Logo Homeschool World ® Official Web Site of Practical Homeschooling Magazine Practical Homeschooling Magazine
Practical Homeschooling® :

Putting the Home in Homeschooling

By Clay Clarkson
Printed in Practical Homeschooling #25, 1998.

A new column introducing the "5 D's".
   Pin It
Clay and Sally Clarkson


A young mother approached Sally at the break during one of our conferences. She had a worried look in her eyes that said, "Help me, please!" For several minutes, she poured out her anxious concerns that she wasn't doing enough for her children, that they weren't progressing, and that she was failing as a homeschooling mother. "How old are your children?" Sally asked when the woman finally took a breath. With a note of seriousness, the woman replied, "Oh, they're three and five years old."

If that seems humorous to you, that's good. There's hope for you! After countless conversations just like that one, though, our stifled chuckles have turned to sighs. Too many parents see their homes only through the lenses of institutional education. Rather than finding joy and freedom in their homeschooling experience, they find themselves in bondage to cultural models of education defined by textbooks, workbooks, classrooms, age-grade norms, testing and grading.

Fortunately, we discovered early in our homeschool experience that textbooks and formal curricula are artificial means of education. Rather than unleashing learning potential, they hold it back. For us as parents, they created a false security that we were doing enough, and a false confidence that our children were really learning. For our children, they created a false dependency on formal methods of learning, and a false distinction between learning and living. Conventional classroom methods diluted the wonder and joy of real learning, turning it into a tedious and burdensome task unrelated to real life at home.

On the other hand, our children naturally loved reading and being read to, talking about their own insights and ideas, learning through real life, and having lots of time to explore and learn on their own. The more we studied Scripture and observed our children, the more confident we became that this was how God designed children to live and learn. It was the liberation of learning in our home!

As we lived out these principles, we found it helpful to express them in a model. Educational theoreticians would call it a paradigm, but we think of it as a corrective lens for seeing your home from God's perspective as a living and learning environment. It consists of five areas of focused studies.

  1. Discipleship Studies: We start with the study of God's word to gain wisdom. Our goal is to shape our children's hearts to love God and to study and know his word.

  2. Disciplined Studies: Then, we study the "basics," such as math and language arts, that require a more disciplined approach. Our goal is to develop our children's foundational learning skills and competencies.

  3. Discussion Studies: Then, we spend the bulk of our studies in the humanities, reading and reading aloud literature and history, and studying the fine arts. Our goal is to feed our children's minds on the best in living books and the fine arts.

  4. Discovery Studies: Next, we direct our children into the "study of learning" in areas such as nature, science, the creative arts, and all other interests. Our goal is to stimulate in our children a love for learning by creating opportunities for curiosity, creativity and discovery.

  5. Discretionary Studies: Finally, we turn to the "study of living," focusing on natural gifts and interests, community involvement, and life skills. Our goal is to direct our children in developing a range of skills and abilities according to their drives and gifts.

Your home can and should be a warm, vibrant place where your children love to learn as freely and as naturally as they love to play. In fact, education is the natural outgrowth of the discipleship relationship between parents and children, so it should be the natural activity of every Christian home. That is what this "home-centered learning" model tries to capture.

There is great freedom in knowing that what you are doing conforms to a pattern that is already built into the very fabric and rhythm of your lives by God - he has designed your children to learn, he has designed your home to be a learning environment, and he has designed you to be a learning guide. Joy and freedom naturally follow when we cooperate with God's design.

We have come to the place where we can honestly say that there is no distinction in our home school between home and school - we are living to learn and learning to live all at the same time. That is what should happen in a home.

Free Email Newsletter!
Sign up to receive our free email newsletter, and up to three special offers from homeschool providers every week.

Popular Articles

Laptop Homeschool

Patriarchy, Meet Matriarchy

Don't Give Up on Your Late Bloomers

Critical Thinking and Logic

A Reason for Reading

Getting Organized Part 1 - Tips & Tricks

Top Jobs for the College Graduate

Teaching Blends

The Benefits of Debate

The Gift of a Mentor

Discover Your Child's Learning Style

The Charlotte Mason Approach to Poetry

Getting Organized Part 3

Advanced Math: Trig, PreCalc, and more!

What We Can Learn from the Homeschooled 2002 National Geography Bee Winners

Who Needs the Prom?

Classical Education

Phonics the Montessori Way

AP Courses At Home

University Model Schools

Narration Beats Tests

Art Appreciation the Charlotte Mason Way

Montessori Math

Why the Internet will Never Replace Books

Character Matters for Kids

The Benefits of Cursive Writing

A Homeschooler Wins the Heisman

Myth of the Teenager

Teach Your Children to Work

Bears in the House

Montessori Language Arts at Home, Part 1

Can Homeschoolers Participate In Public School Programs?

How to Win the Geography Bee

Saxon Math: Facts vs. Rumors

The Charlotte Mason Method

How to "Bee" a Spelling Success

What Does My Preschooler Need to Know?

Whole-Language Boondoggle

Shakespeare Camp

I Was an Accelerated Child

Joyce Swann's Homeschool Tips

Combining Work and Homeschool

The History of Public Education

The Equal Sign - Symbol, Name, Meaning

Getting Started in Homeschooling: The First Ten Steps

Columbus and the Flat Earth...

Interview with John Taylor Gatto

Top Tips for Teaching Toddlers

Start a Nature Notebook

Give Yourself a "CLEP Scholarship"

          
Terms of Use   Privacy Policy
Copyright ©1993-2024 Home Life, Inc.