Welcome to Living Education Collective

A Charlotte Mason community for home-educating families in Ventura County.

We believe education should be relational.

Living Education Collective is a grassroots movement of local home educating families that have united to pursue all that is true, beautiful and good together in community for the glory of God. 

In addition to our 1-day student drop-off program, we seek to equip and strengthen our local community by offering Charlotte Mason style retreats, educational courses, gatherings and book clubs.

Key Points

  • We follow the educational philosophy of Charlotte Mason.

  • Students are dropped off,  taught by paid educators and assisted by parent volunteers. 

  • We are a diverse, ecumenical community united in our love for Jesus, our unwillingness to remove God from education and our high emphasis on virtue and moral character. 

  • Our program runs on Wednesdays for 30 weeks each academic year. Every 7th week we take a sabbath. 

  • We currently accept students in Year 0 (age 5 by Sept 30) through Year 10. 

  • Primary classes are kept intentionally small with a max of 10 students per class. Upper school classes have a 12 student max. 

  • Students must be age 5 by September 30th in order to enter Kinder at LEC.

    In a Charlotte Mason education, formal schooling does not begin until age 6. We believe Kinder should be a quiet growing time.

    During Year 0 at LEC, your child will focus on learning through their senses, developing of love for rich literature and growing in healthy, respectful habits.

  • We agree with Charlotte Mason that children are born persons.

    Children are not empty vessels to be filled. They are capable of dealing with real ideas and real knowledge. We believe children should be put in contact with great and noble ideas through literature, music, art, poetry and the like.

    Charlotte Mason believed a child should develop a deep intimacy with a wide range of subjects. We refer to this as laying a rich feast. If you can imagine each item presented for the feast as a subject in school, you will begin to see the idea of a wide and varied education. The children should come into contact with many different subjects and ideas.

    Lessons are kept short so as to train focused attention and excellent execution in each subject. There is variation in the day’s activities in an effort to avoid over-stressing the brain on any one task. All subjects are taught through the use of living books rather than textbooks.

  • The Upper Years include all of the beauty and principles of the Primary Years, but with an added focus on character development and spiritual formation.

“Thought breeds thought; children familiar with great thoughts take as naturally to thinking for themselves as the well-nourished body takes to growing; and we must bear in mind that growth, physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual, is the sole end of education.”

— Charlotte Mason