Sonlight's Community

It took almost ten years for us to realize this. Indeed, it took nearly that long for it to become true. But. . .

Sonlight Curriculum is more than a company.

It is more than a curriculum.

It is a community as well.

A Curriculum

The curriculum part of our identity is where we began. Sarita and I wanted to create a package of books and a set of instructor's guides that would meet the needs of American homeschoolers living around the world.

You can read more about that part of our story in "How did Sonlight Begin?".

A Company

After the curriculum got going — actually, within a month or so of when we began work on the idea, Sonlight Curriculum had to become a company. We realized that if we developed a curriculum, we needed some means to deliver it. And, in fact, before we began delivering books, we needed some means to acquire them from publishers. And so the company was born.

That part of the story, too, you can find in "How did Sonlight Begin?".

Traditionally, the Sonlight Curriculum catalog has focused on these two aspects of our identity: our products and our services.

But then, back in 1999, I realized Sonlight Curriculum is something more than products and services, employees and customers.

Sonlight Curriculum is also. . .

A Community

Sonlight Curriculum was very deliberate about the first two aspects of its identity. We knew when we began working on the curriculum. We knew when we needed to pay attention to making the company work effectively.

But how did the Sonlight Curriculum community develop?

I think it happened online — on the internet.

Did you know that we've been online since early 1995? That's when the Sonlight Curriculum forum first appeared on CompuServe. We've been on the worldwide web since late 1996, I believe. And during the ensuing years, a strong community of Sonlight Curriculum users has grown up.

But what I want to focus on here is the kind of people who make up the Sonlight Curriculum community. I have a sense that we're a special group. (And I mean that "we." We — all of us — are rather unique.)

Sonlight Curriculum people — we parents, "customers," "Sonlighters" — are interested in learning. We are not interested merely in teaching our children. We want to learn, too. For ourselves.

We realize that education isn't just for kids. It's for adults. It's for everyone. We all have more to learn. And we sense that it's fun to make new discoveries.

Sometimes learning new things can be challenging and painful. But when all is said and done, learning is fun. And we want to participate in the joy of learning.

You'll see that attitude expressed within the pages of our catalog. You'll see it in our materials, as well.

We take a certain attitude. We don't know it all. We're open to learning more and to being challenged.

The way we've come to express it is that Sonlight Curriculum (company and curriculum) is "For families who love learning together."

Truly. Education isn't just for kids. We don't want to buy materials just to meet some kind of governmental mandate. We learn because we want to, because it's fun, because that's what our families do. Together.

And that's the Sonlight Curriculum community: people who love learning together.

Please come join us! Enjoy a curriculum. Exploit the resources of the company. Visit our Sonlight^® Forums. But beyond everything else, come enjoy the Sonlight Curriculum community!

Begin the adventure.