When my oldest was 3 years old, I stumbled upon the Well Trained Mind message boards.  This was the first time that I had ever heard of Classical Education.  I was intrigued.  I read all that I could about CE and was still thirsty for more.   I, then, bought the book and I was hooked.   I knew right from the beginning that this was how I wanted to my children to be educated.

There were many reasons why CE resonated so strongly with me.  The two main reasons  were 1) learning took place  through the Great Books.  I had not read any of the Great Books at the time but  this was my desire to do so.   I placed my desire onto my children.  I wanted my kids to be familiar with Dante, Homer and Plato.  I wanted them to also know  about the classics--Shakespeare,  Jane Austen,  Mark Twain, etc.   I wanted their education to be literary based  and CE seemed a good  way to accomplish  this.   2) the main emphasis on WTM  was on language  and being able  to express yourself through language.  This is very important to me.  I want my children to be able to know what they believe and to be articulate enough to express their beliefs and  to defend them, if need be.   Not only was WTM focused on language  and  being able to express oneself but it also  stressed critical thinking.  I do not want my children to believe something  just because someone told them  that this was the right thing to believe.  I want them to think through an issue and come up with the reasons on their own whether the belief is right or wrong.  I could see that CE would help me with this goal. 

I knew then, when my oldest was 3, that we would be pursuing  a Classical Education  via The Well Trained Mind.   

Fast forward  two years  to when  Mia (my oldest) was in Kindergarten.  I had been researching this for two years so I was confident that everything was going to turn out just right and that we were both going to enjoy our time together learning.   Wrong.   It did not turn out that way at all.   It turns out that Mia is not too keen on structure and schedules.   She didn't want to do math with a workbook.  She wasn't too keen on memorizing poems.  The dislikes go on and on but I won't torture you with them all.  Suffice it to say that all of my carefully thought out plans did not work.   I realized later they did not work  because I made them with myself in mind.   CE  was the kind of education  that I wished that I had had.  I didn't take into account that maybe Mia  wasn't  suited for or ready for a CE.   Oops!  

I could have just made her go on with my plans  and forced her to do it with little complaining  but what good would that have done?    So  I went back to the  drawing board  and started researching again.  I think in the last four years  we have tried every educational philosophy known to man.  We have tried Charlotte Mason,  A Thomas Jefferson Education, Unschooling, Waldorf, Montessori, a Latin Centered Curriculum and Traditional Classical.  Many people will look at that list and think  "Boy, is that woman ever flakey!"  I prefer to think of it as being evolved.  I am trying to find a way of learning that fits all of us.  Through the years, we have added more children so there are more learning styles to take into consideration.  This muddies up the waters quite a bit.  Througout our evolving, we have found methods that work just for me, work just for the kids and we have found some ways that work for all of us.  After homeschooling for 5 years, I have come to the conclusion  that there is not just one method that is going to work.  I have learned to take the things from each method that works for us and have moshed them all together  to come up with our own  philosophy.   I call it  "The Mish-Mosh Squish  Philosophy.  This is working very well for us.  In amongst the mish-mosh, you will see that there is quite a bit of Classical Education floating around.  Even though  we don't do a pure CE, there is enough of those characteristics in what we do that I do consider us a Classical Education family.

Next week, I will tell a bit more about how we mix it all together to work for us. 

Julia  lives with her husband on the Canadian Prairies  where she homeschools her three children (9,7,5) attempting to give them a Classical Education

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