Learning Lifestyles

Over all the years I've been home schooling I have suffered from multiple philosophy disorder. Being a compulsive book reader, I tend to research things far more than I should. Because as soon as you start researching things - like how to teach reading or raise well adjusted children - you find that there are hundreds of opinions on the subject.

This is especially true for child rearing and education because it is a subject near and dear to so many of us. I'm a little envious of those home schoolers who can feel so confident that their method is best, whether it's classical or unschooling, Bob Jones or K12, Charlotte Mason or Montessori.

How does anyone know?? I appreciate advice from veteran home schoolers but I still feel that we're all just engaging in a giant experiment. Of course, all parents are experimenting whether they teach their kids at home or send them to school. There are no guarantees that a child will turn out healthy and happy versus hateful and hopeless.

The problem is, when I read home schooling books (and other books on education), most of the arguments for a certain method seem to derive from the author’s own experience and observations of children while they are children. We rarely find out how the children turn out as adults. The story seems to stop with acceptance to college or the start of some interesting career.

How do we know which method is best? Home schoolers often tactfully skirt this issue with suggesting that different methods work best for different people and different situations. That is probably the best answer, but I’ve often wondered if there is a way to tell which method would be best for each of those different situations.

In my quest for resolution, I decided to start reading biographies, specifically biographies of successful people who were taught at home for at least part of their childhood. I wanted to know how they were raised and how they were taught, hoping to find some similarities or words of wisdom.

Robert Frost, Thomas Edison, Pearl Buck, John Muir, Margaret Mead – these are just a few of the sages I’ve researched to try to find the answer. I have their whole lives to review and often they have their own opinions about what worked and what did not work for them. I’ve also read what the philosophers (old and new) had to say – Plato, Locke, Jefferson, Emerson, Mason, Montessori and others.

It’s been fascinating learning about these people and I want to share what I’ve learned with you in this journal. Eventually I will have finished a book I am writing on the subject, but in the meantime, I’ll post the stories in here.

One more thing I must mention about my sages – none of them were perfect. I have yet to find a perfect role model, and doubt I will ever find one. But even with their mistakes and character flaws, these people still accomplished something good and lasting. I can forgive them even as it reminds me to forgive myself.