There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.
The River Houses is not a curricular program, but our general philosophy and our postings do follow an informal approach that we call teaching with-out the curriculum. By teaching “with-out” the curriculum we don’t mean teaching in the absence of a curriculum; we mean the informal teaching that takes place “with-out” as opposed to “with-in” the curriculum, through the richness of daily life in the home, neighborhood, and community all through the year.
This isn’t a complex ideology — it’s really just what good homeschoolers and all good parents do naturally all the time. We’ll have more to say about teaching with-out the curriculum as time goes on — we’re still getting underway, and if you’re reading this, that means you’re one of our real pioneers! For two different illustrations of the idea that we’ve already started to develop, see our River Houses homeschool calendars and our ideas for a River Houses Lunar Society.