What Should a Homeschool Schedule Look Like?

Poem: Time, Real and Imaginary, By Samuel Taylor Coleridge 

On the wide level of a mountain’s head, 
(I knew not where, but ’twas some faery place) 
Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails out-spread, 
Two lovely children run an endless race, 
A sister and a brother ! 
This far outstripp’d the other ; 
Yet ever runs she with reverted face, 
And looks and listens for the boy behind : 
For he, alas ! is blind ! 
O’er rough and smooth with even step he passed, 
And knows not whether he be first or last. 

Statement of the Whole: What role should a clock play in the life of a home school?  Jason and Steve admonish those who are teaching in the home to use scheduling only so much as it helps accomplish your goals, but enjoy the flexibility built into this choice of education.  The best moments in education are those timeless ones when the clock is forgotten and the counting of time is forgotten.  Join them in their quest for education outside the ringing of bells. 

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Wonder acts upon a man like a shock, he is “moved” and “shaken”, and in the dislocation that succeeds all that he had taken for granted as being natural or self-evident loses its compact solidity and obviousness; he is literally dislocated and no longer knows where he is.” Josef Pieper 

“For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize.” ― Aristotle, Metaphysics  

Sound advice from Homeschool.com: Help! Our Homeschool Schedule is not working

The Role of the Parent in Home Education

Poem: “Not of School Age” by Robert Frost 

Around bend after bend 

It was blown woods and no end 

I came to but one house 

I made but the one friend 

At the one house, a child was out 

Who drew back at first in doubt 

But spoke to me in a gale, 

That blew so he had to shout. 

His cheek smeared with apple sand, 

A part apple in his hand 

He pointed up the road 

As one having war command 

A parent, his gentler one 

Looked forth on her small son 

And wondered with me there 

What now was being done 

His accent was not good 

But I slowly understood 

Something where I could go 

He couldn’t, but I could 

He was too young to go 

Not over four or so 

But would I please go to school 

And the big flag they had – You know? 

The big flag – the red – white – 

and blue flag – the great sight? 

He bet it was out today 

And would I see if he was right?  

Statement of the Whole: When a parent decides to teach their own child in the place of a school, or to home educate, how does this affect their role as parent?  Can home education enhance parenting, or burden it, or is it neutral?  Jason and Steve take this question on and consider the dangers and benefits of this choice, focusing on the ends possible when a parent is also the main educator.