Pros and Cons of My Favorite Homeschooling Methods

I have loved the feel and spirit of the Charlotte Mason approach for years, but there have been a few ideals that have kept me questioning if we could really pull it off.  I'm coming at it from a perfectionist perspective, so of course it took some outside "permission" to realize that one of the benefits of homeschooling is that I get to customize my children's education; I am not strictly tied to a single approach.  That said, there's a wonderful article that really articulates for me what I found wanting with the idealized Charlotte Mason approach, and the nuggets of wisdom I pulled out of it are below.

CM is a champion of living books, ie. real literature, not watered down so-called "twaddle" that merely scratches the surface of any given topic.  I fully agree, with two caveats.  1) I nonetheless see the value of having a history and science "spine text" to give our educational goals a sense of direction, with the subjects touched on here being generously expanded upon precisely by living books. 2) The second caveat is rather new to me as I try to make sense of what exactly it means to lead a Christ-centered life, but the article brings up as valid food for thought: not all so-called classic literature is actually Christian-friendly.  So it's not enough to just read living books over texts, or the unabridged versions over the watered-down ones, or ancient texts over modern ones.  There really needs to be discernment as to which books provide both the academic content and support the virtues and morals we want to uphold in our family.

Narration, copy-work, and dictation are seen as THE way to teach language arts in the CM method, over any sort of grammar instruction.  While I believe all three of these are great ways to enforce spelling, grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, capitalization, penmanship, and even thought organization, I agree with the article that there's no reason to do this to the exclusion of formal instruction.  I see formal instruction as a way to catch would-be loop-holes in skill, rather than wondering around leisurely without a guide to lead us.

Nature study!  Argh, I have a love-hate relationship with this idea.  It sounds so idyllic in theory, but I am very particular about the weather, and it really ruins it for me to try to brave heat and humidity and bugs on one end of the year and multiple layers preventing ease of movement due to the cold on the other end.  I get great satisfaction from any opportunity we can spend time outside, even if it's just playing in the sandbox on the deck.  This probably doesn't even qualify as the sort of nature study CM had in mind, but it counts for me!  Fresh air, natural vitamin D from the sunshine, the sounds of nature are still present in the wind and birds, so it's better than nothing.  But I also don't believe nature study should take the place of formal science instruction.  It's a great way to supplement whatever is being studied, whether by bird-watching or wildflower pressing and identification or star-gazing... but I need there to be an organized way that we will be covering the various areas of understanding the natural world.  With books and videos and field trips and museum visits and, yes, nature walks/nature study.

I'll also add that there is no plan within the CM method for math instruction.  I think this was my wake-up call that I need to look at each of the subjects I will be teaching (based on state requirements as well as our own goals for our children) and see which aspects of which methods will help us accomplish the goals of each of the subjects.

My other favorite homeschooling method is Classical.  Some people have called Charlotte Mason "Classical Lite", and there are certainly areas of overlap, which is probably why they both appeal to me equally.

What appeals to me most about Classical education is probably the very thing that gets the most criticism - the rigor!  Coming into education with the expectation that we love to learn, I don't see it at as burden to expose my children to all the various wonderful areas of knowledge and skills that can help them make a life for themselves. 

The things I find somewhat lacking in Classical education, namely the study of beauty (nature study, art and music appreciation) is easily enough a matter of simply opting in.  It is a homeschool, after all, and we the parents are the headmistress and headmaster! ;)  But one thing that I haven't yet had much time to ponder is a point brought up by this article on the pros and cons of classical education: if we limit our list of so-called great books to those on the typical classical education list (and this goes for Charlotte Mason as well, I believe), we are left with a skewed view of the world in that it presents only the ideas of white men. 

In a multi-ethnic family like ours, it is a priority for me to make sure my children see themselves reflected in the things we value and surround ourselves with.  This includes media choices, the diversity of the neighborhood we live in, toys and books, the people we associate with, etc.  Why should "official" books used as part of our home education be exempt from this priority?  They shouldn't.  So I will have to make it a point to include books that are classics by a different standard.  Bette Friedan and Simone deBeauvoir come to mind as giving a female perspective on what's been right and wrong with the western world.  I also remember being fascinated by reading bell hooks in college to gain a Black female perspective I otherwise wouldn't have known.  Of course there are others, and I'll need to find them and include them in our educational endeavor.  This will mean that some other things will have to go to make room for the diversity classics.

So I think I definitely have a starting point for our methodology.  What needs to happen next is a subject-by-subject analysis of what's needed curriculum-wise, and I need to remind myself to focus first on the early grades.