reply to Johanna regarding educational philosophy
Posted by: marli <marli@...>
I will try to answer your question about educational philosophy. I haven't
thought about such a "deep" subject in a long time 🙂
I have never labeled our homeschool journey with any type of label. I
probably take bits and pieces from several approaches depending on the
student, the student's age, and the material being learned. When we began
thirteen years ago, I did a great job of "school at home" complete with
schoolroom, flag, little plastic chairs like they have in the public school,
etc. I was very structured, only had two children then, and used Alpha Omega
Little Patriots curriculum for kindergarten. My oldest son did very well,
learned to read in the first nine weeks or so and took off like a bullet
reading everything in sight.
He has a great memory and usually has an easy time of book learning. I had
to change all that with my second son as he didn't want any part of phonics
or book work when he started kindergarten, so from that point on I started
purchasing and using a variety of materials, focusing on what suited my
children and our way of life. My boys never liked to color, so I started
telling them to skip the coloring or don't worry about this or that part. As
time went on, we left alot of traditional school type stuff and the
schoolroom was remodeled after that first year I think.
When we started adopting babies, life became school as newborns joined our
family in rapid succession, and we began dealing with birthparents, social
worker's visits, lawyers, etc. We learned the legal system a little bit and
everyone was present for finalization hearings. My oldest took his first
college class at age 13 and we did a little of this and a little of that. I
guess we ended up becoming unschoolers/delight directed learners by default,
not by intention. I didn't even know about delight directed learning until I
started reading Marilyn Howshall this past summer. I couldn't understand
most of what she said, but did grasp a few key points that I'm trying to
implement with my younger ones such as issues of the heart being more
important than academics and children walking along with parents learning
and living is more important than driving to and fro to classes and
activities. We have seen some negative fruit in our older boys, particularly
the oldest, so we are seeking God as to what He would have us do differently
this time around. We have also seen that our oldest two have a vast store of
knowledge about many, many things, subjects we never "taught" so I now know
the difference between filling up a child with all that you think they
should know and letting the child learn the things he needs/wants to know.
In our younger years, we had never heard of Jonathan Lindvall or
betrothal/courtship or debt-free living or any of the things we are learning
now, so we keep changing as God brings new things into our lives.
Do you have a label for me? I sure can't figure one out other than
"weird" as most people think I am.....not many around here live the life we
do, a few homeschooling families are raising goats and such, but mostly we
know families that are very much on the path of the "American dream" (money,
big house, cars, stress, etc.) and deeply in debt. Since I never knew about
any of the educational philosophies, classical, principle approach, etc., I
think we have probably always been eclectic. Hope this somewhat answers your
question. Have a wonderful Thursday, Lisa