It's that time of year.  The time for homeschooling conferences.  The time for perusing the endless vendor's tables.  The time for major decisions of what would be the best kind of grammar curriculum to buy or do you really need to buy a logic program  for your Gr 6 child?  The questions and stress are rampant.  This is a time full of second guessing. 

I also think of homeschooling conferences  as the time for getting the word out on various educational philosophies.  This is the time  for 'selling'  the different ways to teach your children.   This can also be a time for straightening out any misnomers or misunderstandings regarding a method or philosophy.  Many people have misconceptions about a method and this is a good time to set them straight.  

I see this as beneficial for Classical Education (you knew I was going this way, didn't you?).  With the ever-growing  popularity of the Neo-Classical Movement,  people see CE only in this dimension.  There are many different ways to give a Classical education and those ways should have an equal platform at conferences just as WTM does.

Earlier this month, on a homeschooling forum  that I frequent, there was a question about whether there was such a thing  as relaxed classical.  Many people responded  that  it wasn't possible.  In their minds, classical education consists of workbooks, textbooks,  8 hour school days, and being chained to the ktichen table (that last one was my little add-on).  Relaxed and classical were oxymorons to their way of thinking. 

This makes me so sad.  There is so much more to classical than textbooks and  endless hours of school work.  Actually, that definition sounds more like a traditional school philosophy rather than that of classical education.  I think many confuse the two.  I feel like it is high time to set the record straight.

Classical Education is the cultivating of wisdom and virtue by nourishing the soul on all that is beautiful, true, and good.   That definition tells us what CE is, but it doesn't tell us how to do it.   That is up to each individual family.   If your family works better with workbooks and textbooks,  then go for it.  But if your children are like mine and break out in hives when a workbok is brought out, then beauty, truth, and goodness can be shown in so many more different ways:  like nature study,  picture study,  living books, etc.  You do what works for your children.

Now, clothed in the above  paragraph should be the subjects of the trivium  and the quadrivium.  In order for a philosophy  to be termed CE, it should have latin  or  greek somewhere in its pages.  As the child gets older, things will start to look different.  As the child  progresses towards jr. high and high school, their days  should be more structured and rigorous (or vigorous, depending on your choice of term, but that is for another post entry!).  But  I would hope that this would be the same for any philosophy.  High school students need to step it up a notch regardless of whether they are doing Waldorf, CM, unit studies, etc.   I don't think CE is the only philosophy where more work should be expected during the upper years of education. 

As the traditional classicists are coming out of the woodwork more and more,  I think the message CE = WTM will  be dwindled down as time goes on.  I am hoping that us relaxed classicists will also be able to get our voices heard as well.   This is my hope for future homeschool conferences. 

Julia lives on the Canadian Prairies, homeschooling her 3 children (9,8,6), attempting to give them a Classical Education.   You can read more on her blog.

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