Here’s a little look at the Day in the Life of Jack, a full-time homeschool dad from England! At Learning Well, we understand that homeschooling doesn’t look the same for all of us. We understand it doesn’t have to either for us to learn and glean good things from each other. Each Wednesday, on our Instagram feed, we feature a new homeschool mama or dad to take over the feed and show us what his or her day looks like.

Some of us homeschool for religious reasons and that inspires our homeschool days. Some of us homeschool from the road and never do school in the same place twice. We might have been homeschooling for years and years. Or we may have just begun our journeys. We understand that those details don’t really matter though. The common thread that binds us all together is our desires to educate our children differently.

We might all homeschool differently, but we can always look for ideas from each other that inspire, encourage and equip us in our own homeschool days.

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So, each week, we create blog posts for you to access later of each of those “days in the life”. We hope you keep coming back for more inspiration. Keep going, mama! These days at home are so worth it!

One of my favorite things about Takeover Day is featuring homeschool families from other countries. But this week, we get to feature a family in England PLUS a homeschool dad! In a community that is primarily mamas, it’s so fun to get to feature a dad doing this homeschool gig too!

Jack @daddyhomeschools is a full-time homeschool dad that was also homeschooled himself. His approach is “Literature-rich unschool with a side of Charlotte Mason and a dab of classical” and we cannot wait to follow along with Jack tomorrow.

Meet Jack

Hello @daddyhomeschools here! Three things about me:
1. I never use recipes
2. My grandad was a violinist for the original Star Wars soundtrack
3. I really love being a full-time daddy 

Curatorship and Apprenticeship

There are two models that help me think about education: curatorship and apprenticeship.

As a curator, I construct the student’s environment. I, ‘Lay the feast,’ of a wide variety of disciplines and ideas. I don’t control what is digested or appreciated. The student has internal mechanisms for that. What I can do is curate a gallery of high quality material. In the final analysis, listening and learning must be voluntary. This priority to preserve the child’s inner barometer for meaningful discovery is something the movement of ‘unschooling’ recognizes, but I think there’s something missing from this picture.

The other model is apprenticeship. The endgame is not to bathe in a pool of ideas. I want to invite my children to change the world with me; not just to facilitate learning, but to prepare for and model its use. I am the carpenter, guiding the hand of the apprentice. Education is that apprenticeship of meaningful work.

Joining those two ideas of curating and apprenticing helps me understand how to structure our learning. First I read outloud, for example, then my eldest reads to herself, then she reads to her brothers.

Music

Music is not part of the curriculum here but we spend so much time listening and playing together, it’s wonderful to see talent blossom without my instruction.

J(6yrs) performs Disney tunes to guests when we have friends over for the Sabbat meal, A (2yrs) shouts heavy metals songs to passers by, and N is playing the ‘bad guitar’ here (he doesn’t think it sounds good).

I wrote a song when I was going through the most profound suffering last year. Hearing J(6yrs) sing the lyrics back to me last week when I was visably stressed, was one of the sweetest moments a father could experience.

“When my thoughts were then as knives
You came in silken robes

I saw the dying son of life
In him I found my all

The gospel horn, a sound unknown
That Christ will never loose his hold

Then did my dead heart begin to beat
A wintery soul had glimmered with fiery heat”

Speak Before They Listen

A lot of people ask me who takes these pictures. I’m the master of 10 second timers!

I was explaining to N(4yrs) why Rembrandt is my favorite artist – what makes the portraits so unique. THE EYES.

Sometimes it feels like the kids aren’t listening. In fact, sometimes I know they’re not. But one of the principles of my philosophy of education is to ‘speak before they listen’. When the Word became flesh, ‘the world did not receive Him.’ Ears were closed to the message. But He did not wait for open ears. In fact, it was His speaking that opened them. Rain does not wait for flowers to bloom, it makes them bloom. Speaking does not wait for listeners, it creates them.

So, I read through the little quarrels, I discuss things beyond their grasp, I invite them to try things that are too hard, and I bid them to know a God who is worthy of an adoration greater than our dull hearts can yield.

My Life’s Work

Raising the kids on my own for the past year has been painful. I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t give them what I ought. I’m weak and confused and self-centred. Maybe that’s the point. A parent is just a friend of the bridegroom. I’m the thorny flesh, perfected in weakness. I’m a watchmen, waiting for dawn. I’m not qualified for the job, and it’s hard work, but it’s good work. It’s my life’s work.

@daddyhomeschools signing out.

Thank you so much to Jack for sharing your family’s day with us!

If you want to see more Day in the Life photos and videos, be sure to check out our Instagram profile.  There are highlights of each takeover at the top.

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