What Is a Tutorial?

Founded by Oxford and Cambridge, the tutorial system operates on regular, small group sessions. These are high-structured sessions that require the students to speak, listen, read, write, defend, inquire, analyze, critique, present, review, be tested, and discuss ideas with the tutor and fellow students. Our middle school and high school tutorial classes (Form III for Lux; 6th-9th grades for Arete) put this classic tutorial method into practice, while our inquiry-based elementary classes prepare our younger students for the rigorous tutorial method in the upper years. The middle school and high school student prepares for a session by reading, keeping a commonplace book, writing essays, creating presentations, practicing review strategies, and working through problems, depending upon the subject. The tutorial system is so effective because it “creates learning and assessment opportunities which are highly authentic and difficult to fake.”¹ Every session should feel like an intellectual workout. Teachers ask questions in the style of Socrates, beginning with concrete questions and then moving into more abstract inquiries. These questions are often moral and philosophical in nature, and we expect our teachers not to promote any ideology that goes against Latter-day Saint theology.

Our teachers have the requirement of being members of the Church Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for we apply to our school what Alma the Elder taught: “trust no one to be your teacher or minister, except he be a man of God, walking in His ways and keeping His commandments” (Mosiah 23:14). Scale How School anchors itself to the idea that our students can be like those children of old, even the ancient Jaredites who journeyed across the sea to the promised land, to be “taught to walk humbly before the Lord,” and also to be “taught from on high” (Ether 6:17). Every tutorial session is framed by the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, like a backdrop on a stage, sometimes subtle, sometimes more manifest, with constant efforts to invite the Holy Ghost into the classroom. Students are offered the two secrets of moral and intellectual self-management, stated in Charlotte Mason’s 20 Principles of Education, the Way of the Will and the Way of the Reason, in order to distinguish between “I want” and “I will,” and to acknowledge that reason alone cannot always be an infallible guide; both students and teachers alike must comprehend that the Divine has constant access to our spirits, and that knowledge, wisdom, and understanding comes to us by the Light of Christ, and by the gift of the Holy Ghost. God is our continual helper in “all interests, duties and joys of life.”² As mothers and educators we must stop trying to take credit for the work of the Holy Ghost. We must not seek to manipulate the hearts of our children, for it is not our place. Instead we are to strive to create an ideal learning environment, to present a feast of ideas to our students, to require structure, discipline, and action, and to work with patience and grace. We are not to be changers of hearts; rather, the work of changing one’s heart is to be carried out between the sacred partnership of the individual student and the Holy Ghost.

Scale How School expects our teachers to recognize and comprehend that our students are to be joint-heirs with Christ, to be kings and queens, priests and priestesses, and that our efforts as teachers must reflect this knowledge. Ushering in the return of our Savior is a burden that rests upon the shoulders of our children; we must remember our crucial roles as ministers, teachers, and tutors, and not to take lightly our responsbility to help prepare a people for Jesus Christ. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “There are no ordinary people.”

What Makes Us Different?

If we were to travel back in time to observe the stereotypical homeschooled students of yesteryear, we would find that they were raised in a completely different educational culture: it was a culture of academic excellence, with structure and vision, and good Christian parenting. Curriculum choices were few, and the internet was slow, but parents had high expectations and ordered homes. These students had a reputation for being well-read, capable writers, who were ahead of their peers, even in subjects like math. Perhaps they may not have been the “coolest” kids in the neighborhood, but as a whole they were known as being thoughtful and mature for their age, able to converse comfortably with adults, and not as easily influenced by their peers. This may appear to be romanticizing the past, but this was a stereotype for a reason.

Unfortunately some time in the last twenty years homeschoolers have gained a different sort of reputation, and not something to be proud of. Homeschooling has turned into a lifestyle that celebrates shallow, child-led learning, sustained by a near total collapse of parenting. Here in Utah many have taken an erroneous perception of free agency and created it into a false idol, an idol that encourages parents to relinquish their God-given authority within their own homes. Homeschool mothers have fallen prey to the worst kinds of flattery, and the children suffer as a result. In the Book of Mormon, Nephi quotes the great prophet Isaiah, saying that due to great wickedness the Lord removes the mighty man, the judge, the prudent, and the ancient. Instead, the people are to be ruled by children. “And I will give children unto them to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them. And . . . the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honorable” (2 Nephi 13:4-5). However, there is a change in the air, the tide is turning, and more and more parents are starting to realize that it is time to put to rest the rampant unschooling, the constant curriculum hopping, the random routines and sporadic schedules, and the bad behavior. It is time to ignore the flatterers and do the work that needs to be done. Do the work and plan for miracles.

Oftentimes homeschool academics happen in isolation; most co-ops in Davis County are not only secular, but elective-based, unless it is a co-op done on a smaller scale. Scale How School was developed with the intention of gathering academic peers for our classically educated homeschool students and for students who desire more structure in their education. Not all peer pressure is a negative thing; healthy competition in the classroom can only help our students rise up to the challenges placed before them; this is especially true for our sons.

While many of these co-ops have random class selections, Scale How School is laying down the rails for our tutorials, meaning, we have a track that students will travel on that isn’t random and unpredictable; rather it is designed to be a steady, consistent course with each year building upon previous years. The tutorial is constructed to maintain a philosophical groundwork that is timeless and effective; the path may need a bit of pruning here and there, but the course is smooth, deliberate, and intentional. Ofttimes co-ops are plagued with too many cooks in the kitchen with competing philosophies and visions. Decision fatigue is another scourge upon the co-op: the yearly meeting of “what are we going to do next year?” is taxing and time-consuming. Charlotte Mason warned of decision fatigue. “The effort of decision, we have seen, is the greatest effort of life; not the doing of the thing, but the making up of one’s mind as to which thing to do first.”³ (See our Curriculum page page to learn about our curriculum choices and recommendations.)

Scale How students are graded for their work; they take quizzes and tests, and they fulfill homework requirements. The homeschool mother should not clutch her pearls at the idea of her student being tested, for taking tests and receiving grades is something our students naturally crave; it tells them what they need to know: “How can I improve?” God sent us to Earth to be tested, and in a sense, to eventually receive a grade. School should be no different, but grading papers and giving feedback are tasks that often fall to the wayside in the typical homeschool. Not only do we seek to alleviate some of that burden, but we know outside opinions and constructive criticism from trusted teachers are invaluable to the students. We want to give students opportunities to cultivate relationships with their teachers. Every student at some point in their educational journey will need a letter of recommendation; we are hopeful that these kinds of opportunities can be a blessing to you and your family.

While we promote Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy, Scale How School does not dictate how you run your homeschool. We do encourage families to strive for a classical Christian education in their homes, and we highly recommend the curriculum that we consider to be the gold standard for homeschoolers, Ambleside Online. (See our Curriculum page.) Still, regardless of what curriculum you do use in your home, the tutorials at Scale How are designed to strengthen the areas that might be weak spots in your homeschool, specifically science, writing, handicrafts and art. Traditional art and handicrafts are often neglected, sometimes even deemed as low priority or simply too bothersome to get around to. Writing is very demanding; students need daily practice, and they need helpful feedback from teachers and peers to improve the craft. Science becomes increasingly technical; it requires calculations and conversions, and if you are teaching multiple grades in your homeschool, like most homeschooling mothers are, having to do experiments and labs for more than one grade level is quite overwhelming.

All of these subjects benefit greatly from a classroom experience. Creating art in a class boosts bonding with classmates, and it bolsters self-reflection and humility; receiving feedback on your writing assignment from your peers is often more memorable than anything the teacher has to say, and it presents an opportunity for the student to learn how to give and take criticism with honesty and grace; and science is a rigorous subject that thrives on discussion, discipline, and camaraderie—how wonderful it is to have companions to climb such a mountain.

Mastery is very important to our tutorial. Every teacher laments the loss of knowledge that can happen over the course of an average school year. How quick the student can mock the idea of being able to remember information from a test taken the year before. Our tutorial has sought out the best strategies for supporting students on the road to mastery. All classes begin with catechesis. The first section of the catechism for every grade or form pertains to virtue; the remainder of the catechism is unique to the subject of the class. This latter part of the catechism is essentially a microcosm of the curriculum for the whole year of that class. In addition to catechesis to generate mastery, our Arete science program combines John Mays’s cumulative study strategy with West Point’s Thayer Method. Students are required to recite the catechism at home alongside catechesis videos provided by the tutorial. Mastery of the catechism demands recitation more than once a week. In order to take full effect, a catechism must be practiced four to five times a week, and not just when the tutorial meets. (See the Lux and Arete pages to view catechism excerpts.)

During tutorials, teachers lecture rarely, at least in the modern sense of the word “lecture.” Mortimer Adler, the American philosopher and educator wrote,

“In the mediaeval universities, teachers were lecturers in a different sense of the word “lecture” than the one that is now generally in use. Only the teacher had the manuscript copy of a book that contained knowledge and understanding to be imparted to his students. As the etymology of the word “lecture” indicates, lecturing consisted in reading a text aloud, accompanied by a running commentary on the text read. Whatever the students learned, they learned by listening, and the better they were able to listen, the more they were able to learn.”

In the Lower School, younger elementary students will listen to teachers read from books, while older elementary students will follow along in their books while the text is being read aloud. The Upper School, that is the middle school and high school levels, will primarily read the books on their own as homework. Charlotte Mason wrote that teaching must not be intrusive, that teachers should practice “the Art of Standing Aside.” She taught that the likely “mediocre mind of the teacher” should not get between the mind of the student and the great minds of the authors who wrote the living books. (See our Curriculum page to learn more about our book selection, and see our Lux and Arete pages to view the homework load for the various classes.)

Most importantly, Scale How School recognizes that God should not be absent from the classroom. The classroom is as much a place for prayer, hymns, and scripture as it is a place for discussion and lecture. God is not confined to Sunday School lessons. Charlotte Mason taught that an education is the Science of Relations, which means that wisdom and true learning happens when a student makes his own connections and relationships—relationships between the different subjects, relationships between different people, relationships with the Great Ideas, and relationships with God. “Knowledge is merely knowing that certain things are, but wisdom is knowing how the souls of things rhyme with each other.”⁴ We learn science not because we wish to be scientists; we learn composition not because we wish to be writers; we learn art not because we wish to be artists; we learn all the many different subjects because we wish to know God more, and we desire to be of use to Him. God desires disciples with knowledge, wisdom, and understanding in a great many things. We must try our best to be well-rounded, intelligent human beings, for “it is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance” (Doctrine and Covenants 131:6). Mortality is not a time to only learn what we desire, for often our desires are disordered. Education is not to be about what the child wants, it is to be about who the child is to become. Often enough what the child wants in the moment has nothing to do with what he is to become.

As parents and teachers, we have no way of knowing who are students are to become. Because of this reality we must do everything we can to give them the best that Western Civiliation has to offer, for education is not simply a means to an end, it is not just a path to temporal riches, instead an education is an inheritance. Our children deserve to inherit a royal education to prepare them to be kings and queens, priests and priestesses, joint-heirs with Christ. Such an inheritance not only forms virtue and character, but it tethers our students to the great men who came before them. This inheritance alongside a spiritual inheritance, that of being a child of God in God’s Kingdom, provides a priceless foundation for students to become the best version of themselves. Elder Renlund taught, “With [God’s] loving assistance, He expects us to become the best version of ourselves.”⁵

Students and teachers must adhere to the Rules of Decorum as outlined in our Family Handbook, which includes strict dress code and cell phone use policies. Students are held accountable for their behavior; poor behavior will have an effect on a student’s overall grade. Our belief is that virtue is the fruit learning; therefore, a student’s good grades are worthless if a student is without virtue. Good grades do not make up for disobedience, unkindness, and a lack of respect for authority.

1. Palfreyman, David, ed. 2001. The Oxford Tutorial: Thanks, You Taught Me How to Think. Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies. ↩︎
2. Mason, Charlotte, 2017. Home Education. Jilliby, Australia: Living Books Press. ↩︎
3. Mason, Charlotte; 2017. Home Education. Jilliby, Australia: Living Books Press. ↩︎
4. Gibbs, Joshua, 2019. Something They Will Not Forget. Concord, NC: Circe Institute. ↩︎
5. Renlund, Dale G. “Personal Preparation to Meet the Savior,” General Conference, April 2025. ↩︎