Homeschool v. Classical School

Monday  in mid-afternoon  Mystie

Dominion Family has been working on a series on the benefits of classical homeschooling as opposed to classical dayschooling. One often finds articles on homeschooling versus public schooling or homeschooling versus the traditional Christian school, but once you move into the serious classical school groups, the mood shifts and the general consensus is that schools have the advantage over mothers at home.

So, do not mistake her title and intent. Her audience are those attempting classical schooling at home who often feel inferior as the sources of classical how-tos are almost always aimed at or given from the day school perspective. Her series enumerates how a classical homeschool can have the advantage over a classical school.

##View from the Plain

And all the while I am reading [Climbing Parnassus] I am thinking of the question: Why do I think homeschooling has the advantage over Christian classical school? And I am thinking that I am in way over my head. That I review books I know nothing about. That I try to philosophize when I should perhaps be baking cookies. That I am 45 years old and 3 of my children have already graduated. That C. S. Lewis was talking about me when he said, “to be intellectual without intellect.”

##Why I Believe Homeschooling is the Best Option, Part 1

So I flippantly said that I believed that homeschooling still had the advantage over classical Christian schools and a rude person asked me why :) ?

##Why I Believe Homeschooling is the Best Option, Part 2

So having inspired teachers teaching a subject is the superior method. The question then is how do we inspire our own children. Must we put them in school in order to have gifted teachers?

##Why I Believe Homeschooling is the Best Option, Part 3

You may be wondering why I am even doing these posts. I am truly not just trying to be argumentative. Nor do I think homeschooling is for everyone. I am mostly doing this for people who are already homeschooling who may be tempted to think that the grass is greener elsewhere. For some families there are strong voices pushing them to feel inferior, as if they were arrogant for homeschooling. Since most homeschooling mothers feel quite of bit of insecurity, I am writing these posts as a sort of Buck-U-Uppo

Here is the paragraph I most related to. This is the key to why I’d be hesitant to go back to starting a school again:

And that leads me to my next point. Home schools are small and adaptable. I can change the focus of the vision for my school tomorrow morning. As soon as a school becomes an institution it loses this ability to change and adapt. Many a classical school administrator is looking out the window wondering how such a lovely model turned into 6 subjects and lunch. Yet, how does he change that? If he changes things too quickly he will lose his financial base which is already paltry, which is why he has so many moms teaching which is…..

As long as the classical model is struggling for definition, home schools will have the advantage.

There’s the vision of things that inspires you to begin making a dream a reality. Then reality takes hold and visions and dreams are difficult to maintain, especially when they are held only by a few and not understood by the vast majority.

The more I’ve read into it, the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve actually listened to some of the teacher-training stuff without the rose-tinted glasses, the more comfortable I am with the idea of homeschooling. My ideals and goals and vision of what it will look like have morphed and grown and shifted around, and the time spent in researching and thinking now will bear fruit, I believe.

It’s still an idea, though, and it’s always easier to be comfortable with ideas.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Governess. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.