Homeschool Classical Education in a box

Over the weekend my favorite email group looked like having a renaissance. The idea excites me.

Many of the original group members are of the generation when Classical education was first being brought to light. The old text books had been reprinted but that was all they had. How often they wished for a boxed classical education.

Now as my kids approach the NZ college age (US High School) I find myself with a wealth of options - Classical homeschool in a box is a reality. OK I have to put it together from a couple of suppliers but its all there.

Along with it is a slowly dawning reality that Classical Education is not a one size fits all. Its not a simple case of taking a of living text books, a progym based writing program, grammar reinforced with Latin study, solid maths and logic texts and putting them together.

Classical Education, the trivium and the whole idea of mastery learning is something very different. At some point the aim is not just ticking the box and completing the exercise hoping that somewhere sometime it will all click together. It is a means of raising of a person to worship God, recognize what is truly good, true, and beautiful. To see God's footprints not just on a heart level but a full person. To honour God with our self control, ability to think, ability to hear and our growing knowledge about and of Him who we serve.

These beautiful new curriculum choices help heaps they really do. I have much more guidance than was available before, especially for my very unsteady writing skills. Sometimes though they leave me feeling unnecessarily stressed.

I am increasingly aware of how much I need to work through the issues of how to teach my trio, their strengths and weaknesses, their characters. I still need to nut through making the available resources fit us. I need to know when to use a text and when to write my own. Maybe I need to juggle three or four texts because some confuse us more than help us.

I hope the discussions, that I peeked at when my kids were small, that inspired me to walk down the classical path, can be revisited for a new generation of Mums. I also hope to enjoy the journey myself.