The Influences of Homeschooling
Rachael Alsbury | @fromfaye
HOME-BASED EDUCATION ISN’T ABOUT “DOING school at home.” It’s about freeing our children to learn in their own way, at their own pace, within the most natural conditions. With access to ideas from around the world, homeschooling has progressed to incorporate multiple pedagogical styles, in which we’re influenced by many approaches rather than limited by one. Just as we have the freedom to homeschool in the first place, we also have the freedom to adapt our approach to suit our teaching style, as well as the needs, learning styles, and personalities of our children.
While this is by no means an exhaustive study of the various methodologies, here are some of the more popular approaches that have influenced education over the past century and helped shape the values of what has become “the Wild + Free way.”
CLASSICAL
The classical approach to education is rooted in the ancient worlds of Greece and Egypt, developed into a pedagogy during the Middle Ages by Martianus Capella, championed by both Christian and secular scholars alike over the past hundred years, and upheld by many of the world’s scholars today. If the definition of education is the “cultivation of wisdom and virtue by nourishing the soul on truth, goodness, and beauty,” then a classical education takes on this endeavor by means of the seven liberal arts and four sciences.1
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According to this philosophy, children learn in three stages: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The early years (grades K–6) revolve around grammar, or language, at a time when children have a natural inclination for memorization through songs, chants, and rhymes. Children spend time absorbing the facts in various subjects such as science, math, geography, Latin, English grammar, history, and fine arts. This stage provides the foundation of all future education.
The logic stage is designed around a middle-grade child’s desire to know the “why” behind everything. At this age, students begin to challenge authority and become more argumentative, so educators use this stage to teach logic, reasoning, and how to argue eloquently. In short, they are taught to think for themselves and apply logic to every subject—be it writing, reading, math, science, or history.
The rhetoric stage, during the high school years, also reflects the appropriate development of the child, focusing on teaching teenagers how to use persuasive speech and effective writing. This is when students apply all the knowledge and logic they have learned during the previous learning phases, or when they “learn to express themselves,” as Susan Wise Bauer put it. This is the culmination of all the earlier years.
The classical approach focuses on providing a system for learning to take place, for teaching virtue, and for training the mind. Dorothy Sayers, a pioneer in the revival of classical education after its significant dwindling at the turn of the twentieth century, had a profound impact on furthering this philosophy, and many books, curriculums, and programs have been built on her influential words. She said, “Although we often succeed in teaching our pupils ‘subjects,’ we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think.”
Classical education may be thought of by some as an outdated method, and by others as too stringent. But proponents of this approach see no fault in either its ancient origins or its rigor.
In fact, these only enhance its meaning and purpose in society today.
Susan Wise Bauer was integral in making classical education approachable at home with her books The Well-Trained Mind and The Well-Educated Mind. She asserted that rigorous study provides a child with a system to both develop virtue, instead of lazy habits, and “join what Mortimer Adler calls the ‘Great Conversation’—the ongoing conversation of great minds down through the ages. Much modern education is so eclectic that the student has little opportunity to make connections between past events and the flood of current information.”2
While the method has a hierarchy and a systematic structure, neither rigidity nor constraint is at the heart of a true classical education. In earnest, this way of learning offers freedom to embrace the “less is more” mind-set of modern education and to diverge from the teaching of separate subjects.
According to the CiRCE Institute, the work of classical educators is to guide their students through the contemplation of great texts and works of art, “believing that such contemplation will enable them to grow in wisdom and virtue,” as well as to guide them in the “analysis of ideas via Socratic dialogue, believing that insight into the heart of things will enable students to grow in wisdom and virtue.”3
This is no easy feat, but fostering a lifestyle steeped in ideas is a worthy endeavor.
Over the past twenty years, there has been a resurgence of classical schools, as well as homeschooling resources to inspire the classical way of learning at home. Among others, the Well-Trained Mind Academy, founded by Bauer, and the CiRCE Institute, started by Andrew Kern, are two leading organizations that provide resources, curriculums, and seminars for classical educators.
Many homeschoolers also use Classical Conversations, a program developed by Leigh Bortins, an aerospace engineer turned stay-at-home mom. She started the program in 1997 with eleven students, and today more than 45,000 families are enrolled in local chapters around the world, making her program one of the most popular iterations of classical education today.4
Classical Conversations, or CC, as it is commonly called, provides a practical framework for families to use the classical approach at home while coming together once a week to learn collectively from a tutor. The program follows the trivium and divides students into three levels: Foundations (grammar), Essentials (logic), and Challenge (rhetoric).
Wild + Free mama Bre Chang explained each level using the metaphor of moving. “I would describe Foundations as ‘the packing phase.’ The child’s brain is like the moving truck. In the Foundations phase, you are filling up the truck as full as you can get it. The whole point of this phase is to fill up the truck. Essentials is ‘the unpacking phase.’ You take all of the info that was stored and start opening up those boxes, learning a bit more about what’s inside, until you figure out which room they belong in. Challenge is where you start forming opinions and take that box into the living room and decide what you want to keep, donate, and how you really feel about that interesting piece of art. You start making the house a home.”
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For many home educators, CC offers a structured study plan they can easily implement at home. It covers subjects such as science, math, geography, Latin, English grammar, history, fine arts, and public speaking. But the program itself is simply a means to the greater purpose, which is to instill in children the ability to grow in both knowledge and the expression of that knowledge, to pursue virtue and beauty, and to learn how to think.
In her book The Question, Bortins noted, “Humans long for relationship, and thinking together in an interesting way about hard things is very rewarding.”5 Classical Conversations aims to create a way for our children to do just that.
Studying Latin is an important part of classical education. While most modern educators believe Latin is outdated and has little use in a child’s education, classical enthusiasts argue the opposite. Not only do nearly all modern languages have Latin roots—over 50 percent of English vocabulary comes from Latin—it also reinforces learning the various parts of speech.
“I will say at once, quite firmly, that the best grounding for education is the Latin grammar,” Sayers wrote in The Lost Tools of Learning. “I say this, not because Latin is traditional and medieval, but simply because even a rudimentary knowledge of Latin cuts down the labor and pains of learning almost any other subject by at least fifty percent. It is the key to the vocabulary and structure of all the Romance languages and to the structure of the Teutonic languages, as well as to the technical vocabulary of all the sciences and to the literature of the entire Mediterranean civilization, together with all its historical documents.”6
Many would argue that the reasons for studying Latin go much deeper still. Andrew Kern, founder of the CiRCE Institute, said there is a difference between the benefits and the purpose of studying Latin. The benefits, while many, are lost without an understanding of the purpose—which is to learn and know Latin. Kern explained it this way:
It’s not that everybody needs to learn Latin and Greek, only those who will engage in politics, law, theology, medicine, entertainment, philosophy, education, natural science, ethics, and the learned professions. Not every society needs to be permeated by people who know Latin and Greek, only those that love freedom and truth. I have no idea if Latin and Greek are innately superior to other languages. I only know that they are the languages in which people thought about the things listed above for over 2000 years. To lose that heritage is to become impoverished, homeless, and destitute.7
There is a reason why volumes of books have been written about classical education. Like most pedagogies, and maybe more so, it is difficult to condense into a brief summary. However, like other methodologies, it has many beautiful things to offer and deep meaning for those who pursue it.
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Elsie Iudicello is a student of classical pedagogy and a director of Classical Conversations. She wrote, “Classical education changed the purpose of education for my family. We no longer looked at school work as dissected subjects, each separate and unrelated from the other. Learning became whole, harmonious and integrated. Math was a part of history and science and music and geography, each pouring into the other. Everything we encountered had a story and an origin and a meaning to us as individuals and as part of humanity. We walked away from the frantic cultural obsession of teaching as much material as possible, as early as possible, and instead focused on engaging deeply with fewer subjects, ‘multum non multas,’ in our own time. Best of all, we found the heart of our education in learning to cultivate wisdom and virtue. We are not learning for the purpose of churning out workers trained for one specific job. We are nurturing souls and anchoring them to truth, goodness and beauty. This is learning for the soul and not the machine.”8
It’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae of educational philosophies, but it’s more beneficial to see each one through the lens of the heart.
Andrew Kern reminds us, “Children are souls to be nurtured, not products to be measured.”
And may they always be.
MONTESSORI
In 1936, an Italian educator named Maria Montessori stated in her book The Secret of Childhood that “the first aim of the prepared environment is, as far as it is possible, to render the growing child independent of the adult.” Breaking conventions and becoming the first female doctor in Italy, Montessori wasn’t one to look down on children for their youth. She believed they were capable of doing much more than society believed they could do.
Montessori espoused that the hand is the chief teacher of the child. Her experience in working with disabled children in free clinics allowed her to see the natural curiosity and intelligence within children—they wanted to touch and feel everything, especially the instruments she used to test intelligence. She began using these instruments as learning tools with the children and experienced great success.9 As a result, she ended up opening her own school, but she never claimed credit for creating the Montessori approach to education.
“It is not true that I invented what is called the Montessori Method,” she said. “I have studied the child; I have taken what the child has given me and expressed it, and that is what is called the Montessori Method.”10
Her core principles of education included freedom, order, beauty, nature, reality, and the social and intellectual environment. She said that education was a “natural process carried out by the child and is not acquired by listening to words but by experiences in the environment” and that our senses are like “explorers of the world” opening the door to learning.
Today, Montessori classrooms are peaceful environments that offer a variety of spaces for children to learn and play—both independently and with one another. Children are free to move about the different spaces, cleaning up after themselves, while learning to interact with their peers by sharing, playing together, and dealing with conflict.
An important aspect of Montessori is that there is no focal point in the classroom, allowing for the environment as a whole to provide stimulation, and everything is scaled to a child’s size—from furniture and shelving to art easels and wash stations. Often, there is only one item of each material, so children are working alone, waiting their turn to use certain items. While one child might be using knobbed cylinders, four are working together on a “world flags map” puzzle on the floor. Or three kids might be painting at an easel station while a few others are preparing the snack. All work, as Montessori preferred to call it, supports the child’s need for free choice, hands-on activities, and independence.
The outdoor environment is equally important, and children spend a considerable amount of time playing in nature as a vital aspect of engaging the whole child.
Homeschooling mama Jessica Mueller described it this way: “The Montessori method is a holistic approach to educating the child based on observation and following the child’s interests and abilities, rooted in hands-on materials and activities.”
She said a few tenets of the philosophy are “to follow the child, freedom within limits, a prepared environment, respect and order, nature and reality, and abstaining from rewards.”
Jessica was first introduced to Montessori in college when one of her education professors laughed at the philosophy, describing it as a “free-for-all environment with no structure where kids did whatever they wanted without intervention.”
Jessica said, “Of course, that sounds like a ridiculous way to educate children, but out of necessity, I ended up teaching as an assistant in a primary Montessori classroom. As I began to experience Montessori firsthand and research it on my own, seeing the children interact, learn, and truly enjoy the experience, I knew it was what I wanted for my own children.”
The Montessori method is primarily a school-based approach to learning because the environment plays a central role in the learning process, along with an abundance of sensory-rich materials. Additionally, the classroom is a necessary part of implementing the method wholly.
According to Eve Hermann, a Montessori-inspired homeschooler in France, “Maria Montessori imagined classes composed of different ages and with at least 30 children. It was not an option, but a necessary component for the proper functioning of the whole. She thought that the life of the class should reflect the society, like a hive, where every child works at his own construction, but also the good of all. This is why it is challenging to reproduce a Montessori environment at home.”
Still, many parents, like Eve, choose to educate their children using the principles of Montessori despite being unable to recreate the classroom at home in its purest form. After all, purchasing expensive materials and strictly adhering to all aspects of the methodology isn’t necessary to begin adopting the ideas of Maria Montessori.
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Many mamas allow the philosophy of Montessori to guide their parenting, as well as their homeschool style, especially in the early years. There are lots of ways to create an environment at home that encourages children to take responsibility for their own learning and empowers them to become independent thinkers, creative problem solvers, risk takers, and respectful members of the community.
For example, parents might set aside spaces in their main living areas just for their children. By allowing them to bring their toys into the same space instead of banishing them to a playroom, we remind them that they are important and welcome in any environment.
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Child-size shelving for toys and books, organized baskets, and trays make it easy for a child to see what is available and clean up appropriately. Open shelving for clothes that children can access is another element that is simple to implement within the home. The purpose isn’t to create child-friendly environments for ease alone but to empower children to make choices, organize their items, and put them away appropriately.
Montessori believed that education was preparation for life, so she created an environment that was rich in sensory materials to allow children to experience the world around them. Through hands-on learning, children can explore a variety of subjects, such as math, language, science, geography, cultural studies, art, and music.
Gathering a collection of beautifully crafted toys and learning materials can take time, but it isn’t impossible. The best way to start is by secondhand shopping, nature scavenging, and homemaking. Remember, you are creating an extension of your home, not building a stand-alone classroom, so quality over quantity is key.
In addition to the child-centered environments and well-crafted materials, many home educators love the approach that Montessori takes with math. It uses beautiful and tangible manipulatives to give children a visual representation of mathematical concepts.
Jessica shared that this was one reason she was drawn to this philosophy. “Maria Montessori believed ‘the hand is the chief teacher of the brain,’ and the materials are designed to move from concrete to abstract,” she wrote.
“For example, to teach exchanging ones to tens, tens to hundreds, and hundreds to thousands, we use beads,” Jessica continued. “A unit bead represents the ones, ten unit beads are exchanged for a 10-bar (ten beads strung together), ten 10-bars equal a 100-square (ten 10-bars), and ten 100-squares equal a 1,000-cube. So instead of simply seeing a one with a bunch of zeros, the child can see and work with the physical quantity of the number.”
Another friend of mine, Michelle Garrels, incorporated a Montessori approach at home when she didn’t see a natural inclination for math in one of her children.
“We had tried three other math curricula, and daily lessons were frequently met with groans,” Michelle said. “I was familiar with much of the Montessori hands-on approach and the effect on brain development through some of the language arts materials we’d been using.”
She loved the approach of learning the process first through tactile means, paving the way for memorization work later on, which is the opposite of most traditional math approaches.
Michelle said her child is thoroughly an artist, so she knew the natural beauty of the Montessori math materials and their tactile nature would be the right fit.
“I knew somehow this was my only chance to make math resonate,” Michelle said, “by making it beautiful, playful, and touchable.”
A Montessori-based curriculum focuses on mastery over memorization. It allows the child to learn at his own pace, regardless of age, so that he will move on to the next level only after he has mastered the material. This is why you’ll often see various ages within the same Montessori classroom, which could be encouraging to the homeschooling mother of multiple ages. The one-room schoolhouse isn’t a problem to be solved but a more practical way of learning.
Whether your goal is applying the Montessori method at home or simply understanding its philosophy so you can grow in your knowledge of educational models, it’s impossible to deny the powerful impact that this passionate and profound thinker has had on early childhood development. If you take anything from this method, it’s that children are worthy of our respect—both as human beings and as natural learners. In the words of Maria herself, “The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child’s own desire to learn.”
Nothing more and nothing less.
CHARLOTTE MASON
At the turn of the twentieth century, an English educator named Charlotte Mason began sharing her vision for giving children a wide and liberal education. In her book A Philosophy of Education, she observed, “An education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.”
This revolutionary statement is woven throughout all six of her volumes, laying the foundation for homes, families, and schools to build upon. It is also the motto that contributes highly in the ongoing work of Charlotte Mason education throughout the world.
Homeschooling mama Leah Boden, known by many in the Wild + Free community as the “Modern Miss Mason,” explained it this way: “Miss Mason hands us three tools, or ‘instruments’ as she refers to them, to hinge our educating days upon. One does not outweigh the other but they evenly build a strong foundation on which to create an educated life. The ‘Atmosphere’ sets the tone; not so much the visual aesthetics of a house but moreover, the intentional or unintentional ethos that defines a family. ‘Discipline’ describes the taught rhythms and habits that bring longevity, strength and consistency to our days. And the ‘Life’ aspect of the motto pertains to the fuel (books) that feed a mind resulting in great ideas.”
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Mason’s philosophies on education were shaped by her faith in God and her teaching experiences at a time when children were often dismissed in society, meant to be “seen but not heard.” She maintained that children are “born persons,” who should be treated as individuals and given the opportunity to have a full and rich education. From faith and habits to narration and nature study, her educational philosophy is replete with rich insights and practical applications and is used by thousands of homeschoolers around the world today, faith based and secular alike.
She was a teacher but believed that teaching got in the way of children’s own self-discovery, so she encouraged giving children access to ideas and allowing them to do the thinking for themselves. She believed that providing children with an array of texts, hands-on experiences, and ample time to play freely would foster their imaginations and enable them to learn to think for themselves and understand the world in which they live.
Mason came up with the metaphor of “laying a feast” before children and allowing their minds to do the work of digestion. Boden said, “This is possibly one of the most powerful metaphors that Charlotte Mason uses with regards to the generous curriculum that we provide for our children. If all the best thought the world possesses is really stored in books, then our children deserve an abundance of literature and lives to inspire and feed their hungry minds; but not stored on our shelves collecting dust.”
The image Boden conjures is one of delicacies strewn about the house in the form of great literature, nature study, art, music, handicrafts, and environments that foster learning.
“Our children need to hear these stories and ideas read aloud, have them scattered around our homes and piled up in baskets and on tables as we gather to learn,” Boden said. “The feast is a collection of ideas, experiences and stories that nourish our children’s heads and hearts with adventure and intrigue. The feast is a ‘help yourself’ offering of goodness and beauty brought to the child’s eyes, hand, and mind by what we provide throughout their learning days.”
Mason wanted to spark children’s inner desire to learn, not bore them to death, so she advised using short lessons to awaken their enthusiasm—15 minutes for elementary students, 30 minutes for middle grades, and 45 minutes for higher grades—and then moving on to another subject before they grew weary. For her, the goal of education was not “How much has our child covered?” but “How much does he care?” and “About how many things does he care?”
To this end, she believed children should be left alone and that habit training was key to helping them take charge of their own education. If they formed healthy habits when they were young, they could become self-directed learners when they got older.
She said, “The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days.” She resisted the idea of “teasing them with perpetual commands and direction” and preferred to let them go their own way and grow.
Today, rather than using textbooks, Charlotte Mason home educators read “living books,” a phrase Mason coined to describe high-quality literature that would both ignite the imagination and give children a foundation in reading and writing. They include inspiring stories, quality writing, and admirable characters and individuals that children can emulate, breathing life into children and adults alike.
Wild + Free mama Amy Seegers summarized the Charlotte Mason method as “a learning style rich in art, history, nature, character building, and the Bible.” She said she chose it for her family because it fit their style of learning and love of good books, art, and nature.
“For us,” Seegers said, “it’s getting out of the house and learning about the world around us, whether it’s checking the ditches on our gravel road for milkweed, kayaking and stopping at every sandbar to find animal bones, or trying to catch the biggest fish, only to realize it was spawning, and then going home to watercolor or journal it all.”
The Charlotte Mason method also encourages the practice of handicrafts, which is any activity that engages one’s hands, requires a level of learned skill, encourages children to do their best work, and produces an end product that is useful. A few examples are woodworking, sewing, scrapbooking, crocheting, oil painting, leather tooling, quilting, pottery, calligraphy, knitting, flower arranging, and iron sculpting. Mason was passionate about helping children learn useful skills so they would always have a way to earn a living when they were older.
“My favorite thing about handicrafts is it doesn’t feel like you are learning,” Seegers said, “but you are. We’ve carved wood, sewed, learned how to latch hook, knitted, crocheted, and water-colored. I love showing my kids there is a deep satisfaction in making things with their hands.”
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Nature study is another tenet of a Charlotte Mason education. She recommended that families spend several hours a day—six, to be exact—outdoors. She even encouraged mothers living in the city to make this a priority by taking a train to the country or walking to a nearby park at least once a week.
In her book For the Children’s Sake, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay wrote that “Charlotte Mason’s ideal world for children had nature at the doorstep. She felt that organized lessons should only take up the morning, so that children could freely play in and enjoy the gardens, meadows, woods, and lanes of England every afternoon.”11
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Charlotte Mason was a revolutionary educator who influenced not only schools but also mothers who educated their children at home. She wanted to set mothers and children free to learn according to their way. She believed in the role of mothers in raising lifelong self-educators. Nearly 150 years ago, she wrote, “There is nothing which a mother cannot bring her child up to.”
And I couldn’t agree more.
WALDORF
The Waldorf model of education was developed by artist, scientist, and spiritual philosopher Rudolf Steiner in the twentieth century, in the aftermath of World War I. Steiner was asked to create an educational model that would “promote peace among humankind.” The first Waldorf school opened in 1919 for employees at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart, Germany.12
Steiner sought to educate the whole child—body, mind, and spirit. And the Waldorf curriculum is designed to mirror the basic stages of development from childhood to adulthood—moving from discovery of the world during the early years into artistic endeavors in the middle grades, and then into a scientific attitude during the high school years.13
Unlike many pedagogies, the Waldorf method focuses heavily on the imaginative aspects of a child. Developed at a time when education focused mainly on the physical world, this philosophy offered a holistic approach that was missing from children’s learning experiences.
Today, there are over a thousand Waldorf schools around the world, and many homeschoolers use a Waldorf curriculum at home. Artistic presentation is a core value, so Waldorf-inspired classrooms and homeschools are infused with natural materials, child-led play, and various aspects of art, music, and movement. Many Waldorf practitioners set up seasonal displays, from chalkboards and nature tables to inspirational playthings and reading materials.
Ideally, all lessons are taught through storytelling and artistic expression and address the whole child. Every subject is integrated into the Waldorf curriculum, from math to science to spelling, and even the academic material is mostly presented through stories and images.
Wild + Free mama Rachel Kovac has been studying the Waldorf method since her fourteen-year-old was just a baby. She’s now been homeschooling for six years and has found it to be a perfect fit for her family’s lifestyle. She wrote, “A Waldorf education is a holistic education that seeks to nourish the whole child, body, mind and soul in an unhurried environment. Through beautiful stories that cultivate virtue, imaginative play, handwork, and integrating the arts throughout the curriculum, children develop a joy-filled and life-long love of learning.”
At the heart of Waldorf pedagogy is the emphasis on imagination in learning and on infusing the intellectual, practical, and artistic development of children in a holistic manner. As a result, there’s a big emphasis on fairy tales, myths, and stories that invoke the imagination.
Steiner wrote, “The need for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility—these are the three forces which are the very nerve of education.”
Another aspect at the core of the Waldorf philosophy is its aim to preserve and safeguard childhood. The understanding is that young children are not drawn into precocious intellectualism, so formal academic instruction is not recommended in the first stage of development.
Kovac put it this way: “Children have their entire lives to dedicate themselves to formal learning, but only this short window where they can be so immersed in the magical realm of imagination and deeply absorbed in play.”
But that doesn’t mean academics aren’t important. As such, Waldorf educators aim to cultivate a child’s intellectual, emotional, and physical beings at the same time. They call this the Head, Heart, Hands model, and as in the schools, Waldorf homeschoolers create a daily rhythm that is based on activities that nurture their child’s head, heart, and hands.
For example, morning time usually focuses on academic main lessons, including grammar and math. When children need a mental break in the middle of the day, the focus turns to the heart or an activity that reaches them at the emotional level, such as music, art, or nature study. Finally, the afternoon is for hand-centered activities. Handicrafts or handiwork helps channel the energy of children while teaching them a skill, such as sewing, cooking, or building.
Wild + Free homeschooler DeAnna McCasland said, “For my family, Waldorf has been so much more than just a way to educate my children. It has been a positive lifestyle change as well. It is about peaceful parenting, getting back to simplicity and nature, and nurturing the child as a whole. The focus isn’t just on their minds, but also on their hands and hearts. I want my children to know how to grow their own food and knit a hat just as much as I want them to understand long division.”
Another unique aspect of Waldorf education is that students don’t read textbooks or use workbooks. Rather, they create their own lesson books, one for every subject. They draw from the activities, stories, images, discussions, and experiences of the day and document what they are learning through their own pictures and words. There are no grades or tests, but students are encouraged to do their best work while given freedom to make it their own.
McCasland explained how this applies to language arts in her homeschooling. “Children learn the upper-case alphabet in kindergarten. So the night before the main lesson, we read a fairy tale at bedtime that relates to our new letter. The following morning, we discuss the fairy tale, and I introduce the letter and a chalkboard drawing that relates to the story and connects all of this back to the letter. The children draw their own version of the letter and connect it to the story in the main lesson book. For the rest of the week we practice writing the letter while out on nature walks in the dirt, made out of sticks or other nature findings. We bake bread in the shape of the letter or mold it out of beeswax. The child also plays games and draws the letters on my hand or back while I guess what it is and vice versa. There is also another game we play where I dust flour out on the grass in the shape of the letter and the child ‘walks’ the letter with their entire body. Poetry is introduced early on, and they grasp the sound of the letter by reciting poems and rhymes. This one lesson goes far beyond just putting it in their heads. We incorporate the hands and the heart as well.”
Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy of education was based on his spiritual philosophy, called anthroposophy, a formal educational, therapeutic, and creative system he developed that aimed “to use mainly natural means to optimize physical and mental health and well-being.”14 It focuses on the connection all humans have to the past, the natural world, and each other. It is not a religion per se but rather strives to bridge science, art, and religion into one approach.
While it is controversial to some that Steiner used his own spiritual views as the basis for Waldorf education, others choose to see the beauty of its pedagogy and separate the man from the method. Although anthroposophical views inspired the framework of its curriculum, the philosophy itself is not taught to children in most Waldorf schools.
Aside from the artistic and imaginative components, the phases of child development, the importance of establishing rhythms, the creation of main lesson books, and the methodology, the Waldorf method focuses significantly on the role of the teacher.
Steiner believed teachers played a key role in children’s lives—both individually and as a whole. He believed in empowering teachers to use their natural gifts and insights and that they must cultivate their own imaginations if they were to help their students do the same. This could be done through research, meditation, and artistic expression.15
He also took an unconventional view when it came to teacher qualifications.
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Kovac shared this about the role of teachers in Waldorf schools: “Rudolf Steiner did not specifically seek conventionally trained teachers to instruct at Waldorf schools. Instead he looked for inner qualities within the individual, and his teachers came from all walks of life.”
“The first quality he looked for was a knowledge of child development in general,” she said. “The second was an unending willingness to ceaselessly work on one’s own inner development. The third was a desire to know and understand each particular child as an individual.”
Steiner himself put it this way: “Where is the book in which the teacher can read about what teaching is? The children themselves are this book. We should not learn to teach out of any book other than the one lying open before us and consisting of the children themselves.”
Indeed. Children are the curriculum.
REGGIO EMILIA
Reggio Emilia is a philosophy of early education that allows children to direct their own learning and express themselves in a multitude of ways besides speaking and writing—all in the context of relationships with other children and their surroundings. It was formed near the Italian city of the same name by a psychologist named Loris Malaguzzi in the aftermath of World War II.
This unique educational approach was introduced to the world in 1991 when a preschool in Reggio Emilia was listed as one of the top ten preschools internationally. Because the methodology argues that the location and community are fundamental for children’s unique learning, any schools outside of Reggio Emilia that adopt its philosophies are considered “Reggio-inspired.” They receive training in guiding their students but are encouraged to adapt to the needs of their individual communities. As a result, no two schools will ever look alike.
At the core of this approach is respecting children and their ability to be capable and active participants in their own learning. It is up to the teacher or parent to prepare the learning-rich environment and give thoughtful attention to their students’ ideas and observations while allowing them to learn through the experiences of touching, moving, listening, and observing. Parents and teachers are colearners with the children.
Malaguzzi believed that teaching and learning shouldn’t “stand on opposite banks and just watch the river flow by; instead, they should embark together on a journey down the water. Through an active, reciprocal exchange, teaching can strengthen learning how to learn.”16
The goal is not to give children the answers but to encourage exploration, curiosity, and discussion. By documenting their thinking, showing interest in their ideas, asking questions, and providing materials for study, the goal is to help children learn to solve problems by discovery. Doing otherwise, they say, robs kids of the chance to develop perseverance and ingenuity.
Reggio teachers are encouraged to take on the role of colearner, being curious alongside their children and allowing mistakes to occur or initiating projects without a clear objective. In the midst of exploration, teachers interact with their students, listening carefully to their ideas, drawing them out through conversation, and respectfully repeating back the students’ thoughts or theories. They often encourage children to represent their ideas in a physical form, as one of many expressions.
Sometimes a single question can lead to a widening body of exploration through dialogue and activity. In her book Bringing Reggio Emilia Home, Louise Boyd Cadwell explained it this way: “The first process causes the next, and then the next, like ever-widening concentric circles caused by a pebble dropped in a pond.”17
Many homeschoolers have implemented a Reggio-inspired approach to their children’s education and adapted the principles to fit their home culture. There is no preplanned curriculum, which can feel too ambiguous for some, but it offers children the freedom to pursue their own interests and can accommodate all ages and learning styles. With a focus on early childhood, this approach aims to value and nurture the whole child and all the child’s capacities to learn.
Homeschooler Amanda Johns said that with a Reggio-inspired approach, “learning comes from the process unfolding organically. It’s about the journey, not the destination.”
The net result is weaving learning into life, with no need to separate the two.
Reggio Emilia teaches that speaking and writing are just a small part of how children make sense of the world and share their ideas. Given enough time, resources, and opportunity, children can make sense of the world and share their ideas through “one hundred languages.”
“Pens, paper, and paint are not just for creating artwork,” Johns said, “but can be an infinite database of language with which to help thoughts and ideas materialize.”
The environment is just as important as the instruction. In the schools, two teachers are present, and the environment is considered the third teacher. The classroom is infused with natural light, organic materials, and beautiful, high-quality art supplies meant to inspire and invite children to explore with all of their senses and “languages.”
But the environment also pertains to the geographic location and the community at large. Both have much to offer in where and how learning unfolds. This aspect is especially appealing to Johns, who said, “As homeschoolers, we have a great advantage to be able to be out in our community and in nature learning.”
Homeschoolers who implement this philosophy at home start by creating a culture that respects the child’s role as a learner. Parents provide ample time and materials, encourage exploration, ask thoughtful and open-ended questions, and allow the child to lead, at least some of the time. But they act more as a facilitator than a teacher.
As educators, parents must also be learners and allow the children to see them learning new things and nurturing their own souls. They get out in nature, exploring their community and discovering all there is to learn around them.
As a way to rebuild (literally and figuratively) after World War II, Malaguzzi developed this approach to value beauty, creativity, and the uniqueness of every child. He said, “Our task, regarding creativity, is to help children climb their own mountains, as high as possible. No one can do more.”18 At such a broken time in history, this educational model allowed children to lead the way in their own education while the adults took a back seat as sole imparters of knowledge.
This was more than just good pedagogy. It was an important reminder that children had something valuable to teach us as well. By focusing on experience-based, play-based, and interest-led learning, the Reggio Emilia approach gave children the freedom to chase wonder once again.
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It’s easy to see why this approach is gaining popularity around the world, especially as parents have begun seeing the pitfalls of the modern educational system. While the principles of Reggio Emilia were designed for early childhood, implementing these ideas at home in the early years can help shape the culture and learning environment as children grow. This approach can establish the foundation for all future education, regardless of pedagogy, at home or otherwise.
For families looking for concrete methodology with corresponding curriculums, this approach may not be as practical as others. But there is beauty in its open-ended pedagogy, and, regardless of style, becoming collaborators with our children in their education is a great starting point for any home-educating family.
UNSCHOOLING
Unschooling is less of an educational methodology and more of an educational theory that advocates for children to learn and grow by following their own interests without school or curriculum. The term was coined in the 1970s by educator and author John Holt as a twist to the popular 7 Up “Uncola” advertising campaign. Considered the father of unschooling, Holt was a teacher and advocate of school reform until he finally decided that true reform was not possible and turned his efforts to home education.
Holt defined unschooling as “learning and teaching that does not resemble school learning and teaching”19 and called on parents to join him in liberating their children from formal education.
It was around this time that Dr. Raymond Moore, a Christian psychologist, also began advocating for homeschooling as a response to state-funded preschools and the push for earlier formal education. During the 1970s, Holt and Moore worked together to create the modern homeschooling movement, set up legal assistance for parents, and unite both secular and religious homeschoolers across America.
Many continued to follow Holt’s unconventional ideas of freeing our children to learn without the constraints of formal education and allowing them to follow their interests. They distinguished themselves from the more traditional homeschoolers, resisting the idea of doing “school at home” by using the esteemed educator’s term unschooling to define their efforts.
Holt’s theories are based on years of observing students in Boston schools and homes. He espoused that “living is learning and when kids are living fully and energetically and happily they are learning a lot, even if we don’t know what it is.” In his book How Children Learn, he cites story after story of working with children and observing them in their own element. He said the key to children’s learning was to trust them and the natural process that unfolded as they grew.
At a time when opting out of school was considered truancy in most states, Holt advocated for parents’ rights. He believed that “people should be free to find or make the kinds of educational experience they want their children to have.”
The unschooling approach is guided by the belief that learning happens all the time and that it cannot and should not be forced. Likewise, children cannot learn when they feel unsafe, shamed, or judged. As a result, unschooled children are free to go their own way, learn what they want, and discover new interests. Parents are there to support, guide, help them develop skills, and provide materials for them to explore.
This theory supports children making decisions for themselves—from what time they wake up and what they learn to how they spend their time and when they go to bed. It’s about respecting children to know what they need. Parents understand that children can’t do everything by themselves, so they are present to help them do things on their own, become self-directed learners, and attain the skills necessary for a successful life.
Wild + Free mama Louise Gibbens explained it this way: “Unschooling is really an entire way of life. It’s about trusting that learning is natural and happening all of the time. True learning doesn’t require coercion, nor should it be tedious or difficult. It’s not about being taught or filled to the brim with knowledge, ready to take an exam, or reach a goal.”
As a lifestyle, she continued, “learning should be fun, interesting, and meaningful. How we learn is as individual and unique as how we look. The real beauty of unschooling is that it takes all of this into account. It’s a process that is truly child-centered and driven by interests.”
When Gibbens brought her son home and began unschooling, it was an adjustment for both of them. “For quite some time after coming out of school, my unschooled eight-year-old was convinced that he wasn’t learning anything. He was, of course, but all of a sudden, his learning wasn’t forced or dictated, and he often had little or nothing to show for it on paper. Instead, he was doing the things he loved and was free to play.” And now, she said, “The learning has become so much a part of the everyday that it’s impossible to separate it from everything else.”
Another principle of unschooling is that learning must be meaningful. Just as learning cannot be forced, “real” learning cannot occur when a person doesn’t see the point or when they don’t know how the information relates or is useful in the “real world.”20
Author Lori Pickert believes that even very young children “have the capacity for inventive thought and decisive action. They have worthwhile ideas. They make perceptive connections. They’re individuals from the start: a unique bundle of interests, talents, and preferences. They have something to contribute. They want to be a part of things.”
Our children don’t want meaningless tasks or time-filling busywork. They crave meaningful work to connect their ideas and fully express their creativity.
To learn how to do something, Pickert asserts, “we need something real to focus on—not a task assigned by someone else, but something we want to create, something we want to understand. Not an empty exercise but a meaningful, self-chosen undertaking.”
Unschooling practices vary from family to family, as well as the degree to which they are used. The reality is that about 50 percent of homeschoolers embrace some variety of unschooling, ranging anywhere from an “extreme hands-off approach to a moderate balance of incorporating self-directed learning while still setting some limits and goals for their children’s education.”21
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A common misconception about unschooling is that because there is no structured learning time, unschooling families are lazy and undisciplined. Sometimes I’ll hear a mother laughingly suggest that they are unschooling when they aren’t able to fit in their regular subjects.
But for actual unschoolers, this approach is anything but negligent. And they would argue that unschooling isn’t just an educational approach but a lifestyle. Parents and children who choose to unschool are both thoughtful and intentional about the activities and projects in which they engage, as well as the lack of rules and the focus on self-governing principles. Every decision is purposeful, even if it appears careless to outsiders.
Unschooling parent and former publisher of Holt’s magazine, Growing Without Schooling, Patrick Farenga said he broadly defined unschooling “as allowing your children as much freedom to explore the world around them in their own ways as you can comfortably bear; I see unschooling in the light of partnership, not in the light of the dominance of a child’s wishes over a parent’s or vice versa.”22
Still it can be difficult to discuss unschooling with critics. Without structured work, test scores, and a defined community, unschoolers often bear the brunt of criticism from outsiders.
Gibbens shared, “The hardest part about unschooling has been an unspoken pressure to prove to our close family, and even my husband at times, that the children are learning.” But, she confirms, “They will learn what they need to, when they need to, and that, at times, this may be ahead of their schooled peers, and certain skills might develop later on.”
Having a structured school day is just one way for children to learn. The standards that measure a student’s performance can be the very ones that hold them back. Unschooling wasn’t designed to hold children back. On the contrary, the intention is to help them soar.
BEAUTIFUL HOMESCHOOLING
The beautiful part about homeschooling is that we don’t have to choose just one method, not for our own family and not even for each child. The best approach to homeschooling is one that suits our own personalities, our children’s personalities, and how we best learn together. It should reflect not only our own interests but also the interests and gifts of our children.
Adopting parts of the various methods is valuable for some people, just as diving into one is meaningful for others. If we can discover that magical spark in a single pedagogy, great. But understanding all of them or adhering to a specific style is not necessary to homeschool well. Remember, we homeschool because of the freedom it offers us.
It’s also wise to remember that every method of education was designed for a certain group of people at a specific time in history. Howard Gardner, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, wrote, “No matter how ideal an educational model or system, it is always rooted in local conditions. One could no more transport the Diana School of Reggio to New England than one could transport John Dewey’s New England schoolhouse to the fields of Emilia Romagna. But just as we can now have ‘museums without walls’ that allow us to observe art work from all over our world, so, too, we can now have ‘schoolhouses without walls’ that allow us to observe educational practices as they have developed around the globe.”23
You may start with one approach but discover that it’s not right for your children. Or it might conflict with how you best teach your kids, your temperament, or your environment. Homeschooling can be a miserable experience when you’re trying to do it someone else’s way.
If something is not working in your household, don’t be afraid to scrap it and try a different approach. When you figure out the best fit for your family, learning becomes a joy.
Wild + Free mama Amy Hughes talked about her shift from Charlotte Mason to unschooling and back again after she realized her younger children needed something different.
“For six years, I immersed myself in reading the six volumes of Mason’s books,” Hughes said. “I graduated my first homeschool student who had a full six years of a Charlotte Mason education and sent him off to college.”
Hughes was a Charlotte Mason purist who had planned to do the same thing with her other kids until, one day, her eleven-year-old daughter threw the book Madam How and Lady Why against the wall and exclaimed, “I hate this book! Why can’t I ever have a break?!”
My friend was stunned. It took her back to a time in her own childhood when she had threatened to run away from home with a note that read, “Because I’m not an adult and I can’t have a break.” She had been determined never to let her kids feel that way, but there was no denying what she was hearing. Hughes had planned out their days, their months, and their years. She had checklists and deadlines and even planned their summers and never took a break from math.
“I just couldn’t believe I had unwittingly put us in this position when I had set out to homeschool for freedom from the very beginning,” Hughes said.
She read everything she could on unschooling, told her kids there would be no more school, and “dove completely into the realm of absolute freedom for everyone.” They played outside, read the books they wanted to read, and spent hours at the library, the park, and the beach.
And then, after about two months, boredom set in. They stayed home for longer periods of time. The kids started picking on each other and complaining. And the same daughter who had thrown that book at the wall two months earlier now begged her mother for something to do.
So Hughes pulled out the schedules again, made a few adjustments, and picked up right where they had left off. “I noticed something, though,” Amy said. “My kids dove into their lessons with a voracious appetite. They were excited to be immersed back in their books. Their narrations were long and descriptive. They didn’t even mind doing math. It was like that two months had refreshed and renewed them, bringing joy back into their lessons.”
Today, Hughes doesn’t consider herself an unschooler or a Charlotte Mason home educator because she goes back and forth between the two approaches. She joked that she doesn’t mention this to many people because of how passionate the purists from both sides can be.
Sometimes it’s good to try something new because we might discover a better fit for our families. But at other times, it just might confirm that we’ve been on the right path all along.
Homeschooling is about freedom. But not freedom just to do things the way we want. It’s also about freedom for our children. Let’s not hold on to our methodologies so tightly that we forget the reason we’re doing this in the first place. Children are born persons, after all.