Homeschooling and scholé

I finally got around to making a "fine art gallery" for our budding artists. I thought this pin was so cute at least a year or two ago, and it has always stayed in my mind since. Funny how that works. And I still have other pins in my head for a future date, or a future house. 
Even though my children are one and three years old, lately I have been feeling like I am actually homeschooling. Oddly enough, I love it. Even though it is something I don't really want to do, too counter-cultural especially in Portugal, something that hasn't been decided by my husband and I, it is something that seems to naturally grow. I guess even people who have their kids in school still "homeschool" to an extent. Some 'homeschoolers' just delegate a little less. When you are constantly envisioning what you'd like your family culture and family traditions to look like a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now, etc., and when you see really great ideas about what could be so healthy and happy for your child's development... who is FULL of potential and can be shaped any which way (the vulnerability and potential of it all really scares me)... you don't want to delegate education. You don't want to hand them over to another "curriculum" or program that is not that dream that keeps growing in your head. At least when they are so small. 

My homeschooling friend sent me this podcast with Dr. Christopher Perrin, which touches on classical education and the Greek concept of scholé. I LOVED IT. I identified so much with this concept of learning, even as adults... perhaps especially as adults, because then kids just follow along. I think back to a few really restful dinners or coffees I've had with friends where there was this intense exchange of ideas and communion. Or the theology of the body congresses I've been to, where everyone was learning the same thing and so excited just to meet each other and talk to each other. 

I liked Dr. Perrin's suggestions about how to do "scholé" with kids, which is an environment of beauty for all the senses, reading to them, contact with nature.  Those have been all of my goals, too. I also have the goals of musical instruments, art/drawing well, sports, living the liturgical year with a special snack and book at home, praying together and doing the housework together like Laura Ingalls Wilder. For now, these goals just aren't possible to achieve if they're at a school all day. So it's exciting to learn more about this scholé and be able to shape our family and our future in this way. 

PS Another podcast I liked was "No-Fuss Art for Morning Time" and we bought the preschool chalk art course, which is what is pictured above.