What is Atheist Classical Unschooling?

"Classical" homeschooling is appealing to some because of the rich content, and intimidating to others because of the amount and complexity of the reading and writing involved. I quickly learned from my son that he wasn't going to do all that work because I thought Great Books were cool; he needed a better reason. In either case, the classical model is more about curriculum than educational philosophy. There is some educational theory here, though, and I want to focus on that in this post. In a later post I will explain why I now believe that the approach is more important than the content - a 180-degree reversal from my position three years ago. Classical Education (as implemented today, certainly not as practiced by the Greeks!), holds that your children will go through three stages during their 12 years of schooling; I will summarize them here as I've understood and attempted to practice them: • For the first four years they will be gathering information, learning facts, and ...  more