A Desire Named

Having a label for the focus of our homeschooling endeavor has, for some time, been a hyper need for order   desire of mine. The lack of a clearly articulated goal has remained a minor irritation to me. My husband and I  knew that an education strong in Humanities was of great importance for our homeschool, but somehow that term fell short in fully describing our intent.
While blog surfing, I found this entry by Janice Campbell:

To be culturally literate is to understand the history and concepts that underlie a culture, 

and to be able to converse fluently in the allusions and informal content of that culture.

It seemed the phrase that best described our academic desire was: 

Broad Cultural Literacy

This instantly resonated. That is our academic vision. Cultural literacy seems a simple concept, but not so, as there is a vast, seemingly bottomless well from which to draw. 

In our attempt to construct a wide knowledge base, we decided that their studies would consist of a humanities focused world history study, from a Christian worldview, for all four years with literature studied coming from the same time period, in order for strong contextual connections to be made. We didn't want them to study disciplines in a vacuum. Everything ties in and connects historically. It seemed so wrong to study King James I (coming to power right at beginning of the Reformation) in history and not concurrently study the works of his contemporary, Shakespeare, in literature and the philosophy of Francis Bacon . Fortunately, I have found various curricula that are superb for us. They hold my hand and baby-step me through. Without these tools there would still be a vision but I would remain clueless as how to implement a course of study.


So, in addition to state requirements of math/science/gov't/econ/p.e./health, etc... we strongly held that study of philosophy, formal logic, rhetorical composition, Latin, Biblical history, ethics, music theory and in-depth study of classical literature, to be equally important to building a wide base of knowledge. The girls decided to add in another language to their studies and they also strongly desire to continue lessons in their individual instruments throughout high school.

It now appears I need to amend our educational statement of intent to: 

The Cultivation of A Broad Cultural Literacy from a Christian Worldview Perspective,  
with an Emphasis on Gifts and Interests,  
 and Other Subjects Which are Required by State Guidelines, 
also Various Subjects of General Interest to Both Children and Parents

THAT'S IT!  Never fear, I am confident that I can continue to ruin my once concise label into an ever expanding, rambling and disjointed behemoth.