Smrt Lernins

This week started off so well, but ended on a down note. Nothing like building up momentum only to have your kid take a tumble out of the tree.

Monday was an exciting day, full of pouring rain and flooding yards. Captain Science reviewed his two Egypt chapters for History, choosing three important facts from each period to write down as a study exercise, wrote his final draft of his ten Egyptian god paragraphs, did chapter 4.4-4.6 in Growing With Grammar, and did his final section of exercise 1 in Writing Strands: rewrite something you’ve already written and add more detail. He chose to rewrite one of his Egyptian god paragraphs.

Tuesday, the homeschool co-op was canceled due to heavy rain, so we did a chapter of Life of Fred and did music appreciation, learning about Georges Bizet.

Wednesday was a spectacular day for homeschooling, despite it’s unfortunate end. Captain Science got right up and was highly motivated. He did his Ancient Egypt Venn Diagram and correctly placed all but one of the facts (he couldn’t decide where “pharoahs were living gods” should go). He did 4.7-4.9 in Growing With Grammar and started on Exercise 2 of Writing Strands, completing days 1 & 2 (prewriting) and day 3 (writing sentences with greater detail). I was quite impressed by his detailed sentences. He’s developing a real knack for descriptive language! After he was done with all his work, he went outside to play, and promptly fell out of a tree.

With a freshly broken arm that we are hoping will not require pins are our one-week check up, I decide that the rest of the week should be taken as sick days. He’s doing some reading, but mostly relaxing. We accomplished a lot on the 3/5ths of the week we had for work, however, and I’m currently developing a writing-free curriculum for next week, so his arm can heal. We’ll start reintegrating some writing after we’ve gotten the all-clear from the orthopedist.

The Tank only had a day and a half of school this week, too, as flooding closed our county schools and his preschool goes on the county calendar. He was sent home early on Monday and had class on Thursday. He seems to still be working on the letters A and B. We got some fun color and number workbooks for him to use on days when he doesn’t have school, but Captain Science does, so he can do some “Table Learning” while the Captain works.

Babypie continues in her quest to learn to crawl, but not there yet. She’ll be six months old on Sunday. The horror!

While reading the Well Trained Mind forums, I came across this little gem. Classical unschoolers? Really? Their group’s description says the group is “for those of us that love the idea of a classical education but also follow a more relaxed, eclectic, unschooling path.”

I’m seeing several problems with the concept of “classical unschooling,” the primary one being that these people seem to have a fundamental lack of understanding of what a classical education is. It isn’t just studying about the Greeks and Romans, especially “by way of self-directed reading and watching videos.” In fact, by Susan Wise Bauer’s (author of The Well-Trained Mind) definition of classical education, learning primarily through videos in and of itself negates the idea of the education being classical. Classical education, through her eyes, is “language-focused; learning is accomplished through words, written and spoken, rather than through images (pictures, videos, and television).”

So how, then, can unschooling be classical? Taking a few elements of classical education, such as learning about Greek history or to speak Latin, doesn’t suddenly impart structure or form to unschooling. It doesn’t fill in the huge gaps of education that can arise from making the child the final arbiter of what s/he should learn.

A child who is unschooled until middle school and is then thrust into a classical curriculum is at a serious disadvantage. While I believe a classical curriculum can be started at any age, an unschooled child will probably have a greater difficulty than, say, a public schooled child in adapting to a rigorous, formal curriculum. Do they really have the foundations upon which you can build a good education? How much catch-up will you have to do to even get the child to the age-appropriate logic stage, when they haven’t had one whit of grammar stage education? If you know you want to educate classically later, why completely unschool now? Do you really think that, come sixth or seventh grade, your child will be willing and able to sit down for formal instruction and that you will be willing and able to offer it?

I think the group’s description sums it up neatly, actually. They “love the idea of a classical education,” but are unwilling or unable to put in the time and effort needed to give their child this education. A 17-year-old working through Saxon Algebra because she realizes she wants to take the SAT, a 10 year old who is only now learning any grammar because he’s only now willing to “pick it up,” a mother logging hours spent on “various activities” so she can fabricate a transcript — these are not examples of classical education. There’s nothing classical about that. Back-applying the “classical” label to half-assed schooling efforts in order to make you feel better about what you’re doing doesn’t actually make the education classical, rigorous, or good.

If you want your child’s education to be classical, educate them classically. Don’t steal the label to dress up what you’re doing if it isn’t an accurate description. If you’re so proud of being an unschooler, just call yourself an unschooler.

I think there’s sometimes a misconception that because one self-identifies as a “secular homeschooler,” that means one is not religious or does not believe in God. While that’s certainly true for some secular homeschoolers, I know I’m not alone in believing that there is some greater power out there. The big difference between me and a religious homeschooler is that I don’t feel the need to interject my spiritual beliefs into my educational curricula.

I don’t, for example, think God has a place in a science class, because a belief in God is just that, a belief. It’s not a scientific theory. There is no evidence backing up the existence of God. I don’t think this means God doesn’t exist. I just think it means that God’s existence, being unquantifiable, doesn’t belong in a science text along with chemistry, geology, physics, and biology. Likewise, I don’t want God to make an appearance in a math book. I don’t want history filtered through the perspective of religious (any religion) bias. I don’t want every literature example to be Biblical or derived from some other religious or religiously-inspired source. I don’t want handwriting workbooks that ask my son to copy Bible verses to perfect his cursive. God is in my heart and I believe God is part of everything…and that’s enough for me and my child. I can appreciate the awesome subtlety of God; I don’t need the pervasive blatancy of religion in my homeschool curricula.

Though I believe in God and consider myself at least a somewhat spiritual person, I am also, at my very core Secularist. I want my government and my education free from the constant, pressing influence of religion. Religious dogma interferes with education. It discourages the pursuit of evidence-based knowledge. Educating children only through religion, or making religion a major part of everything they learn, hobbles them. It limits their ability to think abstractly and creatively. It closes their minds to other perspectives. Because they have been discouraged from basing their knowledge on fact, they are disadvantaged when it comes to making judicious decisions based on facts they are presented. They have been told what to believe, but not how to come to beliefs through evidence or experience.

I want my children to believe in God. I really do. I think that belief in some sort of divine presence or greater universal force provides a lot of comfort and joy in life. I think spiritual mysteries are worth exploring. I think religious/spiritual rituals and ceremonies have a lot of value, both for individuals and for cultures. I just don’t feel the need to dictate these things to my children, to inundate their every subject with my beliefs until they can’t separate education from religion. I will talk to them about God when it’s relevant, not at every turn, at every waking moment. I won’t insidiously slip bits of religious doctrine into subjects that don’t call for a religious perspective.

In the end, secular homeschooling is about keeping the educational focus on education, not religious doctrine or spiritual ephemera. You can be a believer and homeschool secularly. You can even believe devoutly and homeschool secularly. If what you believe is right and good, and you model your devotion in your life through word and deed, your child will come around to it, even if you don’t teach her Jesus Math, Church-Tinted History, and Creation Science That Actually Lacks Any Real Science. Didn’t God give us brains so that we could use them?

I leave you with this taken-slightly-out-of-greater-context quote from Errett Bishiop (1967), which also addresses last week’s post about Christian mathematics curricula : “Mathematics belongs to man, not to God [...] If God has mathematics of his own that needs to be done, let him do it himself.”

Posted a bit late, due to a cranky Babypie who wouldn’t stay asleep to let me finish this post!