So, I'm hoping no one glances at the sidebar and notices that my last post was over six years ago. On second thought, maybe that's not such a bad thing if you believe that in that time I've been here learning, growing, and teaching, and generally so immersed in those things that I've simply not had the wherewithal to share about it. In that time, I've graduated two daughters from our homeschool, and my first-born son is a rising senior. In addition to him, this fall I will also have two other high schoolers and two middle schoolers. And I guess I feel compelled to preface with all this to say: here are my qualifications: only that I am doing it and have been doing it and will continue doing the hard work of homeschooling my children, through high school or as long as the Lord leads me to. I don't have degrees in teaching, or curriculum writing/design, but - yay?- I'm also not trying to sell you anything, so you can rest easy on that front. I don't even have any affiliate links to turn this into a side hustle. I just came here to talk about high school science in a longer format than Instagram allows, which is where I usually throw out my ideas.
As aforementioned, I don't have any expertise. What I do have is 20 years of reading Charlotte Mason, some experience raising humans, the help of the Holy Spirit, and a lot of books. For all of our homeschooling years we have used (the free!) Ambleside Online curriculum. I am not going to gush about how much I love it (though I could) because that's not the purpose of this post (or, Lord willing, series of posts). It is simply to say that we have been completely happy with how full and rich and deep an education it is, and I am constantly thankful for all the work and love and prayers that have been poured into it. If it has one fault it is this: their high school science is still a work in progress.
This frustrated me at first; then I thought, guess I'll have to do something myself. Well, I have been working on it for the last five years too, and I'm still not sure I have anything worthwhile. But I have suggestions based on some principles and considerations, and THAT, my friends, is what I came here to share.
I must begin with the fact that the principles that apply to choosing a science curriculum for Form IV, V, and VI students (high school) are the same ones that apply to choosing curriculum in any subject, for any aged student. Charlotte Mason set forth 20 Principles of her Educational Philosophy and they can be found in each one of the six volumes she wrote, as well as with just a few keystrokes in your favorite internet browser. Children are born persons (even hormonal teens), whose minds feed on ideas, and which minds are capable of dealing with all proper knowledge. Children (and teens) should therefore be encouraged to cultivate relationships with a vast number of things and thoughts, through physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and living books; a wide and generous curriculum should include a variety of these living books which communicate knowledge in well chose language. And finally (for this discussion), students should be able to reproduce what they have learned in some way, either orally, as a written narration, or in what is especially useful as pertaining to science: keeping notebooks.
And that's the basics. In chapter 10 of book two of Philosophy of Education Charlotte Mason gives details and examples of what a full and various science course might look like for older students. What stood out the most when I first read it was the way students continued to study what we might call 'streams' of science. PNEU students had multiple readings each term in such subjects as physiology (human anatomy), geology, physical science (including chemistry and the laws of physics and electricity), biology, botany, ecology, and astronomy. They also did "a good deal of field work," believing that "the only sound method of teaching science is to afford due combination of field or laboratory work, with such literary comments and amplifications as the subject affords;" the principle being "that children shall observe and chronicle, but shall not depend upon their own unassisted observation," much in the same way that older students enhanced their Bible curriculum with readings from commentaries.
You can see, then, that high school is also not the time to give up on or let students off of the nature study and journalling they did as younger students. Nature journals have "recommended themselves pretty widely as travelling companions and life records wherein the 'finds' of every season, bird or flower, fungus or moss, is sketched, and described...The nature notebook is very catholic and finds room for the stars in their courses and for, say, the fossil anemone found on the beach."
"Certainly these note books do a good deal to bring science within the range of common thought and experience; we are anxious not to make science a utilitarian subject," which brings us to the final principle (of this post): "We offer children knowledge for its own sake," so that their characters might be built up from within. While training toward a specific vocation or goal is certainly an option of many home educators, it should not necessarily be a deciding factor in our curriculum; rather we are to "equip pupils for LIFE" (emphasis mine). I know the beauty of this idea is one of the things that first drew me toward Charlotte Mason's philosophy, and I don't believe that needs to be set aside simply because our children have college or careers looming ahead. I'll leave you with one last quote:
"Now we must deal with a child of man...as a child of God, whose supreme desire and glory it is to know about and to know his almighty Father; as a person of many parts and passions who must know how to use, care for, and discipline himself, body, mind, and soul: as a person of many relationships, - to family, city, church, state, neighboring states, the world at large: as the inhabitant of a world full of beauty and interest, the features of which he must recognize and know how to name, and a world too, and a universe, whose every function of every part is ordered by laws which he must begin to know."
PS: I know I'm using quotes without citations in text or otherwise, but I haven't bothered with those in over 20 years, and I don't intend to begin again now. If you're interested, everything from this post was taken from volume six: A Philosophy of Education, mostly chapter 10, but not all.
PPS: I also know I just wrote an entire long post as a big block of text, with no sweet graphics or photos, but bear with me, those are coming. Well, the book pics are coming, fancy graphic design probably never will.
