Description

You left the public schools for a reason. Even if you have trouble articulating that reason aloud, you instinctively knew that something was wrong. We all hate the damage schools do. We see the little 5-year-old enter with bright and wondering eyes, and start returning home around age 8 having lost that — he is no longer curious, he is self-satisfied with what he thinks he knows, he does not think through ideas but rather thoughtlessly parrots talking points — it’s all very concerning.

The problem is that we can escape the public schools, but we can’t escape ourselves.

We bring the problem with us because we were raised in the philosophy and practices that have these effects on children, that kill a child’s desire to learn and explore. This philosophy does such damage that even homeschool graduates haven’t fully escaped its taint.

Some of us are survivors. Random good teachers or beneficial life experiences saved us from the full effects of the modern education system.

Others of us had to have a wakeup call. By God’s grace, our brains came alive after high school; we started thinking for ourselves and decided we wanted something different for our children, something better.

But the choice to remove ourselves from the system is just the beginning.

Our personal default factory settings were programmed into us by the exact system we are trying to leave.

So how do we fight these defaults? The Bible gives us the answer when it tells us to renew our minds. In Romans 12:2, the full thought is “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Think about it: this is exactly what we are trying to do. Faulty modern educational philosophy is everywhere, including inside of ourselves. We are trying to not be conformed to it. Scripture is clear that this battle is fought and won in the mind.

This workshop offers you a new way to think, a way to fight the battle of the mind.

In Consider the Cause, Brandy Vencel and Amanda Faus will walk you through the bedrock basics of Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education. Using the ancient tool of Aristotle’s Four Causes, they will present a simple framework that shows you how to quickly and efficiently appraise the various educational messages you receive, filter out the noise and lies, and keep all the benefits. Once you’ve grasped this no-nonsense approach to evaluating educational voices, you’ll find yourself increasingly able to turn off the default voices in your head that whisper modern lies.

This workshop consists of two sessions. In the first session, Brandy and Amanda will explain Aristotle’s Four Causes, how they relate to the Charlotte Mason philosophy, and walk you through how to use the guidebook to apply this paradigm in your own life. The second session takes you deeper into the Four Causes with three targeting worksheets that help you think deeply about competing philosophies, curricula, and individual subjects, followed by a Q&A session where Brandy and Amanda address some concerns, seek further understanding together, and apply these ideas to real-life situations.

The Consider the Cause workshop and companion guidebook will help you:

• Break out of the modern educational mindset
• Throw off the trappings of relativism when it comes to your child’s education
• Develop your own personal philosophy and come to know exactly what you believe about education
• Refine your ability to discern the good and bad within the educational ideas, curricula, and methods you come across
• Grow your ability to compare and contrast between philosophies or curricula
• Become the master of your curriculum, rather than its slave

Come and join us for refreshment and encouragement!

What you’ll get:

• Replays of the 2 sessions totaling almost 3 hours
  • Edited to remove time wasters like announcements only pertinent to the live sessions, technical issues, etc.
• Consider the Cause printable companion guidebook
• PDFs of the slides from both sessions