Teaching Methods

Homeschooling offers a multitude of teaching methods. No one educational way is the "right" or "best" way to homeschool.

Some of the most well known home school methods include Traditional, Classical, Montessori, Waldorf, Unschooling, Charlotte Mason, Relaxed, and Eclectic.

Some families also include religion in their curricula.

Some parents will include internet classes and charter academies in the same category as teaching methods. I do not. Parents can provide their children internet classes and/or belong to a charter school and still have their own teaching method.

If you are unfamiliar with the teaching methods, don't feel bad. Before I started teaching my son at home, in all of my years as a public school teacher, I never even knew parents had different ways of teaching homeschool. I assumed most of the families had a traditional approach.

In fact, for several months, I home schooled my son without any knowledge of the various teaching options.

Now, after much research and reflection, I would say my teaching style is primarily a combination of Charlotte Mason and The Classical Approach, tossed in with a little bit of Unschooling and Traditional. How's that for Eclectic!

It is no surprise to me, I have an eclectic style. Most teachers I worked with in the public schools used an eclectic approach out of necessity. We gathered educational resources from all sources. I myself was a frequent buyer at the local Goodwill, stocking up on National Geographic magazines, books, and hands-on materials. I made slide shows, posters, and resource areas in the classroom for my students.

In my public school teaching years, inside our classrooms with our children, my teaching partners and I taught theme-based unit studies, used quality literature, played interactive learning games, and made learning as creative and motivational as possible. Even today, I don't know of any public school teachers that teach primarily by the book.

I know, if I had taught solely by the book, my students would have rebelled or at the very least fallen asleep.

Scholars, through the years, have criticized textbooks for their grave inaccuracies, racist view points, and lack of providing higher-level thinking. Textbooks are typically written by different authors, so that often, the writing itself is not cohesive. Also, when so much content is jammed into one book, the stories and facts are usually rote-like and boring.

For an eye-opener, read Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen and A Short History of the World by J.M. Roberts.

In our classroom I used the textbooks for reference and researching only. In social studies (history), we were Japanese Warlords and Mayans; through interactive role playing we became the characters in our books; we were travelers through time; and we were on our own heroic quests. One of my favorite activities was performing a mock Viking trial, complete with gavel.

As a parochial school teacher I was instructing children of all different ability levels and sometimes non-English speakers. I had to be creative and inventive, because I wanted my students to succeed.

When I researched the homeschool teaching methods, I was once again inspired to be creative and inventive, and felt motivated to weave new ideas into my own eclectic curriculum. (Article about my eclectic method coming next month)

Reviewing the homeschool methods, even if you have been teaching at home for awhile, can assist you in the same way, providing you with new insights, inspiration, and ideas.