What Kind of Homeschooler Are You?

What Kind of Homeschooler Are You? Quiz

What kind of homeschooler are you? Take this quiz to see which educational philosophies best match your homeschool.

This post is for the original quiz.  Click here if you would like to take an updated quiz with two additional philosophies included.

When you are done with the quiz, check out Homeschool Philosophies:  A Resource List to find out more about the different philosophies.

Great books from history and literature should be used in place of textbooks.

Children should spend plenty of time in nature and use natural materials in education.

I want to use curriculum similar to what is used in public or private schools.

Child-led learning is important.

Early elementary years should focus on exploring the world with no formal lessons.

The parent's most important job in education is to teach the child how to learn.

Short lessons with focused attention are better than big chunks of time.

Lessons that can be used with multiple ages and grades are best.

I prefer to purchase grade-level curriculum packages that are planned out for me.

Learning is more effective when the child is interested.

Discussions are a major part of learning.

Topical studies are a great way to learn.

Instruction should be language-based with little use of screens.

Incorporating many different subjects into one study is preferable.

Early childhood should emphasize creative play and formal learning should be avoided before age 7.

A child's passion for learning should drive their education.

Living books are a great tool for learning.

I desire my children to have a rigorous education.

Social responsibility and empathy are important in my children's education.

Learning ideas are more important than memorizing facts.

Living books, projects, and activities are preferable to textbooks, workbooks, and worksheets.

The parent's role is to facilitate the child's education and not to teach.

Parents should model a love for learning, a love for work, a curious nature, and read a lot.

Learning to write clearly and use elegant language is important.

Children will learn when they are ready.

Education should include practical activities like household chores or handcrafts.

Being able to transition into a public or private school classroom is important.

Education is the child's responsibility.

Latin and logic are important subjects.

Parents should study and read while the child studies and reads.

Self-expression through art, music, role-playing, and movement is an important part of education.

Children should have long periods of uninterrupted time for child-led study.

Avoiding screens for children who are elementary age or younger is important.

Having a teacher's guide is essential.

It is better to study a wide variety of subjects than to focus mainly on reading, writing, and math.

Our learning environment looks like a mini-classroom.

Learning how to learn is a priority.

Children should learn at their own pace.

Topical studies help children make connections between subjects.

Children should spend lots of time outside.

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589 thoughts on “What Kind of Homeschooler Are You?

  1. I think its really odd that people are posting the negatives (-) as their top numbers. Am I missing something? I thought the negative ones were the ones I least lined up with.

  2. Would love to see a short paragraph outlining what this quiz’s defining characteristics of each approach is. I know what I think are the defining characteristics of some of them, while others I had not heard of. What I think is the defining characteristic of Charlotte Mason may be slightly off what others believe it is… Also, I thought the quiz had some false dichotomies; it was hard to choose on some of the questions, so I had a lot of “Neither agree nor disagrees”.

  3. Yep, I am most definitely eclectic. Tops scores: Charlotte Mason, 20, Unschooling, 19, Montessori, 18. I don’t know a lot about Mason & Montessori, but what I do know influences my version of unschooling. For us, it’s not the kids running free & unfettered, it’s that academics is no more or less important than personal responsibility, & learning that life is about God, doing what needs doing before what you merely ‘want’ to do, & ‘do as you would be done by’. Learning should never stop, & we hope our kids have learnt from our example that learning is fun.

  4. Score for Waldorf Education: 6
    Score for Traditional Education: -3
    Score for Unit Studies Education: 3
    Score for Montessori Education: 13
    Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 6
    Score for Unschooling: 11
    Score for Classical Education: 0
    Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 16

  5. I have done this several times and I either get an error message or ‘0’ for each method. The test was great! I’d love to know my results. I am wondering if maybe there is another bug in the system.

  6. Score for Waldorf Education: 11
    Score for Traditional Education: -11
    Score for Unit Studies Education: 11
    Score for Montessori Education: 18
    Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 10
    Score for Unschooling: 3

    Score for Classical Education: 14
    Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 18

  7. So what does all zeroes mean?

    Your Results:
    Score for Waldorf Education: 0
    Score for Traditional Education: 0
    Score for Unit Studies Education: 0
    Score for Montessori Education: 0
    Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 0
    Score for Unschooling: 0
    Score for Classical Education: 0
    Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 0

  8. lol
    Your Results:
    Score for Waldorf Education: 0
    Score for Traditional Education: 0
    Score for Unit Studies Education: 0
    Score for Montessori Education: 0
    Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 0
    Score for Unschooling: 0
    Score for Classical Education: 0
    Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 0

    1. OK, here’s my updated scores:
      Score for Waldorf Education: 3
      Score for Traditional Education: -14
      Score for Unit Studies Education: 12
      Score for Montessori Education: 16
      Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 0
      Score for Unschooling: 9
      Score for Classical Education: 3
      Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 19

  9. I got 0 on EVERYTHING?! What happened? I took it twice. I fully expected to see high scores on Charlotte Mason and probably Montessori or Waldorff. I’m totally confused.

    1. Sorry, due to high traffic our web host has displayed the quiz as a cached page that updates every hour. We just updated the quiz to fix an error. If you come back in an hour things should be showing up correctly for you.

  10. Just took the quiz twice, I had a couple answers I was unsure of so I changed them the second time…I got ALL 0’s both times?????

  11. I got Classical (21), Waldorf (13), and Unit Studies (11). That’s funny b/c I’ve never done a unit study in 20 years of homeschooling. I describe myself as Classical with a Charlotte Mason bent, and at times I am Charlotte Mason with a Classical bent, yet I got 0 for Charlotte Mason. That was fun, I will pass it on.

    Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 0
    Score for Waldorf Education: 13
    Score for Traditional Education: -21
    Score for Unit Studies Education: 11
    Score for Montessori Education: 8
    Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 5
    Score for Unschooling: 2
    Score for Classical Education: 21

  12. I received a “0” in all of them. Is there something wrong?

    Score for Waldorf Education: 0
    Score for Traditional Education: 0
    Score for Unit Studies Education: 0
    Score for Montessori Education: 0
    Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 0
    Score for Unschooling: 0
    Score for Classical Education: 0
    Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 0

  13. Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 0
    Score for Waldorf Education: 6
    Score for Traditional Education: 0
    Score for Unit Studies Education: 9
    Score for Montessori Education: 9
    Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 2
    Score for Unschooling: 9
    Score for Classical Education: 3

    Interesting…surprised by the unschooloing being at the top. Otherwise its probably right on.

  14. Interesting quiz. We’re still newbies with homeschooling and I’ve been studying most of these methods to try to figure out which would work best for us! Now I have a better guideline to study from! I should stay away from traditional!

    Montessori : 21
    Thomas Jefferson : 16
    Unschooling : 15

    Not far behind was Waldorf & Unit Studies with 13. Feels a little all over the board, but so am I!

  15. Score for Waldorf Education: 10
    Score for Traditional Education: -12
    Score for Montessori Education: 18
    Score for Unschooling: 11

    Actually doesn’t surprise me though before we started homeschooling I would have said I was not high on the Unschooling method. I have changed my tune because of my daughter. She leads many of our studies and pathways during school though I am a stickler for school hours (about 3 max a day)!

  16. Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 0
    Score for Waldorf Education: 11
    Score for Traditional Education: -12
    Score for Unit Studies Education: 6
    Score for Montessori Education: 21
    Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 8
    Score for Unschooling: 16
    Score for Classical Education: 6

    Seems pretty accurate…though I’m a LITTLE surprised I got 0 on Charlotte Mason. We love reading and books around here. 😉

  17. We started our child in 3 yrs of Montessori, then tried 1/2 yr public school Kindergarten, then to homeschooling. I think my score reflects the lean towards Montessori.
    Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 0
    Score for Waldorf Education: 8
    Score for Traditional Education: -6
    Score for Unit Studies Education: 3
    Score for Montessori Education: 13
    Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 8
    Score for Unschooling: 11
    Score for Classical Education: 6

  18. Funny! I’m the co-author of the Thomas Jefferson Education model, and here are my results:
    Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 0
    Score for Waldorf Education: 25
    Score for Traditional Education: -23
    Score for Unit Studies Education: 18
    Score for Montessori Education: 21
    Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 23
    Score for Unschooling: 18
    Score for Classical Education: 19
    My only surprise is that I got a -0- on CM – because I LOVE CM and lots of TJEders use CM. Thing is, TJEd is a framework that allows people to apply the others in their own style – so other TJEders will likely have different scores. Obviously, any short quiz is subjective, depending on how you understand the question, how the quiz designer set up the valuation, etc. And also, obviously, I actually have much stronger leanings toward TJEd than toward, say, Waldorf or Classical – in spite of the way the quiz evaluated my responses. So either I answered it strangely, or the quiz designers understand TJEd much differently than I do! 🙂 (And since TJEd didn’t get a 1st place answer from anyone – including me – I wonder what the quiz is looking for to give that as a result…? Just a thought. ) I think the great thing about this is to raise awareness of different options and opportunities, so that families can really personalize their family education culture and methods. Fun. Thanks for this!

    1. CM was showing an error when adding up the scores. It is now fixed. We have also updated the Waldorf questions to better reflect the philosophy. Thanks for your feedback.

  19. Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 0
    Score for Waldorf Education: 11
    Score for Traditional Education: -5
    Score for Unit Studies Education: 6
    Score for Montessori Education: 12
    Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 7
    Score for Unschooling: 13
    Score for Classical Education: 3

    I think this is pretty accurate

  20. I’d like to know your criteria for Charlotte Mason methodology. A whole forum of experienced CM advocates and users just took this quiz and most of us scored 0 for Charlotte Mason methodology. If you’re not representing the methodology correctly in your quiz, you could be steering people away from a method of education that could be a very good fit for them.

    Living Books, Short lessons, Delayed academics, No unit studies, Outdoor time, Art and Music, Lifeskills, Handicrafts…answering highly in favour of these basic elements of a CM education scored me 0. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark methinks.

  21. I’m really surprised that I got 0 for Charlotte Mason, since that’s the method we have been successfully using.
    Montessori 13 (We tried Montessori and it didn’t work for my son and I felt like there were things missing too.)
    Unit Studies & Classical 11 (We do often do things in a “unit study” sort of way and I feel like there are many parallels between Classical and CM)

    Check out the way we do homeschooling at my blog: crazyearthmama.blogspot.com

    1. Charlotte Mason was not tabulating the scores correctly. If you try again, it should be more accurate.

  22. hmmm… food for thought.
    Waldorf and montessori are tied first – 19
    Thomas Jefferson – 13
    Unschooling and Unit Studies tied 3rd – 12

    Classical – 11 which is what I’ve leaned toward…

  23. Would you consider doing a post summarizing each style? I’m not familiar with some of them like Thomas Jefferson, Montessori and Waldorf.

  24. Montessori at 16, and unit and Classical ties at 12.
    Interestingly, Charlotte Mason got 0!
    We use Moving Beyond the Page which is Unit study based.
    However I am thinking of returning to Classical.

  25. Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 0
    Score for Waldorf Education: 11
    Score for Traditional Education: 0
    Score for Unit Studies Education: 6
    Score for Montessori Education: 18
    Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 7
    Score for Unschooling: 11
    Score for Classical Education: 8

    I’m not sure what this actually means, though

  26. Interesting, Classical makes sense since I am a Director for Classical Conversations. The Unschooling and Thomas Jefferson ed surprised me, but I guess as I think about it, they fit with our not doing school time, my dd is always learning something.

    Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 0
    Score for Waldorf Education: 1
    Score for Traditional Education: -18
    Score for Unit Studies Education: 6
    Score for Montessori Education: 10
    Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 14
    Score for Unschooling: 14
    Score for Classical Education: 20

  27. I’ve always considered our approach to be eclectic, and I suppose these results bear that out. I do have to laugh a bit at my anti-traditional education stance, given my position as a former public school teacher. 🙂 (I’ll also need to study Waldorf to confirm, as I’m not certain I know what all that approach entails!)

    Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 0
    Score for Waldorf Education: 13
    Score for Traditional Education: -21
    Score for Unit Studies Education: 12
    Score for Montessori Education: 13
    Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 6
    Score for Unschooling: 17
    Score for Classical Education: -3

  28. Score for Charlotte Mason Education: 0
    Score for Waldorf Education: 11
    Score for Traditional Education: 0
    Score for Unit Studies Education: 9
    Score for Montessori Education: 19
    Score for Thomas Jefferson Education: 3
    Score for Unschooling: 14
    Score for Classical Education: 6

  29. Pretty much spot on: Unschooling (25), TJED (21), and Montessori (20) are my top three. -23 for traditional that is definitely correct, which is funny since I’ve been a teacher since 1998.

  30. I think it’s safe to say my kids will never attend traditional school. 🙂
    Thomas Jefferson and Unschooling 21
    Waldorf and Montessori 20
    Traditional Schooling -25

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