Education: It Must Begin and End With Virtue

“We are not raising workers or consumers for the materialistic state, but souls that will live forever in paradise. Poetry. Drama. Art. Music. These are the skills of the lady or gentleman……Produce art, don’t consume it.”

Even if you do not homeschool, there are invaluable treasures in the following article that any parent would do well to ponder.

We don’t consider ourselves “eclectic” homeschoolers; I have, however, over the past ten years of homeschooling, discovered a whole world of education that looks rather different from the 8-3 classroom setting we all came to think was “the only way to do school.” We have enjoyed a “lifestyle of learning” that extends education beyond a desk and classroom. (Read more about this idea in my ebook “Think Outside the Classroom“)

If you are an 8-3 homeschooling mom, that’s fine! Every family, mom, child and situation is different. What some families thrive in doing, others find miserable. I just LOVE presenting the reality that there ARE many freedoms and alternative methods of giving our children wonderful educations.

The following excerpt is by John Mark Reynolds, homeschooling father and author.  His wisdom is profound and the article is very worth the read for any parent.

“I have seen children from every type of home schooling and have never seen a success from an unhappy and unloving home…and never a failure from a relaxed and happy house running over with love.

First, education must begin and end with virtue.

Liberty, soul liberty, must be the default position if we wish our children to reach true adulthood…

Three Educational Lessons:

Too often home educators try to set up a government school at home. How foolish I was with all my records, charts, tests, and clip boards at the start!

Students should read well, write well, be numerate, and cultured.

~He must read….If he can read, then Plato, Dante, Shakespeare, and Lewis can be his primary teachers. If he cannot read, then he is limited to teachers in his neighborhood. I home school so my children can study under Aristotle and Saint Paul, not under me.”

I have to add something here…he is not just using the word “read” to mean the literal ability to read. When I taught high school English Literature, most of the senior students glazed over when we read Shakespeare or Hawthorne. I had to “interpret” any reading that exceeded a 5th or 6th grade level. That would be an example of a student “not reading”…meaning their level of understanding fell below what was once considered reading for a general audience. (Shakespeare’s plays were written for a mostly illiterate audience…and few people today can understand it…that means we’ve been dumbed down.)

(Back to the article…)

“Provide the bulk of the school day to exploring books and show him the way to his public library.

~She must write…Grammar is good…Latin is better. Have her copy the essays and style of her favorite authors…that Bronte style can tutor her in the language of passion.

~They must be musical….We are not raising workers or consumers for the materialistic state, but souls that will live forever in paradise. Poetry. Drama. Art. Music. These are the skills of the lady or gentleman…These musical disciplines bring the passion, intellect, spirit, and body into harmony…Produce art, don’t consume it. (Ultimately, we worship God with mind, soul and body through art.)

Read and write all the poetry you can.

We imagine the perfect home school family, in our case the Evil Home School Family Von Trapp. We see them sitting about their antique dining room table (built by Father and the Lads) sharing a dinner made by their charming old Auntie (who conveniently has moved in to do all the house work for free).

All the Von Trapp children can read Greek while playing the violin simultaneously solving physics problems. The Father looks like an erudite and sober Mel Gibson . . . the Mother like Julie Andrews before Victor, Victoria. The entire family has the piety of Saint Francis while living in the little home they built themselves on the prairie with the proceeds of their Internet business and cheerful herd of Alpacas.

We are not that family. Both of us struggle with dark moods, a sense of failure, and organizational skills that often end with the purchase of the day timer we forget to use.

At the end of this decade of home schooling, however, looking back on the best we could do . . . I realize that most of our failures did not matter much and that our children still love us, read, play the piano (some more than others!), and are much better than either of us were at their age. They are pleasant and charming people. We like them . . . and most days we suspect that they like us!”

We are not perfect educators . . . most days we are just good enough, but we are who we are! I suspect that is a good thing . . . as the million home school house holds will all be unique, failing at different things, and flourishing in their own odd ways.

Finally, the home school family is creating culture . . . and in most houses that rests on the mother. She, like Dante’s Beatrice, is a figure of beauty that calls a culture back to true love and life. It is a job that our culture ignores or despises since it defies every convention and every demand of our materialistic age. She works without wages, teaches for the love only of her students, and receives only the honor we can give her.”

More from John Mark Reynolds: