Emily Philip

Emily Philip

Emily Philip has been a Foundations and Essentials Director for six of the eight years she’s spent with Classical Conversations. Since planting a new group to accommodate growth in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, she has experienced the struggles and the rewards of nurturing a community. This year, her community has grown to serve thirty families consisting of fifty-eight students in Foundations and twelve students in Challenge A and B combined.

Emily earned her BA in elementary education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was a North Carolina Teaching Fellow, though she taught for less than a year before having her first child. She also spent time as a nanny and a developmental therapist after college. Despite her training as a classroom teacher and her initial disdain for homeschooling, God ultimately softened her heart toward homeschooling and changed her mind in time for her first child to begin the first year of his educational journey with a CC community.

As time has gone by, Emily’s love for homeschooling and classical education, especially as laid out by CC, has only grown. She has a following on Instagram of mostly homeschoolers (@EmilytheHomeschooler), many of whom also do CC, and she loves sharing about her homeschooling journey there. She has a real heart for encouraging other homeschoolers to find freedom and confidence in their own home schools.

Emily and her husband, Doug, homeschool four kids in Durham, North Carolina. Barrett is in Challenge A, Hughett is a first-year Essentials student, Weston is in his fourth year of Foundations, and Fiona is in her second year of Foundations. The boys are all heavily involved in Trail Life USA, and Doug helps to lead the thriving troop. Otherwise, free time is filled with lots of sports and church activities.