Creating A Home Schooling Philosophy of Education
Simply and Easily

Do I really need a specific home schooling philosophy of education? Yipes, don't I have enough to do already without thinking about that? Besides, isn’t an educational philosophy just for official “educators” and people with some sort of advanced degree?

For many home schoolers, the thought of coming up with a home schooling philosophy of education sounds complicated, time-consuming or just plain esoteric. What good would it be, really? Just tell me, should use Institute for Excellence in Writing or Writing Strands? Sonlight or A Beka? Teaching Textbooks or Saxon Math? Let’s just cut to the chase!

Problem is, without a foundation of where you want to go – which is what a home schooling philosophy of education is – you won’t know what to use to get there. Enter lots of hours of frustration for you and your child, and money spent on “great” curriculum that just sits on your shelf, or worse, that brings grief to you and your child every time you try to use it. Been there, done that yet?

Or maybe you think having a home schooling philosophy of education would be nice, but wouldn’t creating it take too much time? And where to even begin?

Simple Steps to Developing Your Home Schooling Philosophy of Education

Creating your philosophy of home schooling doesn’t have to take a lot of time. By answering a few simple questions that you’ll find listed below, you can have a pretty clear idea of what your educational philosophy is for home schooling your child, and, how to use it for making wise choices for your home school curriculum.

Ready to go?

1. Understand the Foundations

   These are the very basic questions to ask in developing your home schooling philosophy of education. I have more information to share on this subject, but this will at least get you started.

   • What is success?
   • What are your long term home schooling goals?
   • What are your short term home schooling goals?
   • How do you evaluate what your child is learning?

   There are other areas to consider that I'll be adding soon.

   Once you’ve spent some time thinking about the questions above, then what do you do? What does this have to do with figuring out whether you should use A Beka or Sonlight, Brave Writer or Institute for Excellence in Writing anyway?

2. Ask the Right Questions

   Maybe you’ve asked your home schooling friends lots of questions already. Or maybe you’ve joined a Yahoo Group for users of whatever curriculum you are thinking about. That’s great, but now, armed with the information you’ve gleaned from understanding the foundation of your home schooling philosophy, you can now ask more informed questions, and understand their answers in terms of what you want.

   Let’s get down to some specific of questions that can really clarify if a home school curriculum will work for you. Examples?

   Is this home school curriculum…

   • based on a spiral method or mastery method? This is especially appropriate to ask for mathematics, science and grammar curriculums. With the spiral method, your child will return to the material in greater depth in years to come so the first time over the information is less for total understanding as it is for gaining familiarity. With the mastery method, your child works with the material in various ways so that he really has had time and opportunity to chew on the concepts and make it his own. Which do you prefer at this stage of your child’s education, given your child’s needs right now?

   • project-based, written-language based, or something else?Some home school curriculums offer lots of projects for hands-on learning. KONOS and Tapestry of Grace are two popular ones that suggest various hands-on activities to round out the learning. Other curriculums are more focused on oral narrations, such as Sonlight Home School Curriculum (although there are certainly many excellent writing assignments in its language arts program). Others, like Student of the Word use a specifically “writing to learn” approach.

     Does that mean that a curriculum like Sonlight doesn’t help your child learn through writing, or that Tapestry of Grace doesn’t encourage narration? No. It is really a matter of emphasis and priorities. What do you want to emphasize with your child now?

3. Let Your Limitations Be Your Friend

   Once you have figured out what you want, and asked questions about what you are considering, there comes a point when you need to let go of all the other “good” home schooling curriculum to make use of the “best” curriculum choices for your family. There are piles of great home schooling curriculum out there, and more coming along every week. No matter how “good” they all look, you can’t do it all. Not only that, if you try to, you’ll be so busy doing lots of good things, you’ll miss out on the “best,” on what your child or children need right now.

   So instead of wishing you could do more, or searching for something better, let your limitations be your friend. Doing one thing really well can often be more effective than doing lots of things only half-heartedly.

   As you think through the choices you are considering for your home schooling curriculum, remember the simple steps you can use to make wise choices that will really benefit your family:

   • Understand the Foundations
   • Ask the Right Questions
   • Let Your Limitations Be Your Friend

If you’ve read this far, well done. You can feel great that you are spending time thinking through some deeper issues involved in creating your unique home schooling philosophy of education!

I hope you will take time now to bookmark this page to come back to over time. Talk to your spouse to about your thoughts. The time you spend thinking about having a home schooling philosophy of education will save you hours of frustration in the years to come from home school curriculum choices that don’t work for you.

Please feel free to use the Contact Us form to drop me a note to let me know if this has been helpful or if you have any comments.

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