Learning in Wartime - Our Homeschooling Year

As our school year begins in the midst of our family's medical crisis, I was encouraged by reading C.S. Lewis' Learning in Wartime from his Weight of Glory essays. Lewis was reflecting on how the seemingly mundane activities of university life could continue when it looked as if all Europe would fall:

"...how can we--continue to take an interest in these placid occupations when the lives of our friends and the liberties of Europe are in the balance?..."

But the answer is in seeing our true situation in all its perspective: "The war creates no absolutely new situation; it siply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with "normal life." Life has never been normal..."

"The work of a Beethoven and the work of a charwoman bcome spiritual on precisely the same condition, that of being offered to God, of being done humbly "as to the Lord."...

As we begin this school year, I realize it's our most ambitious one yet in terms of workload for our 12 year old son. We are encouraging him to be more independent with managing his workload and time management, and he will be taking 4 online courses, two at the high school level.

Two resources that might be helpful for saving money on books and curricula:



Paperbackswap.com allows you to swap already read (or outgrown) paperbacks for free with other members. You only pay postage when you mail it to another member, and in return they pay postage when they send it to you. We use Paypal to print mailing labels and just mail the books by putting them in our mailbox (no trips to the post office).

Another resource we've found helpful is Homeschool Buyer's Co-op. Membership is free. They block together to obtain discounts for curriculum. Discovery's United Streaming membership is now $70 cheaper ($129 per year) because 200 people have signed up.

Homeschooling 2007-8

Latin 1 - Schola Tutorials
Intro to Great Books - Schola Tutorials
Logic - Biola Logic
Etymology / Vocabulary - CTD Northwestern
Chemistry - - CyberEd and Apologia Chemistry
Writing - - Progymnasmata through WritingAssessment.com
Math - - SkillsTutor.com, Saxon, Mathematics: A Human Endeavor
Music - : Enjoyment of Music and Norton Online Listening Lab
Art - Teaching Company A History of European Art