Our Family
Family and Lifelong Learning
Sometimes, we don't see themes and patterns in our lives until we look back at them and then, as the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. Looking back at our parenting journey, it is clear that teaching and philosophy have run deep within the structure of our parenting our daughters.
From a young age, we decided to homeschool our children. Part of this obligation, in many places, is that one has to name your family homeschool. We called ours, The Perennial Philosophy School, named after the famous work of Aldous Huxley that was so influential in my early philosophic journey. (And I still recommend to people to this day!). Here, I was teaching (and learning as I went) the basics of Sanskrit, Greek and Latin to help our kids better understand philosophy and think more clearly in general.
Shortly after this, we dipped our toes into the online teaching world, as created an online website and Youtube channel called The Little Philosophers. If you watch the videos below, you will note one girl dressed in Greek dress, representing the West, and the other in an orange robe of an Indian Sannyasi, representing the East. This did not last too long, however, as it was a lot of work for all involved!
Our next venture into the online world came when we decided to sell nearly all of our belongings and buy 1 way tickets to India to travel as a world-schooling family, travel to holy sites, and perform service to the poor. We were going to document our journeys on a platform called The Inspired Travelers. Alas, however, as the saying goes: "Want to see God laugh? Tell Him your plans!". Ultimately, this idea did not manifest as expected but we did spend 6 months traveling through India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Bali and Japan.
Once returning home, was when we started the medical practice, Raising Sages Integrative Pediatrics, and so we had less time for doing as much academic work as we had done earlier. However, we still continued teaching them about philosophy, spiritual values and continued to have them homeschooled through a co-op but ultimately at this time, we renamed their school, The Eudaimonia School, after Aristotle, which means to "Flourish" or "Living Well".
Our kids are grown now, but we still regularly hold study circles when they are home. I am also happy to say that they have maintained an interest in deepening their understandings of life, have turned out to be very lovely young women, and are actively reading classical literature and philosophy in their free time. What more can a philosophy geek- Dad hope for?