Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Classical Unschooling again!

Spunky Homeschool has an article on Education Styles -- if you follow her link to NerdMom's post you will see my ongoing question put into the words of someone just starting out with a kindergartener. Here are some posts I have written on this subject -- mostly a kind of play by play of where I was at the time I wrote the post:

Taking Children Seriously

Where to Go Reprise
Rereading Homeschooling with Gentleness
What is Unschooling?
Classical Education and Unschooling
Classical Balancing

And here's the story of how I've balanced classical education and unschooling through the years:

Unschooling Unconsidered
Back to Unschooling

I see that for me, unschooling and classical education are bound to gether by notions of "excellence" and "paideia". A lengthy and detailed article on Christian Unschooling states:

The Greek word used in the New Testament for the verb discipline is “paideuo,” which means to “bring up, instruct, train, educate; practice discipline, give guidance.” The Greek noun for discipline is “paideia” which means “upbringing, training, instruction, discipline, correction”
An unschooling book which embodies the concept of "paideia" very well to me, though it does not use the word, is "And the Skylark Sings with Me" by David Albert; another is Better Than School by Nancy Wallace.

Books that approach the "paideia" concept from a more theoretical, philosophical point of view are: Norms and Nobility by David Hicks, Poetic Knowledge by James Taylor (not the one who wrote "down by copper line" though that's a neat song about early childhood influences and cultural heritage, too, actually. Latin Centered Curriculum by Andrew Campbell has a very good discussion about the concept of paideia through history, as well.

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