What is Eagle’s Wing Learning Center?
Eagle’s Wing Learning Center is a weekly academic Program, serving homeschool families from Pre-K through 12th grade, following the Charlotte Mason methods of education. We function as a co-school and offer a unique learning environment where we seek to nurture joy and creativity in learning.
What is Co-Schooling?
Co-schooling is an academic environment where parents, teachers, and students all partner together in the development of their education. In support of homeschooling parents, Eagle’s Wing provides an academic program which is led by professional teachers. Children meet together at Eagle’s Wing 1, 2, or 3 days per week (depending on age) and parents are supported in their role as the primary educator.
Co-schooling provides a unique blend of school and home. Students enjoy coming together to participate in a group learning experience, and parents are given the benefit of a drop-off program, led by professional teachers. Teachers act as mentors to the student and a support system to the parent, but not as primary educator.
Who We Are~
Eagle’s Wing was born out of a desire to create a unique educational environment where joyful and creative learning could be nurtured in every student and where every child is valued, and able to learn at their own pace.
We are located in Downers Grove, in the Western suburbs of Chicago, and are unique in both our approach to education and our academic methods. Eagle’s Wing is committed to providing a Christ-centered education. We pursue education in order to cultivate wisdom and virtue in every child.
We have three foundational principles which guide us in the implementation of our Academic Program. They are illustrated beautifully within the three foundations of a Charlotte Mason education~ Education as an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.
Education is an atmosphere. Eagle’s Wing is implementing a Charlotte Mason Educational Program. We are guided by the atmosphere of a nurturing environment, full of creativity, living books, observation and discovery. We follow the Alveary online curriculum, which is a Charlotte Mason program, written by professionals, and modified for a co-school environment.
Education is a discipline. We seek to support and to partner with parents as the primary educator of their children. We are partnering with parents in the formation of character and the habits of discipline. Eagle’s Wing provides an academic grade level curriculum for school and home, training them in the habits of discipline.
Education is a life. We are cultivating a life of ideas in the child. We believe, as Charlotte Mason’s first principle states; that every child is born a person. So we do not provide a cookie cutter style of education, rather we seek to minister to every individual child and to spark living ideas in the child.
As a teacher, I often get questions from students as to why we need to know this or that. I love this question, because even the youngest child can understand that every one of us is born with a God-given desire to know, and to understand the world around us; and in fact without the ability to learn and to know, we lose our humanity.
Our purpose in education, as expressed by Charlotte Mason, is knowledge of God, knowledge of man, and knowledge of the universe, all guided by the wisdom of the Bible and the influence of the Holy Spirit.
At Eagle’s Wing, we seek to nurture a life of education as our Divine responsibility and not just a utilitarian task.
Why are we different?
Our flexible feast within our Charlotte Mason Program makes Eagle’s Wing truly unique in the Chicago area. Students are being instructed in the gentle educational principles of Charlotte Mason, while being nurtured in an atmosphere joyful education, the discipline of habit, and a life of living ideas.
Scheduling is done in large Blocks, rather than in hour long classes, which allows for flexibility in subjects, along with the full scope of the ‘feast’ to be presented to students each week. On an average day, students will flow through lessons in Bible, history, literature, writing, singing, math, language instruction, picture and composer study, movement, outdoor nature study, art, music and more.
As children explore, they are developing the ‘science of relations’, as they discover on their own the connections between disciplines. Charlotte Mason believed that only as the child discovered the relationship between ideas and disciplines was he or she then able to imprint those relations into permanent knowledge and discovery.
Who are we for?
We are for homeschooling families who seek support and community. We are for traditional families who seek an alternative to the ‘conveyor belt’ model of education. We are for any individual who seeks passionate and purposeful learning.
Whether you are a veteran homeschooler, or someone just beginning to explore the Charlotte Mason and homeschooling, we are all learning and growing together.
Who was Charlotte Mason?
Charlotte Mason was a British educator during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She dedicated her life to the education of children, and to the training and education of parents and teachers. She developed a Philosophy of Education over a 30-year period which was radically different from the educational model of her time.
Although Charlotte Mason lived in an earlier time, we have volumes information regarding her educational philosophy and methods, which was written over a 50 year period, in a series of essays, and are now gathered in her six volume treatise of Education. We also have multitude of essays and teachings written to parents from her Parents Education Union.
First and foremost, Miss Mason taught that Children are Born Persons, and that every child has genius inside of them; that genius simply needs to be nourished by ideas. These ideas come from the world around them and from Living Books. Ideas and observations then become the seeds that are spread in the science of relations. The child wrestles with these ideas first in his mind, then in oral narration, and finally in written form.
Learned in this manner, ideas form connections, which then instruct the child in wisdom and knowledge. Information gained is retained forever, and not just learned and forgotten after the test. It is the desire to know, that is planted within every human mind which drives the child to learn. Charlotte Mason methods allow this to happen organically and yet powerfully.
Charlotte Mason taught that the teacher’s role is to present the feast before the child, but not to feed it to him. The teacher does not know which idea may spark interest, so she presents a wide feast and allows the child to explore and make connections.
She does, however, guide him in the tools and skills necessary for discovery. These are the educational tools of (reading), which is the ability to see, (writing), the ability to formulate and articulate ideas, and finally (mathematics), which is the logic and order needed to make conclusions.
A Charlotte Mason education is a gentle but steady upward slope, leading to the eventual attainment of a rigorous education. This education is built on the early life of discovery.
Charlotte Mason’s Principles Applied~
So what do these principles look like in a daily, weekly basis at Eagle’s Wing?
We have designed a carefully structured day, in which students and teachers flow through the ‘feast’ of subjects that Charlotte Mason believed were necessary for the nourishment and education of the minds of every child.
Lessons are short, activities are varied, and our days are structured within ‘blocks’ of time, allowing for flexibility. Families may enroll in a Morning Academic Block or a Full Day Block, and multiple subjects are covered daily within these larger Blocks of time.
We do not use textbooks or a canned curriculum, but are guided by the Charlotte Mason Alveary online curriculum. A student may enroll in one to three days per week, with each day independent unto itself and centered on World studies, US studies, or Science and Geography electives.
Subjects are studied under the umbrella of a chronological rotation of one century per school year. This allows for a deeper immersion and greater understanding of subject matter than a traditional survey type format. Every student, from elementary to high school rotates together through the same chronological time period, thus allowing for both family learning and multi-age collaboration among students.
Morning Academics will flow through a variety of academic subjects which engage the mind and the hands, while afternoons spark the child’s imagination and creativity with outdoor time and nature study, art, music, handicrafts and building, and special studies.