Every homeschooling parent eventually asks the same question: How do I choose a homeschool curriculum? There are hundreds of options, each with its own promises, and the choice can feel overwhelming.
Before we answer the question, a word of caution. Most of the advice parents receive on this subject comes from homeschool publishers, homeschool conference speakers, and homeschool salespeople. Much of that advice should be set aside. Not because these people are dishonest, but because their advice is meant to sell rather than to advise. A publisher will always find that the best curriculum is his own. A conference speaker is often there to promote a product. Advice given for the purpose of selling cannot be trusted to serve your family’s purposes.
What parents need is not another sales pitch, but a method. In this article, we will lay out a simple method that anyone can use to answer the question well for their own purposes. If you follow it, choosing a curriculum will become much easier than you expect.
The Method at a Glance
- Understand what a curriculum is.
- Clearly state your goals.
- Find people who have achieved those goals.
- Set objectives.
- Identify the tasks.
- Decide how the tasks will be assessed.
- Arrange support for when a student struggles.
- Plan how records will be kept.
- Count the cost.
- Make sure the plan is sustainable.
Only after these steps are complete should you begin comparing programs and books.
What Is a Curriculum?
We must begin by understanding what we are looking for. The word curriculum is used loosely today. Many people use it to mean a box of books, a set of workbooks, or a brand of homeschool program. But that is not what a curriculum is.
A curriculum is a course of study that leads a student to the fulfillment of stated goals for his education.
The word comes from the Latin currere, “to run,” and originally meant a course, like a racecourse. It is a path that leads somewhere.
Think of driving directions. Driving directions only make sense when two things are known: where we begin and where we are going. We begin at our home. We set the destination. Then we follow the directions to that destination. Without a destination, there can be no directions at all.
A curriculum works the same way. It begins where the student is now and leads him, step by step, to a destination. That destination is the goal of his education. If we do not know the destination, we cannot possibly choose a curriculum.
Step 1: What Are Our Goals?
This is where most parents go wrong. When parents talk about education, they usually begin talking about different schools, different schooling methods, different curriculum options, different programs, different books, and different study methods. They compare Charlotte Mason with Montessori, online classes with textbooks, one publisher with another.
But if you ask these same parents to state their goals for their children’s education, they are usually unprepared to answer. They have not thought it through.
Asking about a curriculum without first stating your goals is like asking for driving directions when you haven’t figured out where you’re going. No one can give you good directions, and no set of directions can be called better or worse than another.
So the first work we must do is to clearly identify and articulate our goals for our children’s education. What kind of person do we hope our child will become? What should he know? What should he be able to do? What should he love? These goals should be written down in plain words. Everything that follows depends on them.
Step 2: Who Has Achieved These Goals?
Once our goals are established, the next question is: Who has successfully achieved these goals?
It is common practice for parents to seek advice from friends, relatives, publishers, salespeople, and others about how to educate their children. But very often these counselors have never actually achieved the goals they are advising parents about. A friend may be kind and well-meaning, but if she has never accomplished what you are trying to accomplish, her advice is only an opinion.
Wisdom tells us to seek a multitude of counselors. As the Book of Proverbs says, “Designs are brought to nothing where there is no counsel: but where there are many counsellors, they are established” (Proverbs 15:22). But this wisdom assumes that those counselors are people who have successfully accomplished what we are trying to accomplish. We would not ask directions from someone who has never been to the place we are going.
Some goals are complex, and it may be that no one has ever achieved all of them together. That is no reason for discouragement. Various parts of a complex goal have usually been achieved by others. We can seek the advice of those who achieved each part, learn how they did it, and draw their counsel together to consider what the best course of action might be.
Step 3: Set Objectives
After we have identified successful people who can offer experienced counsel, we should consider what they advise and set objectives that will allow us to accomplish our goals.
Objectives are intermediate steps that are taken one by one to achieve the goal in the long term. They can be thought of as short-term goals.
Return to the driving directions. Objectives are like the major stops along the way. There is no use talking about the final destination if we don’t get to the first point in the directions. Once we have reached the first point, there is no use talking about the final destination unless we make it safely to the second point, and so on.
In education, this means our long-term goal must be broken into objectives for each stage of a child’s studies. A student cannot read great books before he can read. He cannot study logic before he can write a clear sentence. Each objective prepares for the next.
Step 4: Identify the Tasks
With our objectives in place, we repeat the same process at a lower level. We ask: What tasks are necessary to accomplish each objective?
Tasks are the specific actions we must take. They should be practical, concrete, and measurable: lessons to be studied, passages to be memorized, exercises to be completed, books to be read.
We need to know the tasks because without knowledge of the tasks, we cannot make any intelligent decision about the means by which those tasks can be done. Books, programs, and study methods are all means. We cannot judge a means until we know what it is supposed to accomplish.
Step 5: Decide How Tasks Will Be Assessed
After we have considered the tasks, we must consider how the successful completion of those tasks can be assessed.
If we have no means of assessment, we will have no certainty whether we are completing the tasks in a way that will allow us to fulfill the objective. A student may finish a book without understanding it. He may complete a workbook without mastering its lessons. Assessments, such as quizzes, examinations, recitations, and written work, help a student both develop mastery and demonstrate that mastery has been achieved.
Step 6: Arrange Support
Once we have determined what sort of assessment is needed for each task, we must ask whether there will be anyone to support us if we struggle.
Every student will meet difficulties. There will be tasks he cannot complete, concepts he does not understand, and assessments he struggles to pass. When that happens, what help will be available? Who will answer questions? Who will explain what the book does not make clear? A plan with no provision for support will break down at the first serious difficulty.
Step 7: Plan How Records Will Be Kept
After we have considered these things, we must ask how records will be kept to track our progress.
- Who will keep the records?
- How will the records be kept?
- How will the records be accessed?
- How will the records be shared, for example with colleges, employers, or other schools?
Records are easy to neglect in the early years and very difficult to recreate later. They should be part of the plan from the beginning.
Step 8: Count the Cost
Next, we must consider what all of this will cost. It is very easy to come up with a great plan on paper, only to find that its cost far exceeds our available resources.
Our plans must be balanced by our resources, both money and time. Many decisions between one option and another will finally be determined by affordability. This is not a compromise of our goals; it is prudence. A plan we cannot afford is not a plan at all.
Step 9: Make Sure the Plan Is Sustainable
Lastly, we must consider whether the plan we have laid out is sustainable.
Many people can draw up impressive plans on paper, but the execution of those plans proves impossible in reality. This is one of the reasons why seeking advice from successful people is so important. Those who have succeeded know how to accomplish the goals in a sustainable way, because they have actually done it.
Many others have opinions about how to achieve goals they have never achieved. Their advice is often not sustainable, because no one has ever practiced it. We must make sure that our plan is realistic and that our family can actually carry it out, day after day and year after year.
Now You Can Choose a Curriculum
Until we have answered these questions, we cannot make any prudent evaluation of study materials, school programs, study methods, and so on. This is why so many parents switch curricula year after year. They chose before they knew what they were choosing for.
Only after these questions have been answered can we look at what is available and evaluate whether it will help us or not. If we do the work to prepare all of the information described above, choosing a curriculum will be very easy. We will be able to eliminate most options at once, and we will be left with just a few to choose from. And we will have clear criteria by which to make our final decision.
This is how one should choose a homeschool curriculum.
The Classical Liberal Arts Academy
If your goal is to seek wisdom by following the advice of the saints and wise men of history, the Classical Liberal Arts Academy was made for you.
In the Classical Liberal Arts Academy, the work described in this article has already been done. We have established the goals. We have identified the objectives. We have prepared the tasks. We have prepared the assessments. We provide support when students struggle. We make records available. And we offer all of this at an affordable cost, in a program that is practically sustainable for families.
If your goals are those of classical Catholic education, we believe you will find the Classical Liberal Arts Academy to be the best homeschool curriculum available. If your goals are not those of classical Catholic education, the Classical Liberal Arts Academy may still supply a part of your stated goals.
To discuss your curriculum goals and how the Classical Liberal Arts Academy can help you achieve them, please contact me directly.
Mr. William C. Michael, OP
Headmaster
Classical Liberal Arts Academy
Email: wcm@classicalliberalarts.com
Phone: (980) 699-5575