We need to talk...

We need to talk about the c-word. 

No, not that one. 

I’m talking about the c-word that regularly has UK home edders on Facebook foaming at the mouth: curriculum. 

This is one of the huge differences between home education in the UK and the US. In the States, many homeschoolers are Christians wanting a religious alternative to secular public schools. Also, most states (as far as I know) have at least some requirements for evidenced academic work. In the UK, on the other hand, we are all apparently barefooted, brown-rice-eating, anti-establishment hippies, raising our tangle-haired feral monsters on a diet of illiteracy and blissful ignorance of social norms. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle on both sides of the Great Puddle, but the fact remains that using a boxed curriculum is considered fairly standard across the pond, but is not mainstream home ed practice (oxymoron alert) here in the UK. 

I have lost count of the number of times I have joined scores of experienced home educaters advising new parents, who have often been forced into home education with little or no time to research and who assume they need to recreate the worst elements of the classroom in their traumatised child’s safe place, or parents of two-year-olds who believe their toddler needs to be doing pages of sums and grammar exercises before their next birthday. The National Curriculum is so embedded in our school system that it is easy not to realise that there are many other options that are generally a better fit for children learning at home. Anyone starting to home ed needs to understand that moving away from school-based education will take a period of readjustment for child and parent, and that learning is likely to look very different from the traditional view of children sitting round the kitchen table while mum writes fractions on a blackboard. If there is one thing that seasoned home edders in the UK generally agree on (doubtful - if you have two HEers you will find three opinions) it is the importance of following a child’s lead and letting them develop their natural love of learning. 

Of course, some children thrive on structured work, and many of us do at least a couple of hours of table work most days. A whole curriculum covering several subjects, though, can get quite a hostile reaction, perhaps because so many of the curricula available are overtly Christian (the Creationist flavour). But there are curricula covering the whole gamut of religious (and not) views, plus many different home ed approaches. As with all styles of home education, there are some children who find a curriculum really suits them... and it turns out that my children are among them! 

It’s funny, because if you had asked us when Daniel was little, we would have said that unschooling would definitely be our approach. We even went to a Radical Unschooling camp one summer, although that did convince me that RU, at least, was not the best fit for our family. But over the last year and a half I have realised just how much my eldest two thrive on the routine and predictability of formal academic work. Daniel struggles with change and feels much more settled and able to learn when there is a certain structure to his work. Adam loves time with me and gets a huge kick out of the small triumphs of working through a programme step-by-step, while harbouring a burning ambition to overtake Daniel in everything. Ben’s goal in life is to do everything his brothers do, with a sprinkling of mayhem to keep things interesting. 

An added kick up the backside for me to sort out what we are doing is that we are starting a massive building project soon and will be living in half a house for several months. I am pretty sure that for all of us, coming out the other side of that with any shred of sanity will require a level of organisation I have never even aspired to. We had a chat with the boys and they agreed that this feels like something they would like to try, and they like the idea of something stable and consistent during all the upheaval. 

Both boys will be using curricula inspired by Charlotte Mason, based on reading together lots of amazing books that bring alive the subjects we are studying. Daniel is starting Level 1 of Build Your Library. Age-wise he is on the border between levels 1 and 2 but he and I felt it would be a good idea to get the groundwork secure first. Level 1 has a lot of mythology, which he enjoys - he loves spotting references elsewhere to literature he knows. BYL doesn’t include Maths, so he will carry on until the end of Maths Seeds and then try out a few other options that we have heard recommended. 

When I looked at Level 0 of BYL, it just didn’t seem very Adam. Blossom & Root, however, looks like it will suit him perfectly with its nature focus and he is really excited about the Space topic. He will be starting Kindergarten and carrying on with Maths Seeds and his reading (a mixture of Reading Eggs and the Usborne reading scheme). 

Added to both curricula (which are secular) will be some Jewish Studies, though I’m not quite sure yet how much. Both boys use Aleph Champ through cheder for Hebrew reading, and Daniel started Bright Beginnings a few months ago to learn Biblical Hebrew. Adam plays games with me to learn some Modern Hebrew vocabulary as his Modern Language; Daniel is teaching himself Esperanto at the moment but I expect will dip in and out of our Hebrew too. I’ll probably add an extra read-aloud each week to look at the parsha (Torah reading) but beyond that we’ll wait and see how we feel. 

So there we go. This feels like a great fit for us at the moment and I’m really excited! On the other hand, our bank account is trembling in fear as I eye up the book lists; I’ll use the library for lots of them but I’m not even slightly reliable when faced with the opportunity to recreate the Great Library of Alexandria in our house.