Crescent Moon - Homeschool Philosophy

Oct. 11, 2008

Homeschool Philosophy

     I had a question asked in my comments from my last post that I'm going to try to answer, although I don't pretend to be an expert on the various homeschool philosophies.
      During the late 1800's and early 1900's there were a lot of new ideas coming out about education. Some of the educational movements that are still spreading today were started then, Maria Montessori was in Italy working with children from low income families to teach them life skills, nutrition, and more hands-on ways of doing regular school subjects. She did not believe in exposing young children to fantasy books, because the young mind cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality, so the two Montessori preschools I have worked in had no fairy tale books, only books about people doing plausible things and non-fiction. This is the part of Montessori's philosophy that I disagree with. Many of the other ideas I really like. The life skills and handwork are helpful and she had some great ideas about teaching geometry.
    Also at this time, Rudolf Steiner was in Germany coming up with his ideas for education, which is called Waldorf Education. I have never worked in a Waldorf school, although I did help out in a Waldorf art class at the school where I work now. I do use a lot of Waldorf supplies in my own homeschooling (and did so when the girls were little, even though I didn't know what Waldorf was back then). Children under the age of 7 are not pushed to read, because they are not considered to be mature enough for that extra stress. They are encouraged to explore nature and express themselves through art and creative play. To help foster a link between children and nature and to give the children different textures to experience, toys are made only out of natural materials, wood, wool, cotton, and silk mostly. The art supplies are also made of natural materials, beeswax crayons, water color paints, colored pencils, and clay. The pictures that the children were able to create with the block shaped crayons in that class I was in were just amazing (many of these children didn't believe they could draw before they took this class).
    In England at this same time, Charlotte Mason was coming up with her ideas. Her ideas were specifically for private schools and home schooling. Her teaching method is literature based and avoids workbooks and text books. Children are encouraged to tell stories back to their parents as a way of checking for understanding. Once a child can write, copy work and journaling is part of the school day. In those ways, Waldorf and Charlotte Mason are very similar, because notebooks with the child writing about what they have learned and drawing an accompanying picture, is also part of Waldorf.
   Nature study and keeping a nature journal is part of Charloote Mason's plan. Excersize is also important, even if you are staying inside.
     The lesson plans take quite a bit of planning, because every aspect (math, launguage arts, science, history, art, and anything else) should be incorporated in what you are studying. Sort of like doing themes for unit studies, but without separating out math time or English.
    Charlotte Mason is actually the one I have least read about out of these 3 philosophers. I have noticed that many of the homeschool moms on here follow her teachings, though.
    I don't really follow any one philosophy. I read as much as I can and take what works for us.
    We lean towards Waldorf for art and toys. I also think fairy tales are culturally important, so we read those along with non-fiction. We do occationally read something out of a text book, although not often. We use Math*U*See for math and I have been very happy with the program.

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Comments

Oct. 13, 2008 - Untitled Comment

Posted by alessandrastarr

Thank you for writing this. It helped me understand some of the homeschooling philosophies more. I still don't understand Montessori very well so it may end up being something that we just don't do. I like Waldorf for the creativity and natural play, but I'm not sure about the expense of buying some of the products. I like Mason's narration with repeating the information back, but I'm not sure about being able to plan a lesson to include all subjects. I could see more value if I was a teacher and would be able to use the lesson plans over again, but doing it once would be hard. I think that I might be interested in a little bit of unschooling if Jasmine shows a particular interest in a subject.

Oh, have you seen these new notebooks by Mead?
http://www.mead.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product3_10051_10006_124781_-1_false_10051##
The bottom half of the page is line ruled, and the top half is blank for drawing pictures.

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Oct. 14, 2008 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Crescentmoon

Yes, we have a couple of those notebooks, but we haven't used them yet. When Blaze gets better at writing, I want to use some of the stuff in the Draw Write Now book series, and those notebooks are perfect for that.
I have found some of the Waldorf stuff cheap by shopping at resale shops and used book sales.

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