Our curriculum choices: a history

I know that the footer of this post will tell you, but today is October 26th, 2006. We have been doing "formal" education for six and a half weeks this year.

Is that really all it's been? Unbelievable.

It feels like much longer, honesty.

But not because it's going badly. Not at all. It's actually going quite well. Which leads me to believe that either we've finally found the way to do it, after 16 years of learning...or we're forgetting something.

For many years, I struggled with finding the "right" curriculum for our family.

We attempted using KONOS, which, while very interesting and entertaning, was utterly exhausting for me as a mother.

We took a short jaunt into The Weaver Curriculum, but I didn't like the huge focus on Biblical learning and the minor focus on academics.

We took a stab at the boxed curriculum; I couldn't afford the whole thing, but I took bits and pieces from it. It was hopelessly dry and boring.

We eventually forayed--or was it moseyed?--into eclectic, interest-led education, pulling from our daily questions to delve into answers. While this was the method that worked best for us, I always felt that we were missing something, that I had so many great books on our shelves that may never get into rotation. This sent me on a search of a supplemental literature-based program, not something to completely take over what we were doing, because I liked the eclectic approach; I just wanted something that gave us more time to read, and threw us more bang for our bookish buck.

This led me to Five in a Row, a literature-based curriculum that works on the precept that you read the book every day for five days in a row, finding something new and interesting about it with each day. Every day, you focus on another area of study: day one, you might discuss the art of the book; day two, you discuss the history of the setting; day three, you talk about the science; day four, you cover the math; day five, you discuss the geography, or the foreign culture, or whatever else you want to throw into the mix. We even took time to make meals of the culture, or go on field trips based on what we were reading. There's a great conversational explanation of it here.

We really liked Five in a Row. I especially liked the support that was offered on the website, the ideas that were given by other "Rowers", as they're called, on the message boards. But it still involved a lot of time at the library, quite a bit of planning, and too much homogenization of education for my widely-spaced, varied-interest kids. I did try the Above and Beyond Five in a Row for Bard, but we felt it wasn't in-depth enough, didn't have as much potential for being self-led as Bard wanted.

We tried Switched on Schoolhouse, an Alpha Omega Publications product that uses CD-Roms and computer time to teach the kids. While I liked this, and felt that it gave my children a sound basic education, I didn't like that they kids spent so much time on the computer, or that they spent so little time with me, and I definitely didn't like the bugs and glitches that sent Bard into fits of frustration when all of her grades were lost, or it kept assigning something she'd already finished. There were freezes and crashes and grading errors galour. Plus, having only one working computer made it difficult for the kids to work independently at their own paces because they had to wait for their turns. And we STILL didn't get to read all of that quality literature I had sitting on my shelves collecting dust, because I spent too much of my time waiting for tech support.

When we moved to the community we're now in, I decided that things were going to be a bit crazy, and I needed something simple, straightforward and thorough. Into my mailbox one day magically appeared a postcard for Ohio Virtual Academy, and that set my family and me into a downhill spiral of red tape, control and inflexibility that still almost brings me to tears when I think of it. It was not, in any way, the kind of thing that fit our lifestyle. If you're an on-the-go family who likes to spend more time in hands-on learning than clock-watching, OHVA is completely and totally not for you. After three months of going at it as hard as we could, I finally threw in the towel. It took us quite a bit of time to recover from those dark days. I still get angry when I see an online ad for OHVA that touts it as a "homeschool program." Go ahead--do a search on Ohio Virtual Academy, and you'll see it, too. And while you can pay for OHVA and be free of the restrictions and control, the big draw for most people is the "free" materials and use of a computer (still only one per family, so if you have multiple children doing the program, you'll have the bottlenecking that I experienced).

The one thing that my experience with OHVA did do for me was to remind me of what kind of education I did want for my children. It helped me to appreciate the freedom and flexibility of true homelearning, not just school at home, or public school without the bricks and mortar, but true, unencumbered, inhindered learning.

It was after that that we dove head-first into a fairly intensive stint into unschooling/eclectic learning and "Rowing," as Five in a Row is called. And it was shortly after that that we took a formal education hiatus in order to build our house, an educational experience in and of itself, and a wonderful one, at that.

But once the house was built and we'd begun to settle into our home, community and routine, it was time to go deeper. I had children of all ages, from two to fifteen, and we were all eager for more.

I had been exposed to classical education and the Charlotte Mason method by my dear friend Kathy. Kathy had sent me my very first package when we moved to the cabin, a box full of books on a wonderful Autumn day (or was it Spring?) which I spent the afternoon devouring on the hammock, Sweetheart curled up next to me. She had sent me A Charlotte Mason Companion and a book on how to keep a nature journal. And while it was all very intriguing, I didn't really entertain the thought of doing an entire Charlotte Mason curriculum.

Until last year.

Honestly, though, I don't remember what encouraged me, finally, to pursue a full curriculum using Ambleside Online. I did a lot of reading about classical education, the Trivium, etc, and I think I just lit on Charlotte Mason as the thing that most resonated with me.

So this is our second year using Ambleside, and I am really loving it. I enjoy the works that we read, mostly because I learn, either again or first the first time, so much from the selections. I like the grace of the thing, the easy pace of it. I like that it challenges us, yet inspires us, too.

And I don't look upon our lessons with dread. Instead, I'm happy to read aloud to the kids, or listen to what they're learning during their narrations. We cuddle up together and take off for adventures.

Mason's teachings have been a blessing to me, an encouragement to view the whole child and recall the magic of being young, discovering the beauty in everyday things.

I pray that all homelearners can enjoy their learning and their children.