Homeschool Methods

Just as seedlings require good soil, good growing conditions, and ample sunlight and nourishment to grow into strong healthy plants, so too children require a good learning environment. Our philosophy of homeschooling is based on several principles.

First, it is important that our homeschool be based on a Biblical foundation and a Christian worldview. As Christians we look to the Bible as the final arbiter of truth, and according to scripture, the highest mark of education is the attainment of wisdom.

Second, we feel it is important to challenge our children to reach within and develop inner resources, to learn how to think and how to learn, to judge everything in light of God's truth, and to enjoy their educational pursuits.

Third, we wish to cultivate a realistic and pleasant method of homeschooling. We have found that effective home education must take into account several factors which differ from a traditional school model. The interaction of multiple ages, the need for fluid scheduling, a blurred distinction between "school" and "home" life, and the need for a mix of activities that allow for both group learning and independent levels of study are all factors that come into play in developing a way of life that is educational at its core.

For us, homeschooling is a wonderful mix of structure and freedom. At heart we are very eclectic, and we are committed to using whatever works best to help our children learn and develop to their fullest capacity. But, we have also found that two methods in particular, the Charlotte Mason method and the Classical Trivium approach, can be combined very effectively to fit our lifestyle and help us to meet the goals we have for our family.

We have included a very brief description of these two approaches below, but to get a fuller flavor we highly recommend visiting our links for further reading. Enjoy!

According to British educator Charlotte Mason, we become educated through "communication with great minds". Great ideas and noble thoughts, accessible through frequent exposure to great literature, great art, and great music, are nourishing food to the hungry soul. Leaning heavily on what we term the humanities, she believed that children should be brought up in an atmosphere that encourages the child's ability to know and love these original works on their own terms, and that they would thus be tutored by the greatest minds of the ages. She favored allowing children the ability to form their own relationships with the authors of such works, and felt that no intermediary analysis should be necessary.

History provides a matrix, or framework, upon which all of the great ideas and works of the ages can be hung. Reading, both individually and aloud, from great literature and history provides this framework. In the Charlotte Mason tradition, books that are worth reading are termed "living" books: ones that capture the imagination and speak to the heart. They make history come alive, and enlighten the child's mind with ideas.

"Living" books also provide excellent material for learning language skills in a natural way. A child practices both memory work and comprehension skills through the practice of narration, for example, and develops fine writing and communication skills through copywork and transcription (taking dictation). Again, through the process of narration and copywork, the child is learning directly from the great masters.

According to CM, science in the early years is best limited to nature study, or the study of natural philosophy. Though science becomes more rigorous in the teenage years, a full curriculum of nature study will develop the habit of careful observation, the ability to accurately record data, classification skills, and reasoning capabilities. The maintenance of a nature notebook is an integral part of the nature study, and keeping the notebook also provides an opportunity to practice drawing and language skills.

The Charlotte Mason method is characterized by both brief daily lessons and large blocks of uninterrupted free time, during which the student should pursue individual, discovery-based learning activities. CM taught that learning should be a joy, not a burden, and that children should be encouraged to develop a love of learning for its own sake.

A CM approach is flexible, and can be made more rigorous or more relaxed, according to personal preference. There is a lot of information about the Charlotte Mason method online; here is a collection of articles and other links to help you learn more about it:

The Trivium method as many know it today is described by Dorothy Sayers in her essay, The Lost Tools of Learning, and represents a renewed interest in the classical mode of education that has come down to us through the ages. The Trivium is essentially a language-based system of learning, geared toward developing a high degree of mental dexterity, excellent language skills, and highly-developed reasoning ability.

A classical education consists of three parts. The Grammar stage is characterized by memorization, classification, and the collecting of knowledge. Facts are squirreled away to be fodder for the later Dialectic stage, and the study of Latin is undertaken. Latin develops orderliness of mind and discipline of character, as well as building language and vocabulary skills.

The Grammar stage is followed by the Dialectic stage, which is characterized by the development of abstract reasoning ability and the beginning of analytical thought. The study of logic commences, and the student begins to analyze and evaluate the great ideas of the ages. Logic further trains the mind and affords the student the skills he needs to properly assess what he reads. He also begins to inter-relate the bits of knowledge he has accumulated, determining the process of cause-and-effect and synthesizing the various branches of knowledge into a unified whole.

The Rhetoric stage begins when the student has begun to achieve success with the goals of the Dialectic stage. He begins to develop his own power of insight and the capacity to evaluate what he reads, and the ability to write and communicate his knowledge persuasively to others is a major goal. The training of the Rhetoric stage is intensively focused on reading and writing, particularly reading the Great Books and considering the ideas that are contained in them. The end of the Rhetoric stage is not the end of the student's education, but the beginning. From this point, he can begin to participate in "the Great Conversation" of the Western world. The classical training he has received should free him to debate the ideas of the ages from a position of knowledge, and it is hoped, a degree of wisdom.

More information about the historical Trivium and Classical Christian education can be found here:

There are many interpretations of both the Charlotte Mason Method and Classical education abroad in the world today. It is possible to see them as very different and incompatible if all we look at is the details of method and technique. However, we see them as having a common goal, and we find their methods to be complementary rather than competititive.

Both the Classical tradition and the Charlotte Mason method emphasize liberal education: that education which frees the individual to be truly whole and wholly human. True education is enriching in its scope and builds the character by feeding the mind, uplifting the heart, and ennobling the soul. It is founded upon the communication of great ideas and our response to them, for words and ideas have the power to fundamentally change us.

Charlotte Mason writes, "The Greeks believed that a training in the use and power of words was the chief part of education, recognising that if the thought fathers the word, so does the word in turn father the thought. They concerned themselves with no language, ancient or modern, save their own, but of that they acquired a consummate appreciation. With the words came the great thoughts, expressed in whatever way the emergencies of the State called for -- in wise laws, victorious battles, glorious temples, sculpture, drama. For great thoughts anticipate great works; and these come only to a people conversant with the great thoughts that have been written down and said." (A Philosophy of Education, p. 316) It is with the transmission of these great thoughts that true education should be concerned.

David Hicks, in his book Norms and Nobility, says "a school is fundamentally a normative, not a utilitarian, institution, governed by the wise, not by the many. It judges man as an end, not as a means; it cultivates the human spirit by presenting a complete vision of man as he lives and as he ought to live in all his domains -- the individual, the social, and the religious. It teaches the student how to fulfill his obligations to himself, to his fellow man, and to God and His creation." (Norms and Nobility, p. 13)

Later he describes the moral instruction that is at the heart of education: "Classical education eventually fills the young person's head with the sound of voices: the impassioned debate of the many great figures of myth and history concerning what is good, beautiful, and excellent in man. Through his imagination, the student participates in this dialectical confabulation, and his thoughts and actions become literally involved with the Ideal Type. The ideal is refined, and action and thought join inextricably in the life of virtue..... To produce a man or woman whose life conforms to the Ideal in every detail is education's supremely moral aim." (Norms and Nobility, p. 47).

Likewise, Charlotte Mason bases the precepts of her educational program upon normative values. In A Philosophy of Education, she states "Milton's ideal of a 'complete and generous education' meets our occasions: -- 'that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices both private and public of peace and war'...." (A Philosophy of Education, p. 249)

She continues, "The future of England depends largely upon Secondary Schools; let the Heads of these lay out a liberal field of study and astonishingly fair things will grow in that garden of mind in which we are invited to sow the seeds of all knowledge.... Let us take it to ourselves that great character comes out of great thoughts, and that great thought must be initiated by great thinkers; then we shall have a definite aim in education." (A Philosophy of Education, p. 277-8)

There are of course differences in the teaching style and techniques of Classical education and the Charlotte Mason method. We believe Charlotte Mason is more trusting of a student's ability to learn from firsthand experience and reading, whereas Classical tends to rely more on guidance from a mentor -- either a living or a paper one. Charlotte Mason considered learning "a science of relations", meaning that we only truly learn by creating personal connections -- with authors, with nature, with artists and musicians. Instead, Classical education rests on a student's connection with the mentor, whose knowledge and values are transmitted to the student through a discipling relationship.

Unique and specific teaching techniques are derived from this core difference, such as Classical education's Socratic discussion or CM's insistence on literary vehicles to convey factual information in context. Classical educators commonly refer to the three learning stages of the Trivium; CM does not. Classical education provides more explicit training in many areas where CM teaches through "immersion". Some techniques and methods such as copywork, the use of timelines, and the reading of living books can be used by homeschoolers in both camps, but they are not necessary to Classical education; they *are* necessary to CM. While Classical education traditionally has been the education of the elite, Charlotte Mason worked to reform the school system of her age to provide a liberal education for all.

But our aim in true education must be more than the technique or method that is employed to provide it. Education is a unique thing: it is a whole which is made up of parts, but it does not exist within the parts themselves. The parts can and should include method, structure, and content, but we don't view any of these in and of themselves as actually being a true education, any more than one would view flour, sugar, and butter to actually be a cake.

There is something numinous in the process of reading and learning that changes us and re-creates a new person. Both Charlotte Mason and Classical methods of instruction have the capacity to be the flame that ignites a love of learning and kindles the essence of a true liberal education; we believe that if we keep their common goal in view, we can more surely hit the mark with techniques drawn from both camps.