Main > SCA Proc > Quick Replies > Will there be gaps?

Many traditional schools and at least one popular homeschool curriculum provider boast that their curricula have "no gaps." They imply that the students who use their curricula will acquire "complete" educations, as it were, with no missing pieces. We find this claim puzzling because we wonder how any child can be taught "everything" there is to know by the youthful age of 17 or 18. Furthermore, we consulted several standard scope-and-sequences when we first began to develop Sonlight Curriculum, and we quickly realized that no two curricula completely agree when it comes to "what our children ought to know." Even those curricula that claim to have "no gaps" have differences between them!

And so we decided we could not create a curriculum with "no gaps" and, therefore, we would not worry overly much if our scope-and-sequence failed to match exactly the scope-and-sequence of any particular traditional school. Rather, we decided we would seek to meet the needs of evangelical Christians who want their children to grow up loving to learn. We figured that instilling in children a love for learning was the most important thing we could do. That way, the children would continue learning because they wanted to continue learning even after they'd completed their formal "school" educations. And they would later pick up whatever information they happened to miss during their school years. Far better to lack a few facts and love to learn than to have all the "right" information and hate the learning process!

You can read more about our thoughts on our website (http://www.sonlight.com/not-to-buy.html ).