SCHOLA: Wobble, wobble

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Wobble, wobble

Friday (It seems like such a long time ago) I was invited to join some of the other parents at a luncheon to meet the new candidate for the charter school's head of school position, a position left mostly vacant after the current beloved head developed some unusual neurological problems just before the current school year began and finally had to return permanently to her native Baltimore for treatment. The potential principal's educational philosophy was very much along the lines of Charlotte Mason. She admitted that her rather radical ideas, including eliminating all workbooks and filling out her teacher's planner to satisfy the school's requirement but otherwise ignoring it and covering the subjects her way, had nearly got her fired from some of her early posts, but added that as a beginning teacher she knew she would die if she had to remain in that uninspiring, unfulfilling situation, so she pursued education the way she knew was best. It was exciting to see someone with such passion. I think she will be a good fit for the school.

On the ride home from the spelling bee in Tampa Saturday I had the opportunity to read the latest copy of The Link. There were several good articles including one by John Gatto on this country's need for more entrepreneurial thinkers and fewer uselessly educated college grads (contrary to what Bill Gates, dropout extraordinaire, proposed in his college-for-all speech.) Another column by a returning writer, Catherine Levison, author of several books on homeschooling the Mason way -- I had never paid much attention to Charlotte Mason, seemed a little too touchy-feely for me -- impressed me when she asserted that after dealing with recalcitrant kids and burning out at the end of her first year, implementing a few of Ms. Mason's techniques turned things around and now she's a happy mom with happy kids. And an article on the origins of the word "education" (not derived from "educere" meaning to draw forth, as educationists would have you believe, but from "educare," to nourish, to rear, to bring up) enlightened me.

Somewhat.

The eternal question then is: Progressive or Classical?

Make it fun or just make them?

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SCHOLA 101

schol' a: 1) An intermission of work, leisure for learning, learned conversation, debate, disputation, lecture, dissertation. 2) A meeting place for teachers and pupils, place for instruction, place of learning, school. 3) The disciples of a teacher, body of followers, school, sect. 4) An acronym for my tortuous blog title "Secular Classical Homeschoolers' Odyssean Learning Adventure." 5) How my Boston cousins pronounce "scholar." 6) Someone who studies at 10 o'clock for a dilla or a dolla.

These are the blatherings of an introverted, autodidactic, champion of The Enlightenment raising three daughters. At one time or another we have homeschooled, public-schooled, Catholic-schooled, cyber-schooled, unschooled, and even threatened boarding school. We have been inspired variously by The Well-Trained Mind, A Thomas Jefferson Education, and Climbing Parnassus, tempered by the writings and wisdom of Charlotte Mason, John Holt, Benjamin Franklin and Michel de Montaigne.

I try not to get wrapped up in labels, but we are secular and we are classical-ish.

We travel. A lot. Sometimes to the other side of the state and sometimes to the other side of the planet. Join us on our journey as we search for our home, navigate the waters of self-education, lounge with the lotus-eaters, and bash a Cyclops or two.