Our high school Humanities studies at Providence Prep are anchored by Dr. George Grant's unforgettable moral philosophy course. We are often reminded, and we have seen for ourselves, that education as a form of repentance.

When we read aloud to young children, we give them access to ideas they could not comprehend on their own and expose them to vocabulary and sentence structure way beyond their abilities to employ in their own writing.

My prayer for my students and for myself as we plan for the coming school year:

Picture Study, as Charlotte Mason practiced it, is just as simple as it sounds: “A friendly picture-dealer supplies us with half a dozen beautiful little reproductions of the work of some single artist, term by term.

My sleepy three-year-old is carried from the car to his bed in big brother’s strong arms. He drowsily blinks up at the star studded sky. “Caleb, did you know that God is a Spirit? He doesn’t have a body like men.” My mother’s heart quietly rejoices . . .

“It doesn’t matter what my child reads, as long as he reads," says the well-meaning but ill-advised friend. Yes, of course, I answer, just as it doesn’t matter what my child eats, as long as he eats.  Books that are shallow and condescending to children are nothing more than junk food for the mind.

When I was expecting my first child, who turned out to be children (twins!), I heard a radio program about homeschooling. My husband and I were immediately convinced — we would certainly home educate our children.