasis.  Evangelism is the stated aim of Christian education, which does give a powerful boost to the desire to produce highly educated students.  There is a great premium placed on turning out students who can speak and write competently and convincingly; and who have a thorough knowledge of history, religion, values and “world views.”  World views means an understanding of history and our current age from a Christian perspective, with regard to why history has unfolded as it has, what is right and wrong with the world, and where Christians should be heading.  The classic book on world views might be How Should We Then Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture by Francis Schaeffer.
• The Christian view of life is so completely different from that of our popular culture that they might as well be living on a different planet, though I actually agree with them in many regards.  But the polarization of thought between the huge number of Christians and contemporary society is frightening.  I’m also always trying to nail these folks down, as in, “What church do you belong to?” but I’ve never gotten much of an answer.  They seem to belong to many different denominations, but to share certain strong views in common.  It’s very confusing.
• Disdain for educational “fads.”  Christians are not either moral or educational “relativists.”  They believe in an absolute, revealed truth; not only in the Bible, but in academic subject areas as well.  They detest most of “progressive education,” and anything that waters down standards or correct ways of doing things.  I must say that in reading Christian curriculum reviews, I have gotten intense glee from their devastating indictments of how practically everything is taught, and have felt that I finally understood a number of things for the first time.  More on that under “educational methods.”  Surprisingly, many Christians also advocate “relaxed” homeschooling, which is midway between traditional schooling and “unschooling.”
• Hierarchical concept of family relationships.  Christians see family relations as a authoritarian hierarchy in which the husband submits his will to God, the wife to the husband, and the children to their parents.

In practice, they tend to promote strict discipline in childrearing.  There is a range of thinking, and scads of Christian books on childrearing, but it is definitely not permissive.

Christians are very big on the concept of wives submitting to their husbands. An interesting example came to me from Managers of Their Homes:

Because home schooling works best when both husband and wife are involved, planning for the school year should be done together … We suggest Mom prepare an information sheet for her husband.  She is the one more intimately involved in the schooling and will need to give her husband some background information to pray over, and upon which to base decisions … This sheet should be made up and given to the husband several weeks before the planning session.  This will give him time to read it, pray over it, and ask any questions that would need to be addressed before the planning day.  (Maxwell, p. 59, 1999)

• Other different cultural and political practices:
  • Many reject birth control and have large families.
  • Children are often not allowed to play with neighborhood children, or anyone other than from their church.  Children may be “protected from worldly influences” to a small or large degree, with books, television and movies assiduously screened, limited or prohibited.
  • There is great emphasis placed upon girls preparing for their roles as wives and mothers, and boys preparing for traditional male roles.
  • As for “mating customs,” the latest is the “Courtship Movement,” which is strong among homeschoolers.  Several new books make the case that dating is a practice that engenders much hurt and little utility.  They advocate going back to the “courtship” model, where young people gather recreationally in groups, and the young man asks the girl’s father for her hand in marriage.
  • Aversion to Halloween, fairies, all otherworldly creatures, and any element of magic; due to Biblical injunctions against witchcraft and the occult.  Halloween is pegged as “The Devil’s Holiday.”
  • Christians like to use the word “convicted.”  I had thought that Catholics were the ones who practiced confession, but this seems to be the same concept, only without a priest involved: that God opens your heart to see your sins.
  • Anti-statism: Politically, Christians tend to be extremely conservative in the sense of believing in a limited role for government.  Many Christians eschew homeschooling through public or charter schools.  It is not a matter of wanting to use religious curriculum (which charter schools allow, though it can’t be listed as such on records), but of their thinking that any government involvement in homeschooling is merely the first step toward the government regulating it in unacceptable ways, or outlawing homeschooling altogether.

This stand entails parents not getting the funds that charter schools could otherwise furnish them for curriculum, so it is a big sacrifice.  But there is intense pressure to take this position from some pastors, with articles written in Christian periodicals accusing Charter Schools of being “the devil,” and other views that probably seem paranoid or shocking to the average person.  Homeschooling e-mail lists take steps to avoid their participants “flaming” over this issue.

Educational curriculum and methods

• Curriculum: Many use packaged workbook type curricula from major Christian publishers such as A Beka, the now infamous Bob Jones University (where George W. Bush campaigned, and it came to light that they prohibit interracial dating), Alpha-Omega, Christian Liberty Press, or many others.  In reviewing Christian curriculum, for the most part I’ve been highly impressed, and wish I could order it for my students.  It is generally well-conceived, well-organized, includes enrichment electives, is colorful and appealing to children, and user friendly for parents.
• Disdain for current educational “fads.”
  • Phonics is sacred.  In The Big Book of Home Learning, author Mary Pride analyzes how the “Look Say” method, now metamorphosed into “Whole Language,” began as a method for teaching deaf children who were physically unable to sound out words, and “Why it was ever decided that this would be an effective way to teach children who can hear and speak remains a mystery from this day.”  (Kiehl in Pride, p. 54, 1999).  Her analysis only gets better from there, as she takes on “invented spelling,” the “anti-competition movement,” and everything else.
  • “Penmanship” is emphasized, with some programs such as A Beka introducing cursive in kindergarten.  Contrast that with the almost-extinct handwriting instruction in public schools, and the contention that all handwriting may soon be replaced by computers.  As Pride says, “Human beings sometimes need to write down ideas when they are more than six feet away from a wall outlet, and we don’t all have laptop computers permanently welded to our belt buckles.”  (Pride, p. 213, 1997)
  • Grammar is considered important, complete with the almost-lost art of sentence diagramming.
  • The word “Arithmetic” rather than “mathematics” is often used up until algebra.  Emphasis is not on manipulatives (used beyond the very early grades), verbalizing “strategies” for solving problems, “guess and check,” approximation, group work or calculators.  Rather, the goal is solid and quick computational skills, abstract thinking, and correct answers.  Mary Pride provides a cogent analysis of how such practices defeat the goal of math as abstract thinking, and penalize those with genuine mathematical ability who don’t need to do all the visualizing with manipulatives or verbalizing of strategies.  (Pride, p. 279, 1999)
  • Creationism is the big issue for Christians, of course, and extensive science curricula featuring creationism have been published.
  • “Providential history” is one of the most common descriptions of their history texts, which emphasize the role of God in the shaping of history, and the strong spiritual beliefs of most of the great figures in history.
  • Multiculturalism, at least in its politically correct form, tends to be disdained.  Mary Pride gives another thought-provoking analysis of how “multicultural baddies” want to reduce all of history to the struggle of oppressed peoples against straight white Christian males.  When in actuality, every nation throughout history has kept slaves, for one thing, including blacks, Asians, Muslims and Native Americans.  In fact, the word “slave” comes from “Slav,” because for centuries white Slavic peoples were slaves for the more dominant Asian peoples in that part of the world.  She says that serfs and peasants were virtual slaves, and since they outnumbered the aristocracy by vast numbers, we are almost all descended from slaves.  Something to think about.  (Pride, p. 478, 1999)

Christians and Character Education

Values are at the heart of Christian education, in the sense of religion being their top priority.  Christians also place great emphasis on character development per se.  Although their instruction is generally biblically related, character is divided into the same types of traits found in secular literature.  There is a plethora of Christian books on the subject, and  most Christian homeschooling curriculum catalogs devote an entire section to character education books.

These books fall in several categories: 1) commentaries on virtues and how to instill them in children, from a Christian perspective, such as Building Christian Character: A Guidebook through the Elements of Christian Character by Blair Adams; 2) teaching virtues through Bible stories and passages, such as Character Building for Families by Lee Ann Rubsam; 3) compendiums of passages from either Proverbs or the Bible at large, indexed to character traits, good and bad, such as For Instruction in Righteousness: A Topical Reference Guide for Biblical Child-Training by Pam Forster;  4) entire academic curricula indexed to character traits, such as Konos.  There are also a huge variety of books on Christian childrearing in general.

Christians seem to be going more and move heavily in the direction of character education, with many multi-media resources, including the popular “Veggie Tales” books and videos, and “Nest” books and videos (www.teachvalues.com).  I find these resources to be saccharine, simplistic, and too cutesy for my taste, but they seem to be popular.

Daria’s reflections, as always:

I have a love hate relationship with Christian fundamentalists, but have been influenced by them in a number of ways.  Since my husband periodically blows up and yells, “You’ve made every decision in this family for the last 14 years” (probably true, but whose fault is it?), I finally decided to buy a book I’d come across called, Me, Obey Him? (one’s husband, that is).  It took about a year for me to work myself up to this shocking act, and one might correctly guess that I was a) in an ongoing marital crisis, b) desperately looking for answers in general, and c) exceedingly open-minded.

I actually liked the book, which starts out by making a surprisingly strong case that virtually every disaster in the Old Testament was caused by a woman who disobeyed her husband.  I ended up thinking that for women and men brought up as I was on a steady diet of “women’s liberation,” this point of view is an excellent counterpoint to the excesses of feminism, and is well worth having as another little voice in one’s mind.

In conclusion, as I wended by way through the landscape of this alien religious culture, I found myself influenced by it in ways large and small.  I no longer feel obliged to allow my children to spend hours at a stretch playing.  A half-hour block should be enough, Jack!  Although obedience to my husband is, ahem, not my strong point, I have been encouraging him to choose what restaurant we eat at!  And, okay, as many other decisions as I can transfer to him.

 

Catholic Homeschooling

Catholic homeschoolers tend to focus not so much on the Bible, like fundamentalist Christians, but more on daily Mass, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the saints, celebrating the liturgical year, traditional Catholic prayers, and other religious practices.  There are several influential books on Catholic homeschooling, notably Catholic Education: Homeward Bound, by Kimberley Hahn (wife of famous convert Scott Hahn, who homeschools their five children) and Mary Hasson; and Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum: A Guide to Catholic Home Educators by Laura Berquist.

There is also within Christian homeschoolers a contingent who call themselves “traditional Catholics.” They drive great distances to attend Latin Mass, and are fiercely opposed to any reform within the Catholic church.  They feel that the Catholic religion is now so watered down that they would not send their children to Catholic School.

As far as methodology, the Catholics I’m familiar with tend toward traditional schooling methods (often through Catholic schools that offer correspondence programs for homeschoolers), classical, or Charlotte Mason.  Catholic homeschoolers have their own curriculum and book sellers, such as Saints & Scholars, Catholic Heritage Curriculum, Sophia Press and many others.  They often carry the same books used in Catholic school, particularly history books, which are a “providential” type history, only from a Catholic viewpoint.  Catholics are often hesitant to use Christian curriculum, because of possible anti-Catholic biases.  Catholic homeschoolers like to compare notes on which Christian books have anti-Catholic references and which do not.

Catholicism and Character Education

In contrast to Christians, there is almost no Catholic character education curriculum that I have come across.  The one book I’ve found is Character Building by David Isaacs, published in 1976.  I’m not sure how to explain this, other than that perhaps Catholics focus on emulating the saints and an exemplary, monastic type life, which epitomizes character.  Christians really have no equivalent to the saints, except perhaps stories of famous missionaries.  There are also far fewer Catholic resources on childrearing.  Much of what exists focuses on celebrating the liturgical year and Catholic customs.  There seems to be more of an emphasis on establishing religious routines than on exactly how to treat children.  And the religious practices essentially are character education: obedience, service, examination of conscience, contrition, confession, etc.  The Catholic homeschoolers I know try to infuse their entire lives and curriculum with their religion.

As far as virtues, the Catholic Church recognizes three “theological (or God-given) virtues”: faith, hope, and love, and has attendant traditional prayers or “acts” for each of those virtues.  There are also the four “cardinal virtues” of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance.  “These virtues are called cardinal because they are four ‘key’ or ‘hinge’ virtues on which all the other virtues about right living (moral virtues) depend.” There are also several “intellectual virtues,” and numerous “moral virtues” which are annexed to justice, fortitude and temperance.  It gets so complicated that I can’t follow it.  Several of the moral virtues involve the tempering of anger.

Anecdotally, I have noticed certain virtues that seem to be of particular importance to Catholics: obedience, sacrifice, service, modesty, contrition, humility and a positive sense of suffering.  (Modesty and humility are actually among the moral virtues.)

Obedience seems to be a prime educational focus and character trait of the Catholics I’m familiar with.  I assume this stems from the focus on obedience to the Pope, and the theme of obedience that runs so strongly through monastic life and traditions.

The “sacrifice” ethic of Catholics, defined by the Baltimore Catechism as “a gift to God,” has long fascinated me.  It is so different from the ethic of our self-seeking society, or from the culture of Judaism.  The classic example of sacrifice seems to be the life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, also known as “The Little Flower,” or St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus. St. Thérèse practiced what she called the “Little Way,” of sanctifying all the small tasks in life, and making constant sacrifices.

Some Catholic children practice this virtue by carrying “sacrifice beads” in their pockets, as St. Thérèse did.  For every sacrifice they make, they slide a bead toward the side of the string of beads which contains the cross.  Another similar practice is to drop a bean into a jar for every sacrifice performed.  I end up with mixed feelings about the concept of sacrifice, but I find it another helpful little voice to have in one’s mind.

Closely allied to sacrifice is a quality which I’m not sure what to call, other than suffering, but in a positive sense.  One phrase I kept encountering in connection with Catholics was “offer it up.”  I really didn’t know what that meant, so I finally posted that question to the Catholic Charlotte Mason e-mail list, and received some detailed answers.  Essentially, the respondents said that the idea is to join our suffering with the suffering of Jesus on the cross.  The other main idea was that in our minds and prayers, we can offer our suffering for the benefit of somebody in need, or in essence assign a purpose to our suffering.  I find these beautiful concepts, and again so different from our pain-avoidant society.

Another positive Catholic view on suffering is that it earns us God’s grace.  “In God’s all-wise plan, suffering has always been the best way in which to merit blessings for ourselves and for others.  That’s why He sends it to us so often.  But the suffering must be cheerfully and willingly borne … otherwise it loses much of its power for good.”  (Windeatt, p. 102, 1950).

“Contrition” is defined by the Catholic Catechism as “sorrow for sin and a firm purpose not to commit the sin again.”  It is further categorized into perfect contrition, or love of God and sorrow over offending Him, and imperfect contrition, born out of more selfish motives, such as fear of hell or apprehension.  Contrition along with receiving the Sacrament of Penance (confession) reconciles Catholics to grace with God.

I believe that contrition, considered a moral virtue by the Catholic Church, should also be considered a secular virtue.  In our feel-good society, feeling pain and remorse over one’s wrongdoing is not always acknowledged as valuable.  Guilt (pain over violating one’s personal standards) and shame (pain over violating someone else’s standards) are denigrated as harmful and counterproductive.  I think these are positive emotions, and imperative for moral growth.  They are only harmful when a person is manipulated into having an excess of these emotions.

But probably the most character-related practice of Catholics is the “Examination of Conscience.”  This consists of asking oneself a series of questions regarding one’s virtue or lack of it.  “The ordinary method followed in the examination for confession is to consider in succession the Ten Commandment of God, the Commandments of the Church, the Seven Capital Sins, the duties of one’s state of life, the nine ways of partaking in the sin of others.”  (Coppens, 1909)

The practice of examination of conscience began with the Stoic philosophers, who believing that happiness came from living a virtuous life, practiced frequent self-inspection.  Early Christians, commanded by St. Paul to “Let a man prove himself …” before taking communion, continued the practice.  Later religious such as St. Anthony, St. Basil, St. Augustine, St. Barnard and founders of religious orders made Examination of Conscience a daily ritual.  St. Ignatius of Loyola further developed the concept in his “Spiritual Exercises.”  These involve 1) thanking God for benefits received, 2) asking for grace to know and correct our faults, 3) reviewing the preceding day and noting what faults we have committed in deed, word or thought, 4) asking God’s pardon, and 5) proposing amendment.  (Coppens, 1909)

Other mysterious facets of the Catholic church:

• Consecrations, “Enthronements,” apparitions, stigmata, indulgences, novenas … I guess I shouldn’t make fun of fundamentalists.
• Marionism – I don’t mind having a female pseudo-diety, but could never quite figure out the justification.  I’m in the middle of reading to our children the biography of St. Louis de Montfort, founder of the Consecration to Mary.
• Sacred hearts of Jesus and Mary – this is such a dramatic and moving symbol, but I always wondered where it came from.  I finally traced it to St. Margaret Mary, but have yet to read her biography to our children.

But more of Daria’s reflections

As far as my own story, the Catholic Church had affected me long before homeschooling, as I am a Catholic convert.  We don’t worship as a family at a Catholic church, due to the resistance of my husband and children.  Whereas I find the missing elements from my life in the Catholic church, I think my husband experiences Post  Traumatic Stress Syndrome whenever he walks into a Catholic environment.  I think the essence of Catholicism is, in a sense, habit.  Maybe that’s my big attraction to it, or one of many.  Good habits were so completely lacking in my own upbringing and life.

At any rate, homeschooling gave me many tools with which to create a Catholic life within our home, or at least do some of the practices, which I feel has done us a world of good.  I read biographies of the saints to our children, which has opened my eyes to different worlds, and has completely altered my view of world history.  In our secular education, the role of religion is so minimized, or made negative, by focusing mostly on religious wars, excesses and corruption.   I do remember from my Jr. High world history textbook a brief description of how monasteries kept learning alive during the middle ages, which is one of the things that predisposed me toward Catholicism.

I now feel that history has been influenced so completely by the strong spirituality of most of our great leaders, and by the saints themselves, in profound ways.  I feel that a secular version of history is downright misleading, and largely meaningless.  I think that religious history embodies much of the passion for the good that has been the real determiner of much of history.  It’s also sort of an enchanted view of history, to me; magical and inspiring.

In conclusion, I would have to say that in my own experiences of RCIA, mass, and observing CCD, I learned very little about the Catholic faith or culture.  My husband says he thinks Catholic values are transmitted much more by Catholic schools than by Mass.  But my Catholic homeschooling experience put me into contact with a community of mothers who gave me an intimate experience of Catholic life, thought and practices.  They were able to answer all my questions with an impressive depth of knowledge, conviction and experience.

 

Daria’s Retrospective

In conclusion, my foray into homeschooling left me completely hooked.  I find myself still trying to homeschool my children, within the limited time I have with them, and the need to not overload them with academics, since they are now in school.  The form that our “homeschooling” takes these days is short sessions of reading aloud at dinner, alternating between non-fiction (usually history), classic literature and biographies of the saints.

I had always tried to do these things to some degree, but had been greatly hampered because I had such an impossible time finding books that I liked.  I had always been searching and searching for exciting books with good values.  My homeschooling experience finally put me into contact with the curriculum sellers I’ve been looking for all my life.  Another motive for all this activity, which I’m sure is true for most homeschooling parents, is to supplement my own completely inadequate education, but that’s another story.

In the end analysis, I tend to favor and promote classroom schooling, and to encourage any of my students who are interested in reentering schools to go that route.  I believe there are a) economies of scale to group schooling, b) there can be positive peer pressure that promotes learning, c) many learning activities such as simulations and writer’s workshop that can only be done in groups, and d) I think kids tend to want the social experiences with peers.

On the other hand, there are many completely valid reasons for homeschooling, and I wholeheartedly support it in those cases. I always have respect for people who are trying to live by an alternative vision of reality, because I do the same thing, not being too thrilled with the popular version that surrounds us. The only problem I have is when students are forced to homeschool against their wishes; and conversely, when students who wish desperately to stay at home are made to go to school.

The other benefit of homeschooling has been that despite the fact that Jake wrote in a recent essay, “My mom, Mrs. Doering, was the best teacher I ever had,” the reality is that I have not heard him complain about homework, teachers, or anything else since he returned to public school.  I think a year with Mrs. Doering cured the poor guy of his desire to be at home!  Seriously, I hope our year together fulfilled something that each of us needed: quantity time together, and at least a break from the confines of public school.

Parting remark: To me, another name for character is “the will,” and it is where a lot of different fields intersect, particularly psychology, religion, and educational.  A lot of factors affect what a person does with his will.

 

References

Clarkson, C. & Clarkson, S.  (1996)  Educating the WholeHearted Child.  Walnut Springs, TX, Whole Heart Ministries

Coppens, Charles  (1909)  Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. V, online edition http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05675a.htm

Daughters of St. Paul  (1987)  Basic Cathechism, Boston, St. Paul Books & Media

Davis, C.  (2000)  “The Elijah Company.”  Crossville, TN

Gardner, P.  (1997)  Charlotte Mason Study Guide.  Sandy, UT  Penny Gardner.

Hanford, E.  (1972)  Me, Obey Him? Murfreesboro, TN  Sword of the Lord Publishers

Koetzsch, R. (1997) The Parent’s Guide to Alternatives in Education.  Boston, Shambhala.

Levison, C.  (2000)  A Charlotte Mason Education.  Beverly Hills, Champion Press, Ltd.

Maxwell, S. & Maxwell, T.  (1999)  Managers of Their Home.  Leavenworth, KS, Communication Concepts, Inc.

“Mothering Magazine,” Sept./Oct. 2000  Santa Fe, NM

Pride, M.  (1999) The Big Book of Home Learning, Fourth Edition, Volume2: Preschool and Elementary.  Home Life, Inc.

Shackelford, L. & White, S.  (1988)  A Survivor’s Guide to Home Schooling.  Wheaton, IL  Crossway Books

Veith, G.  (1997)  Classical Education.  Washington, D.C.  Capital Research Center.

Windeatt, M.  (1950)  St. Louis de Montfort.  Rockford, IL  Tan Books & Publishers, Inc.

Wise, J. & Bauer, S.  (1999)  The Well-Trained Mind.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.