Philosophy of Education

I travel and work with families who homeschool. One mother asked me what philosophy I follow. Umm, well I pull a lot of my book choices-what I read to the kids, and what I offer them for their own reading-and ideas from Charlotte Mason inspired programs. At one point I was pretty close to a purist with this method. My younger children do a lot of Montessori type things, and some Waldorf. Our handwork is often very Waldorf inspired. Aubrey,10, and Brennen, 7, are going to a Waldorf school one day a week for handwork, wet-on-wet watercolor, spanish and eurythmy and Kamron, 12, is going to a TJed Lemi trained co-op one day a week for Key of Liberty and Shakespeare, very excitedly and all of his own accord I might add-just how the TJed philosophy says he should. So what philosophy do we use? We use what fulfills my goals and my children's goals. I find that many of the philosophies overlap and so I use parts of several of them. For instance, you will find that handwork is a key part of Charlotte Mason, Waldorf and even Montessori. CM and Montessori ask that this work be practical and teach real skills. Waldorf asks that this work fill the need of mastering something difficult and be beautiful and natural. All ask that the hand be trained. The ideas dovetail and work well together. All three teach the skill of attention-just in different ways. They each respect the child as an individual, in what they take from what is offered, so does TJed. Perhaps, this is the philosophy I follow-one of respecting individuality, but with very high expectations. I like to know about all philosophies and help my little ones take whichever parts will best meet their needs.