Homeschooling Rationales: Early-Year Planning

In this series of Homeschooling Rationales posts, I want to explore homeschooling philosophies, especially my own, framed in a system of conscious thought about why I'm doing what I'm doing. In doing so, I hope to encourage your thought processes if you're currently or potentially home educating your child(ren). While for many students and teachers January is technically the middle of the school year, there's no reason that your school year (or planning for it) has to start in August. Let's look briefly at the calendar for a different take on planning out an educational year!

When to Start Planning Home Education

Short answer: ideally, before you're all the way through home educating. For me, I've found the best benefit from flexible plans that plan a semester or year at the outset in terms of large goals, but don't break down individual tasks into weekly or daily tasks until the weekend leading into that week. That way, I have a better handle on my energy levels and other commitments. In this section, I want to focus on a year-long planning process.

Prenatally?

Quite a bit of multi-faceted human development occurs during pregnancy. In my case, I knew before Child was conceived that we would want to homeschool. During the pregnancy, Husband and I focused on long-range planning--i.e., end-of-education goals that we wanted Child and any sibling(s) to achieve. We knew that it would be a number of years before we would start formal education, so our planning was for how we would think, speak, and act as parents.

In short, we reexamined our worldview and the worldview we wanted to cultivate in Child. (If you're interested in reading more about contemporary perspectives on worldview in general, be aware that a common synonym is "horizon.")

This reexamination and planning involved reading of old books, talking about the ideas and their relationships, and ultimately moving from Lutheranism to conservative Anglicanism for philosophical reasonns. We also focused on our communication habits, making sure to stay on the same page as much as possible. 

Between Birth and School?

Our journey continued after Child was born; formal education won’t start for a few more years, but in the context of practicing the Benedict option we have found ourselves in a steady place that will allow growth. 

What are our goals for this year in terms of homeschooling?

• Maintain or increase an atmosphere encouraging pre-reading skills, attention to person and task, time for reflecting alone, and hospitality for interpersonal interaction
• Clean up our diet and meal prep slightly (I want to start milling flour and baking bread as in my childhood, and learn how to cook cheaper cuts of meat)
• Introduce Child to gardening by doing so myself, which may or may not turn out as hoped…
• Continue to nurture a lifestyle of reverence by more consistent Daily Prayer and participation in the worship and educational life at church

Next calendar year, the goals will get a little more concrete as Child develops more rational abilities.

Comparison of Two Styles of Education

Here, I'll outline the planning aspects of two major philosophies of education that I've been interested in for a while--classical and Charlotte Mason. While these are often set in opposition to each other or blended by homeschooling families, I see them as somewhat parallel in their goals but different in their strategies. Either can be used for religious or secular homeschooling.

Classical/Neoclassical

Sources for this subsection are Well-Trained Mind and Hillsdale K-12.

At what age does classical (or neoclassical) education typically start?

• Kindergarten or first grade, going through age 12
• On a side note, classical education is heavy on the use of language to communicate knowledge

What does the overall curriculum for a child completing a classical education look like?

• Grades K-4 (or 1-4) focus on memorization of facts about subjects to help one engage with the world via concrete thought (grammar stage)
• Grades 5-8 focus on figuring out relationships among facts to analyze them via abstract thought (logic stage)
• Grades 9-12 focus on communicating what one knows and specializing in knowledge areas of interest (rhetoric stage)

What does a typical year for such a child look like?

• From what I can find, most classical schools start each grade in the fall, parallel to other schools.
• Kindergarten in the Hillsdale K-12 curriculum addresses literacy, literature (5 books/month), history and geography combined (early United States history and orientation to the continents of the world), kindergarten math (1-2 chapters/month), science (basic facts about physics, biology, and human health), art (elements of a drawing and selected artists 1/month), and music (principles and selected composers 1-2/month)
• 8th grade in this curriculum addresses the same subjects, with more in-depth foci:
• 1 book every 1-2 months
• Sentence diagramming for most of the year
• Writing strategies for communicating various types of ideas from varied source types
• 1900s-2010s history
• Math text 1-2 chapters/month
• Expanded look at physics concepts and people
• More modern forms of art (WWII-present to parallel history studies)
• Music theory and modern composers (1900s-present)
• Latin (second half of Wheelock's)

Charlotte Mason

The most accessible source for this section is Ambleside Online.

At what age does CM education typically start?

• Kindergarten (informally) or grade 1 (formally), going through grade 12

What does the overall curriculum for a child completing a CM education look like?

• Book-focused approach to a wide array of subjects distributed over the 13 years
• Subjects on AO are arts, Bible, composers, geography, history, language arts, math, nature study, poetry, science, and literature

What does a typical year for such a child look like?

• Kindergarten focuses on habit formation and time outside; there is no schedule, although parents may plan short activities to work on the habit of attention
• Year 11 distributes 9 subjects across a few days per week on each subject:
• Bible: minor prophets through Proverbs, plus the Pauline epistles
• Citizenship: Plutarch's Lives and more current topics
• History: 20th and 21st centuries
• Geography: map navigation and world travel
• Science and math: physics, nature study, 11th grade math
• Language arts: copying, narration, dictation, grammar
• Literature: Shakespeare, 20th and 21st century authors
• Foreign language: Latin and one modern language
• Music and arts: hymns, folk songs, picture study, composers, drawing/handicrafts

Even if you're not planning your school year yet, what did you find helpful or interesting from this post?