Purist Homeschooling Isn’t Sustainable
the case for a "lazy" classical homeschool
My mom was a Charlotte Mason mom before it was cool. We read poetry while eating warm, homemade bread. We made nature notebooks and did schoolwork on the trampoline. We built a replica of the human eye big enough to crawl through. I took Latin, logic, rhetoric, and literature in middle and high school. The combination of these shaped me well into adulthood, equipping me for a career in theology and apologetics.
Mom was an eclectic homeschooler and customized curricula to her kids (she had six). So when I started my own homeschool journey I knew education had to serve the child — not the other way around.1
If you’re reading this to find out how to be an aesthetic classical/Charlotte Mason homeschooler, this post won’t satisfy that itch. I’m a working, homeschooling mom - I homeschool between 9-12:30 pm four out of five week days (co-op is on Mondays). From 1-5 pm I lead a team of ten employees at my ministry, Every Woman a Theologian. I have to cram a lot of school into three hours and I don’t have time for aesthetics.
I’ve also been in the homeschool world long enough (thirty years to be exact, if we count my homeschool education) to remain unscathed by the idealistic “purists” of both classical and Charlotte Mason education models. Basically, the perfect picture you’re seeing on Instagram is more about the mom than the kids. I like a linen dress as much as anyone, but some of what you’re seeing is not a sustainable way to home educate.
Here’s the truth the purists don’t want you to hear: A good-enough classical education is still good.
My Lazy Neo-Classical Homeschool
I’m using the word “lazy” here, but I’m actually not. I work very hard to educate my children. Their future is in my hands and I don’t take that lightly. I don’t have much in common with any form of homeschooling that doesn’t include a dependable routine, gently structured approach to subjects, and intentional formation of character.2
So I use the word “lazy” because, if a classical / Charlotte Mason purist visited my house, that’s exactly what they’d call me. I’m not exclusively reading books from the 19th century. I allow (encourage?) “twaddle” books. We memorize everything — but also do extensive nature study. I have no personal pride invested in how “rigorous” my kids’ education is; I want them to love learning. (And they do!)
My primary model is neo-classical (I’m being specific with that “neo” because the classical purists will come for me if I don’t — which really proves the point of this article). This educational approach crosses over extensively with Charlotte Mason’s principles. The two are not at odds; Mason’s principles are classically inspired and in many ways, classical themselves. What we’re seeing on Instagram these days is more what I’d call “neo-Charlotte Mason”, a departure from the structured days and lessons Mason herself used. This is important because many new homeschoolers are told they must choose one or the other: You’re either classical or CM. You can’t do narration AND memorization. Any kind of schedule is “public school at home”. It’s either the trivium or the feast. Join my cult!
I’m here to tell you, as a classically-Charlotte Mason-lapbook-Abeka educated homeschool graduate… you can, in fact, combine them all.
I use an open-and-go language arts curriculum, completely workbook based. I do unit studies every Christmas and summer. Our literature is based on Ambleside (Charlotte Mason) lists. Our curricular “spine” is Classical Conversations. My homeschool is me thumbing my nose at the system saying YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO (how very… homeschool of me).
What I Love About the Classical Model
The core of what I do is neo-classical and that’s where I begin, even if I dip my toes in other educational traditions. I love the classical model for three main reasons:
The Trivium: grammar, logic and rhetoric. “Grammar” means “fundamental truths” or basic facts; this is the memorization stage. I plug my ears and “la la la” anyone who badmouths memorization; it is a building block of intellectual connection. After the grammar stage comes logic. This is when students take what they memorized and learn the “why” behind it. The rhetorical stage is when students, who now know both “what” and “why”, debate and refine those ideas.
Cultivation of Virtue. Using literature, history, and in Christian homes, Scripture, classical education seeks to form the whole person. We aren’t trying to invent little robots who can regurgitate random facts. We’re developing whole persons, made in the image of God, reflecting His virtues and image in the way we interact with His created world.
The Debate of Ideas. For strong-willed, argumentative, and curious kids, classical education provides an outlet for engagement with ideas. I was one of these kids. I had to know the “why” behind everything — this is what brought me to Christ! In classical and Neo-classical settings ideas are routinely debated, and the memorized facts of the grammar stage are the foundation for those debates.
I love the classical model and I love the Great Books. However, I will not be roped into an idealistic perspective on classicism. Classical education does not redeem souls. It cultivates minds, yes, but a proud mind does far more damage than an ignorant one. And the great sin of classical homeschoolers is a proud mind.
This can be true for any “purist” approach to a movement, and I see it in the Charlotte Mason community as well. First-generation homeschoolers often want to pick the “one true homeschool model”, but there is no “one true homeschool model”. There is only the best model for your family and your kids. And sometimes that’s a combination of multiple approaches.
So classical ed is the spine of everything I do, but I am not owned by classical thought. Charlotte Mason does not live rent-free in my mind. It was classical education that set my mind and will free. Why would I put myself into a box when my education taught me not to be contained? The world is wide open to me and my kids. Nature study might not have been important to Socrates, but heck yes, I’m going to go study muskrats in lieu of reading another section of Plutarch’s Lives.
Idealism is Wrecking Your Homeschool
In truth, this post is less about being a lazy classical educator and more about releasing homeschool idealism. Take it from someone who has been around the homeschool world since 1996, as a student, as an observer, as a professional, and now as a mom: a consistent, flexibly structured, diverse, living-books-based homeschool education flings the doors of learning wide open. Those doors won’t shut when your kids turn eighteen. I’ve been reading voraciously since age ten and have no plans to stop! And I’m still picking up the books my mom couldn’t jam into my reading list during the twelve years she had with me.
Homeschooling gets derailed by 1) lack of purpose and consistency and 2) idealism. The consistency thing takes discipline. The idealism thing takes deleting Instagram. Maybe Pinterest too. These beautified versions of education often make us think that our “good enough” (read: sustainable) approaches to the classical realm are NOT good. The bar keeps being moved: Add this, add that. Are you doing Shakespeare yet? Vintage copies of The Handbook of Nature Study only. Your child reads Wings of Fire? Perish the day!
From a theological perspective, much of this struggle is about identity. It’s about well-meaning mamas (many who were not homeschooled themselves) looking for something to give grounding, purpose, and a place to belong. But if we’re not rooted first in Christian identity, we’ll root ourselves in anything that provides for our needs, looks beautiful, and gives us the intellectual high ground — just like Eve (Genesis 3:6). Good things become bad things when good things become idols.
This is why, without roots in Christian identity and a strong vision for your homeschool, inspiration can become distraction. It can pull you away from what your kids really need and love. If you know exactly what moves the needle for your family and can locate it on IG/Pinterest, then by all means keep it up. But if doom-scrolling handicrafts is making you distracted and discontent, feeling like a failure — maybe it’s time to get off the apps and ask: Do I actually need to do more or do I just FEEL like I do?3
The joy of home education is lost when the model takes precedent over the student. Doing it “perfectly” — when your kids end up hating school, or you’re burdened with a constant sense of failure — undermines the goal. At some point you have to say, “good enough”. You have to start with your unchanging identity, not the one a specific method or community claims to provide. This, plus finding the content that lights your kids’ love for learning, makes classical homeschooling (or any homeschooling!) sustainable long term.
What We Use
Below are some of the resources we use for our homeschool. I did not get a chance to link everything; some of these are on my Amazon storefront. I use Ambleside and Half a Hundred Acre Wood book lists for all our history, science, composers, and artists, as well as for my 5th grader’s essays and research papers. A good portion of our school day is spent reading aloud and all our lessons are short: 15-20 minutes.
A note: We are in a co-op that used to be under Classical Conversations. Our group disaffiliated but the same families are still together following the basic cycles of CC. I still use some materials from our time in CC even though we’re no longer part of it.
For Math:
5th Grade: Saxon 4/5
3rd Grade and Kindergarten: Math U See Beta + Alpha
Preschool/Kinder: Rod & Staff Workbooks A-L
For Language Arts:
5th Grade: Institute of Excellence in Writing, Fix It Grammar, and Christian Lite
3rd Grade: Christian Lite
For Phonics:
Kindergarten: AlphaPhonics and Bob Books
For Cursive:
5th Grade: PreScripts for Classical Conversations
3rd Grade: Cursive sheets in Christian Lite
For Latin:
For Memory Work:
Excerpts from Shakespeare and Founding Documents
Old World Echoes from CC
For Art:
Multiple book collections of famous masterpieces/artists
Co-op lessons with an art teacher
Literature-based unit study art activities
For History:
Lists of living books based on the memory work of the week (I read aloud 1-2 hours a day, plus the kids read their own assigned books, using lists from Ambleside and Half a Hundred Acre Wood, choosing books customized to what we are studying)
Timeline memorization and timeline cards (CC)
Documentaries on each topic
For Science:
Lists of living books based on the memory work of the week
Weekly experiments at co-op
Literature:
Living books lists from Ambleside Online
Unit studies from HearthMagic, Peaceful Press, and Treehouse Schoolhouse
Littles:
• Memoria Press preschool & Kindergarten program
Bible:
My writing niche is not homeschooling, it’s theology. However, I was a homeschool-specific admissions counselor & advisor at my alma mater and my pre-ministry career was teaching homeschoolers how to prepare students for college admission. Since I’m frequently asked what we do, why we do it, and what curricula we use, I started a category here on Substack to put answers to all those questions.
Most of the negative homeschooling experiences we read about (e.g. Educated) are formed in environments without structure or purpose. This is not helpful to children, and it’s not helpful to parents trying to homeschool.
This is not an excuse for educational neglect. I do make it my goal for my children to be at their grade level or above (something that’s fallen out of favor among homeschoolers, mostly as a reaction to changing public school standards + the factory approach to education found therein). I even have them take a standardized test in 4th grade [gasp!]. My point here is that the basics of classical/CM education are pretty rigorous when done consistently. “Rigor” sounds appealing (or does it? it rings of death) but is often unattainable and unnecessary.
“Martin Luther, peeved that he’s next to the Council of Trent on the timeline” made me LOL.
Great piece!
“The joy of home education is lost when the model takes precedent over the student. Doing it “perfectly” — when your kids end up hating school, or you’re burdened with a constant sense of failure — undermines the goal. At some point you have to say, “good enough”.”
Yes!!!! Thank you for the reminder!