Just how do you think you'll be able to...

teach your child at home?

I've given a lot of thought to that question. I've spent many hours reading books, looking up websites, organizing things...all the things that you are supposed to do when you begin to home educate.

I was first attracted by The Well-Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer. It's a complete curriculum in a book--everything is laid out for you and really all you need to do is buy or check out the products they mention. That part is great. Along with that is a conviction that we should not use textbooks for history and reading, but go to the sources. I totally agree with that and love the idea. But the hallmark of the classical education as they set it out are Latin and the Trivium. They write that everyone should study Latin before any other language. The Trivium is a way of studying history--start at the beginning and work your way to the end. (novel idea, I know). History goes in four year cycles, so ideally you would study the history of the world three times, progressing in thinking each time. That makes so much sense to me.

There are some problems I see though. Wise and Wise Bauer really want little kids to sit down and get to work at an early age. And although this is homeschooling, the schedules they present in their book have children sitting and working for hours on end. Which isn't why I want to keep Harry home. Also, I do not see the need for everyone to know and be fluent in Latin. It may be important to know the endings, but the language, not unless our kids are interested. Harry isn't, he really wants to learn Swedish.

That's one theory or method I've investigated. The other way of teaching is sort of diametrically opposed to The Well-Trained Mind. But at the same time, it can be adapted to work with it. In the 1800s a lady named Charlotte Mason opened a school in England. She advocated short lessons, narrations, and lots of time outside. She also didn't believe in textbooks, but in what she called, "living books." Living Books are those written by one person--so for example, instead of reading a text on how pioneers lived in the 1800s, you would read books written by people who were pioneers in the 1800s. Make sense? It does to me too.

In the end, there are parts of both methods I like. It think The Well-Trained Mind is too rigid and Charlotte Mason can be too loose, so I plan to use a combination of the two. And most of all have a really good time with my kids.