Out of the Box

"Every curriculum makes a great servant and a terrible master."

I started my homeschooling journey using a boxed curriculum. It came with all the books and an open-and-go teacher's manual with lots and lots of boxes to check off to assure me I was educating my children properly. As time went on we couldn't keep up with all the box checking. At family dinner time dad would ask the kids what they learned during school and their replies were blank stares. Tears from the kids, as well as from me, along with their mounting resistance to lessons, brought me to a hard stop. Something had to change.

I don't think there is a "one size fits all" way of educating at home, but I do think there are some universal and natural laws that we can work with to effectively tap into a person's natural interest in learning. I wanted to spark that flame and nurture it and, thankfully, I discovered the Charlotte Mason method.

The first book I read that gave me a good introduction was "For the Children's Sake" by Susan Schaeffer. It was freedom from the box!  I began to develop my why from just wanting my kids to be home to wanting to really teach them. It grew to include priorities of character and relationship over task and busy work, comprehension over speed and a variety of subjects rich with meaning over dull, lifeless facts. My kids responded almost instantly to the shift and tears were replaced with, "school is fun!"

The Charlotte Mason method is not a magic wand. My kids still whine and complain at times and I don't have an open-and-go curriculum. But the freedom and sparks of joy from engaged learning are worth the work to stay out of the box.