CHM014:Choosing a Homeschool Philosophy

Hi, Welcome to Christian Homeschool Mons podcast. I'm Dmitria, your host, and thank you so much for listening today. Well, my family and I just came back from a nice trip down south to visit my family and friends, and it's a lot of fun. I got to enjoy meeting up with friends that I haven't seen in a year or so, and it's just been really nice too to meet up with everyone again. I've also gotten to talk with some homeschooling friends and just sort of see how others are homeschooling and what's going on in the world of home education and their families. And it's just really nice to meet up with other homeschool families. So, you know, if you don't already have people that you connect with that also homeschool, you know, it's a great idea to just get involved in some type of home education circles, homeschool circles, or finding friends and finding people that can help you as a support group. And probably later on and another episode, I'll probably talk about what it means to find a support group, whether that's a co op or whether you start just a simple group, educational based or just a play group. You know, for homeschoolers. You know, that's always a great idea as well. So anyway, I'm just jazzed about that trip and I'm really excited to be back home. On that trip, however, we had a great time. We got to visit the Birmingham Civil Rights Museum in Alabama, and that was really eye opening for my daughter, and she's ten. I also have a five year old, and you know, they had they had a great time, just like seeing how far the African American community has come and has evolved over the years. And I'm just learning about Martin Luther King and about the civil rights movement and how that's affected us today. And so I think it was just a phenomenal filter trip and we really enjoyed it. We got one picture in you know, right in front of the building, but we couldn't take any additional pictures inside. They wouldn't allow video cameras and you know any of that, so we weren't able to capture anything in sight. But I do have a photo on my website of the building that we visited, so you can look at that at Christian homeschool Moms dot com and see what we what our reaction was to our visit there and how we enjoyed it and what we learned. My daughter is also writing a an essay called I Have a Dream, and it's parallel with her dream and Martin Luther King's dream as well as Major Misson which was the first who was the first African American astronaut. So we learned a lot in filter trip, had a great time, and so now we're back in California and getting back into the groove of school. So we just had to jump right into school. Had a week of educational outlet, but just jumped right in. So this week I've been thinking a little bit, you know, as I was on the plane coming back, I was thinking about how we started homeschooling in our family and how how my ideas of home education have evolved over the years. We've been homeschooling my ten year old since kindergarten, so six years, you know, give or taken. If you add add in preschool and toddler, of course, you know you can. You can add a few more years on there, and I count that as home education. But we've been homeschooling since the beginning, and I've changed my mind and my views of homeschooling all throughout the years, they fluctuated because my children have grown up and my family has changed. My family dynamics have changed, my environment has changed, and I've even matured, and I've I've also just you know, observing what other people are doing, observing what has worked for me in the past and what has not worked. It's just been a lot of trial and error. And so I wanted to talk about choosing a homeschool philosophy on this podcast. So let me ask, how did you arrive at your homeschool approach that fits your family? How did you come to that conclusion that this is what worked for you and this is why it works for you. I'll tell you a little bit about our story and how we got to where we are. Originally, I started by searching a lot of different educational outlets and I, you know, philosophies and ideas. I wasn't stuck on home education. I could have gone a number of different routes, including private school, public school. We just weren't sure where we wanted to fit in with our child at that time. I didn't feel that public school was the best option for her just academically. I just felt that she that my daughter was not in a place where public school would have fit her needs academically. So I considered it, but briefly, if you know what I mean, Like there wasn't much of a consideration. I thought about it, and I thought about how easy it would be to just let her get on the bus go to school, which was right down the road from us, about about three to five minutes away from our house. But you know, after really pouring my heart into discovering all the many different philosophies that are out there, I just could not see how that public school would meet her needs at that time. So we didn't choose that route. We looked at the private schools in our area, and at that time I was still living in South and so in our particular area, we lived in Football Town, so a lot of the private schools also were very pricey. And I'm sure that's you know everywhere where private schools are pretty expensive. But you know, for us, we just felt like, you know, what they're offering at these schools, And I did go and sit and sit in on some of the classes, and I felt like, you know, what they're offering, we could offer that at in our home. You know, I could duplicate a lot of what's happening here if that is what I chose to do, So we chose not to go that route. In the end, homeschooling was the option for us, And what really helped me at that time was to know that I had a support group available, and we joined a co op. We got involved, heavily involved with our co op, and at least, you know, it just it felt right, you know, at that time. So that's why we chose that, why we chose to homeschool. It just seemed to fit us really well. Plus we traveled a lot at my husband it's military, and we traveled a lot with our life of traveling, and just not really seeing where other educational options fit our needs, we chose homeschooling. In the beginning of my philosophy was just trying to figure out what my philosophy is, and so I looked at Montessori method, I looked at classical education. I looked at a number of different ideas and philosophies out there, traditional schooling, that kind of thing, everything that I could sort of study and figure out what worked for us, and nothing at that time I could. I couldn't really pinpoint any one philosophy that worked for our family. I found that if I took the best of each philosophy that I sort of was able to combine everything into my own eclectic style, so we're more of an eclectic family. I did lean towards classical education shortly after my second daughter was born, and we were kindergarten slash first grade at that time, so it was, you know, it's kind of hectic having a newborn and then having a kindergartener who was doing first and second grade level work and just sort of zipping through her coursework really quickly, and it was challenging for me to keep up with her and try to keep her challenge, and yet also trying to interweave the classical method into our homeschooling. So that was it was interesting to say the least. And you know, I was really excited about classical homeschooling, and I high you know, purchased to the Susan Weisbauer's books and materials and Story of the World and a lot of the ideas of how classical education works. I completely, you know, bought into it, and to this day, I still think it's a great method. It just didn't work for us at that time. So like some things that work for you that might work for you ten years, five years down the road, might not work for you today. So it's just a matter of evolving into that and figuring out as you go, one year at a time, what works for you at that time in your life. So here are a couple of tips that I would like to offer you that might help you to determine which method you should you should use. Familiarize yourself with different models of education. You figure out what do these what do these different philosophies represent, what do they offer, and kind of figure out the main idea and the highlights of each of the philosophies. So for classical education, if you read about what it means, you could see how that each year that you're teaching your child, it's you're teaching them historically in chronological order, so you know that you're going to be studying or focusing your study content on one era of history. And then also there may be some rote memorization and reciting, and they're you know, depending on your view of classical you might want to add in some Latin, You may want to focus on really just gearing. If you have a younger child gearing their learning material toward their stage, So the grammar stage is treated differently than a child who is saying the rhetoric or logic stage. So knowing what classical education is will help you to determine if this is right for you, if it's right for your family, if it's a good fit for your teaching style, is it a good fit for your child's learning style? So you do need to really hone in on what those different philosophies represent, what they mean, and how they can be translated in your family. If you're reading about it and you don't get a good feel about it being a good match for you, then you know, don't pursue. That second thing is to determine which of these models best fits your lifestyle today, not tomorrow, not yesterday. You know, it depends on your children's ages. It also depends on your lifestyle. It depends on your season of life whether or not a particular method will work for you today. So, as I mentioned earlier, what didn't work for us when my daughter was first grade, you know may work for some other people with their younger children are but the classical method didn't work for us. Then today. We haven't tried to bring it back into our family, but if I wanted to go that route, I think it would work a lot better this year than it would have three years ago, four years ago. So you know, that's just something to think about the different ages and stages that your children are in and your family dynamics. Another idea is, you know, just to take ideas from all of these models as a jump start to forming your own philosophy. As I mentioned again, you know, I took from a variety of different ideas from the Monastori method, I took from a little piece of classical, a little bit of Charlotte Mason, a little bit of everything, and I saw that some there are some good things about each of these methods, and what is good from each of these will work for our family. The things that doesn't exactly doesn't work for a family to say that we're one method or the other. So we're kind of a blended method family and that's what works for us today. Um. So you know, just take ideas from from different models, and I remember what works. They may not necessarily work tomorrow as your children mature. Another thing to remember is that for younger kids, the three rs really is important if you can get in the reading, the writing, and the arithmetic, those are the things that that matter for your younger kids. And also developing their spiritual awareness is very important. So that's a Christian family, and you would get in your Bible time and your spiritual awareness, you know, teaching your children about the Lord and his plan and purpose for their lives and just teaching them about God. You know, that probably would be very important to you as a Christian family. Also, if you wanted to just focus on academics, the thing to focus on would be the math, the reading, and the writing. So you know, making sure that your kids have their phonics, make sure that they have their mathematics and their math facts and things like that. Those are really, you know, sort of your basic foundational things. So you know, history and science are awesome. We need, you know, to add that in a layer it in. But you know, in the beginning years, you know, just focus on the three things that matter. Everything else will kind of be absorbed in your environment. As you put a DVD in about butterfly set science, your child will grasp the idea of, oh, yeah, I'm excited about butterflies. I want to learn more, so then you can go out in nature. You can go to the zoo, you can from a variety of different opportunities. You can find ways to meet your child needs as far as their windows of opportunity and what they want to learn and capitalize on that you know, to fit in the science and the history. But you know, just like I said, though, three rs are really important and for older kids, just remember to get the help that you need. If you need extra help in teaching. If you don't know trigonometry, you don't have to learn Trigg for your child to learn Trigg. There are tutors available. The awesome thing about homeschooling is that there are so many different ways to outsource and to bring in from the outside what you need into your home so that your child gets what your child needs, so there's never a lack for what your child needs. You can homeschool and older child you can't. I don't have children over ten, but I know from experience with having talked to and being around people with older children that it is very doable and that you know you can outsource. You know you can also focus on the faith of you know, mentoring your older kids and helping them to grow in their faith. That's also important. So those are some things you know, to just really maybe work into your homeschool philosophy um as you know, a family of faith, and also just to remember, you know, keeping things simple and just getting those basic foundational classes and courses that are needed for your younger kids and everything else is sort of layered in with life. And then you know, as you as you think about life from that perspective, maybe fitting in a method per se won't be as important to you. As you begin to become comfortable with the idea of homeschooling and what it means for you and your family, it will look different than any other family, and that's fine. It's your homeschool, it's your home, and so you don't have to emulate anyone. Um. They're awesome bloggers out there who are doing a wonderful job in their families and they have a lot show and a lot to to, you know, for you to see, and it can become really overwhelming for some people to look at that and say, well, you know, my home needs to look like that, my homeschool needs to be more like this or that. But you know, really it's about what works for your children and what works for you, so you know, choose a homeschool philosophy. If you're going to choose a particular philosophy, choose one that matches your teaching style and your children's learning style, their ages, your stage in life, your era in life, and make it work for you. And if that particular philosophy doesn't work for you, then don't feel that you have to stick with that philosophy. Just move on to something else. Move on, figure out what works for you, and then maybe find the right learning philosophy that matches with what you're doing. If you feel that you need to, haven't an actual ideology of homeschooling such as monostori or classical or traditional school method, Charlotte Mason method, Waldorf, there are many many methods out there. If you would like to adopt one of those methods, then make sure that you brief yourself off on what each of those stand for, what they mean. And if you want to take little bits and pieces of each and be an eclectic homeschooler, that's great as well. And that's what we're doing in our family. Some days, I'll be honest, there's some days that I feel completely monastory. Especially with my five year old. We do a lot of hands on types of activities and using um monastory based manipulatives for some of our homeschool. On other days, I feel like a very traditional homeschooler with my ten year old because we do a lot of book work a traditional using textbooks and worksheets, but we also layer in you know, other resources at our disposals, such as the Internet and DVDs and number of a number of things that classes in the community are very enriching for a homeschool experience. There are a lot of homeschool classes in our city, so it just works out really well for us. So we try to, you know, mix it up a little bit, but you know, just do what works for you, and that that's kind of what this whole podcast is about. This podcast was about choosing a method that works for you and your family. And so I really hope this has been encouraging for you and helpful. If you have been helped and feel that this has been a great resource for you, please stop by my Facebook. I am on Facebook at Christian Homeschool Moms and you can find me there. You can also find me at Christian homeschoolmoms dot com and there can you find all of our resources available. There's also again there's the Facebook and my Twitter, and I would absolutely love it if you'd sign up for the mailing list. If you do sign up, you will receive a freekie book that I wrote about homeschooling and how to avoid homeschool burnout, So I hope that you will sign up for that newsletter. On my next podcast, I'm going to be talking about choosing curriculums, so if you are sort of a new being homeschooler or just lead a refresher on what it means to choose the curriculum and you do not get backed down by all of the different curriculum that's out there, because there's so much out there. It's just amazing how much is out there for homeschooling families nowadays. So stay tuned for my next podcast. We'll all be discussing how to make a selection for your curriculum. So thanks so much for listening and have a great day. Bye.