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Training educators how to teach the classical liberal arts.

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Principles and Passports: Giving Them Access to Our World

Give them Passports

 

As we approach the next step in getting started with homeschooling, I would like to make a little disclaimer: my purpose is to help moms educate free and complete people. “Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth ‘thrown in’: aim at Earth and you will get neither.” (C.S. Lewis, ‘The Joyful Christian’) Therefore, our decisions are made through what will move our kids towards becoming free and complete persons. I believe beholding the seven liberal arts, the four sciences; along with training the body and the spirit give the attending pupil the necessary lens for becoming a free and complete human being, who is able to rule themselves in all their domains. Along the way, our children will also find much of the earth as well. The ‘much of earth’ they will find will most likely be all the things we need and are delighted by on this side of eternity, and what Charlotte Mason called the passports to our world and culture. Things like a college degree, if your child needs one for their assignment here on earth, the right connections, and the skills and decorum to help them be successful, etc.. .. As classical educators, we must be very careful that in a moment of worry our focus does not shift from helping our children become whole and free. At the same time, the realm of action is in the particulars. Through my readings of Hicks, Berry, and the Bible I discovered a 3 stage paradigm for making decisions which take all this into account.

1.       Look at it though love
When I am not sure how to do this I literally go through 1 Corinthians 13 and ask myself if my attitude towards this decision or circumstance aligns with the Scripture. For example, recently I had to make a change about how we do math. I was feeling confused and fearful about it. I began asking questions and I realized my attitude was fearful and not aligned with love; I took a moment to cast that off by repenting. After dong this, I was able to see SO much more clearly.
2.       Look at it through reason
After I am sure false attitudes are not obscuring my reasoning then I can go through the process of deciding through reason and wisdom and experience what is best. You can also ask questions like, “Does it align with my why?” or “Does this fit the reality of the real?”
3.      Decide on the particulars
After approaching logistical decisions in the right spirit, applying reason and wisdom and experience, then we are in the best position to make particular decisions. We can have confidence in our choices because we went through a rock solid process filled with love and reason that is also aligned with our why.
So, what are the particulars and the passports we should attend to in getting started with homeschooling? Remember passports are different than our “why” and our purpose. I have discovered passports can be divided into 4 categories: Life Skills, Job Skills/Requirements, High School graduation requirements, and college requirements.  A Christian classical education more than satisfies what any person would need to possess in all of these four areas. However, sometimes we just need to be shown how it does in order to ease concerns regarding these areas. I have organized the particular passports into a final To Do list for getting started with Christian Classical Homeschooling. Here is a PDF you may print off and use of this same list.
1.       Pray & Ask Questions
2.       Start with Why
3.       Embrace A Spirit of Inquiry
4.       Survey the Subjects
5.       Learn to teach Mimetically
6.       Learn to teach Socratically
7.       Commit to developing conscience and style
8.       Welcome Growth & Accountability
a.       Find community
b.      Choose curriculum
9.       Principles and Passports
a.       Rest assured a Christian classical education cultivates and equips our students with all they would need for success in high school graduation, college acceptance and completion, the workforce, and life.
b.      Send in your intent to homeschool (and any other state specific laws) Find out the Homeschooling Law in your state and begin taking steps to attend to the actions required of you. You can go to the Home School Legal Defense Association website HSLDAand they have links to all 50 states homeschooling law websites as well as summaries of the laws in each state as well as a TON of other homeschooling information and recommendations. I highly recommend joining this association; it will be well worth it if you ever were to need them for any reason.
c.       Choose a school record keeping & filing system
                                                               i.      I recommend the principles in Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
d.      Spend some time learning about assessment methods and begin making choices on how you want to assess. I recommend you listen this talk, by Andrew Kern, first.
e.      Take a look at what it takes to graduate in your state. This is not how you will choose your course of study, but it will give you an outline for how you should structure your transcript and/or portfolio development. I have complied a list of what the state of NC requires for graduation, what 3 different colleges require for entry, and what 2 popular homeschool organizations recommend planning for. I put all these side by side with a liberal arts education to show how a Christian classical education goes above and beyond what any college or high school would require. You can download the PDF here.
f.        Decide how you will keep track of student work and what your students have completed. Grades are really not necessary for the younger years since they have nothing to do with helping us reach wholeness. For grades PreK-8thgrade I keep the lesson plan sheets, some work samples, and records of assessments, whether it be notes from an oral assessment or a spelling test. Grades are however a passport to our world in high school. Make sure to sign up for our mailing list to receive updates because assessment is a topic we will frequent.
10.   Create a schedule
a.       There are TONS of ideas plastered ALL over the web. I will go into what we do a little more in my next post.
11.   Write your first lesson plans
a.       Again, tons of ideas out there, I am almost afraid to Google it JMy next post will be on how we schedule and lesson plan.
12.   Create a plan for building belief and personal development
a.       Books, discussions, forums, blogs, classical teaching communities, etc…
13.   Teach, love, and wonder!
Expanding Wisdom, extending grace,
Jen

getting started with classical homeschooling

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Comments

  1. Sarah says

    I love your three stages in decision making. I often find myself paralysed over decisions that need to be made. Part of it is that there are so many options. The other is fear that I’ll make the “wrong” one or at least an “unwise” one. It’s led to me taking a LOT of time to make up my mind as I pray and wait for wisdom. These guidelines you set forth are great.

    Reply

    • Jennifer Dow says

      Thank you. I can completely relate. I am constantly amazed at the power of fear, but then even more amazed at the power of love. Good stuff, thank you Sarah.

      Reply

  2. Dianna@The Kennedy Adventures says

    I love that you mentioned the Kern talk, Assessment that Blesses. On Sarah Mackenzie’s recommendation, I’ve been listening to a lot of those talks over at Circe, and that one was a giant eye opener. I fight against the temptation from family and well meaning friends to constantly ‘assess’ our children. That talk was a sigh of relief.

    Looking forward to reading more from you. 🙂

    Reply