Two teachers, a kitchen table, and a better way to learn.
We are two Ontario Certified Teachers and parents based in Erin, Ontario, serving families across Canada. What began as teaching our own children has become a small learning community for families who want the same thing we did.
Kinda and Dwayne Johnson
Kinda leads the Hub day to day. She is an Ontario Certified Teacher with more than fifteen years of teaching experience, and the heart of the Enrichment Club and the tutoring families already know.
Dwayne is an Ontario Certified Teacher too, holds a master’s degree in education, and is part of everything the Hub plans and builds. Between them they have taught in classrooms, taught their own children at home, and built the small community that became Virtue.
Also a lead teacher, and with us from the very beginning, is Elvern Nanton-Clarke, a certified teacher.
Why we are doing this.
We are two Ontario Certified Teachers.
We have taught in classrooms. We have taught our own children at home. During the pandemic we ran a virtual pod on Charlotte Mason’s philosophy, using AmblesideOnline, for our own three children and for a number of homeschooling families who asked us to take theirs as well. That work told us something we have not been able to put down since: children learn best when they are known, when the ideas put in front of them are living ones, and when the days have a rhythm they can trust.
So we are building it properly.
Virtue exists to inspire families, to support children, and to redefine what community-based education can look like. Our vision is a thriving family learning community where children and families flourish through meaningful relationships, whole-child education, and a lifelong love of learning.
Our own three children - ages 5, 8 and 10 - are the first children in the room. They are not an afterthought to this business. They are the proof of it. We will not offer any family something we have not first given our own.
Our focus is quality, not growth. A slow, careful start is deliberate.
Six questions.
Everything we do must pass all six.
- Does it nurture the whole child?
- Does it strengthen families?
- Does it build community?
- Does it cultivate wisdom?
- Does it develop character?
- Does it inspire lifelong learning?
If the answer is no, we don’t do it.
Children will be known · loved · encouraged · challenged · respected · inspired.
Families will feel supported · welcomed · connected · heard · valued.
These are not aspirations. They are the terms on which we take a child.
What families will noticeThe calm. The kindness. The way children are spoken to. The emphasis on wonder. The partnership with parents. The respect shown to every child.
Lived experience is the strongest testimony and the best marketing we will ever have.
Children are born persons.
Charlotte Mason was an English educator who believed children deserve real ideas, not diluted ones. Her method puts living books in place of dry textbooks, asks children to narrate what they have learned in their own words, and gives them daily time with nature, art, poetry and music.
It is gentle, but it is not soft. Short lessons, full attention, and habits built one at a time. It is how we teach our own children, and it runs through everything here.
Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.Charlotte Mason
Short lessons. Big ideas.
Living books
Books written by people who love their subject, in place of dry summaries. Children remember stories.
Narration
A child tells back what they learned in their own words. It is the simplest test of understanding there is.
Nature study
Time outside every day, and a nature journal to draw what they find. In every season.
Picture study & poetry
One painting, one poem, looked at closely. Beauty is part of a good education, not a reward for finishing it.
Let’s connect.
Text is quickest. Tell us your child’s grade and what you are looking for, and we will reply the same day whenever we can.