We are nearly three years in to our home school journey and I find myself truly enjoying the picture of what home school looks like for our family. I have been told that the third year is the “golden year” if you will, where you simultaneously throw out what hasn’t been working and grab hold of the things that do work for your home school. And this is precisely where I have found myself in these past months.
I was one of those moms who would never home school. I admired and believed in home schooling, but I didn’t think it would be a fit for me. However, in Isabella’s fourth grade year after much prayer, we decided we would home school her through the middle school years because – middle school. 😉 When I first started looking into this brave new world, I felt most comfortable with an online curriculum because it was all laid out for me, but being a person who turns over every rock (to near exhaustion), I messaged a home school friend from book club and she generously consented to answering my (hundreds of) questions. She sent me to a blog post that summarized several learning approaches. After exploring these and several other approaches, I kept circling back to Classical Education. As I learned more about it I was filled with an overwhelming peace and a strong sense that this was right for our family. I again messaged my friend and told her I was leaning towards a classical approach and she replied, “that’s what we do!” She recommended I read The Core by Leigh Bortins. I read the book over the next few sunny days, while Lincoln played in the yard. The thought that stood out to me was that a Classical Education isn’t about building up a person’s intellect in order to elevate them above others, but in order to have the tools to relate to all people, and bring others to the knowledge of the Father. It may sound silly, but I wept. It was one of the biggest paradigm shifts I had ever experienced. I realized that I had long thought I should keep what I know to myself because it was only to prove my own intelligence, and this perspective on education had never aligned in my heart and mind quite like this.
We enrolled our kids in a local Classical Conversations program and decided we are in for the long haul. In other wards, we are going all the way through the Challenge years for high school. I never would have dreamed this would be for me, but this education makes sense to us. Our hearts have always been for our kids to understand their theology down to it’s roots, and now with this method of learning, we can give our kids an education that will connect God to every aspect of knowledge. Classical learning fits our family like a glove.
It’s now been almost three years, Isabella has been a memory master for two years and Gracelyn one year. Lincoln soaks up facts and has a curiosity that keeps me on my toes, and Isabella has begun her first year of Challenge. Like many other callings, it hasn’t been easy. In fact, this has been our most difficult three years of child raising so far, but it has also been the most rewarding. We have many days filled with frustration over math, too much noise (Lincoln likes to talk:)), and tears and conversations through building character. But this I know, this is where God has called our family.
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