Season of Re-Education Approaches to Education Library/Resources  Organizing Home Lesson Plans

Approaches to Education

Coming from a public or private school background, you may think there was only one method of teaching.  My biggest surprise when first starting to homeschool were the many choices that were before me.  Unlike public or private schools that have to teach masses of children, you can taylor your school to each individual student under your roof.

Some of you will be more comfortable using the same Textbook Approach that was used in your child's school.  Some parents who think they may put their children back in school often stay with the same basic Textbook approach.  So workbooks, textbooks, drill books.  These usually have the added guidance of Teacher books with lesson plans already for you.  Most homeschoolers will start their first year with the basic textbook approach.

Families with several school age children often use the Unit Study approach.  This Approach takes a specific area of study (such as a character trait or fruit of the spirit or any subject of interest to the child) and studies that subject for either a set time (for the pre-written unit studies) or until the child moves on in their interests.  So for instance, the child is interested in horses, studying the anatomy of horses becomes the science, the children read books about horses on their various levels of reading, and write a paper about horses on their level of writing, or drawing.  Visits to stables, or police academies with horses, or a circus with horses are a part of unit studies.  Often times referred to as the hands on approach, Unit Study Approach is great for active children.

If you were a book worm as a child, you probably homeschooled yourself in the Living Books Approach.  This Approach became popular by Charlotte Mason, a turn of the century British educator whose approach was to teach children skills such as reading, writing, and math, and then expose them to the best sources of knowledge for all other subjects. This might mean taking nature walks, visiting museums to view art up close, or reading what she called "living books." Textbooks were dry and dull and to be avoided in favor of richer sources of knowledge. 

Classical Approach In Ancient Greece, emphasis was place on learning the tools of learning. These tools could then be applied to the study of any subject. This so-called "classical" approach would have students study grammar, the dialectic or logic phase, and finally rhetoric. These tools were known as the "trivium." Following the study of these subjects were arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music - called the "quadrivium."

Lifestyle of Learning approach is an approach about parents who truly know how to walk a surrendered life, by faith ~ with the cross ~ becoming empty of self and filled with the love of God that imitates who He is for their children. So filled with the love of God that they are able to love their children as unique individuals, and are able to address their child's specific needs and taylor their homeschooling for each child and each season in the child's life.

Unschooling Approach John Holt was a twentieth-century American educator who believed that children's natural curiosity and desire to learn were destroyed by traditional schooling. He is generally associated with the unschooling approach, which focuses on nonstructural learning that allows children to pursue their own interests and believes that children should be included in a meaning full way in the life of adults. The approach is very child-centered, and the child is exposed to a rich environment of resources, including an adult who models a lifestyle of curiosity and learning. Formal academics are pursued when the need arises or when the child indicates willingness.