“Don’t give up.” What does that mean to you? Maybe describe a time when you didn’t give up (or you did!). Or are there situations where you think you or others should give up? Explain.
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Image by Jonny Hughes (cc cropped, tinted)
Image by aussiegall (quote added cc)
You know that day where everything is going along swimmingly?
This one:
Sit in this vision for a moment. The vision of well being—of the stars, planets, and Cheerios aligned.
Can you see it? Feel it?
When it comes, when your life hits that magical moment—what do you do?
Here’s what some of us do:
We toss a home made hand grenade into the center of the living room. We reject our ordinary happiness.
Why?
Because some of us are under the impression that things of value only happen when we’re working hard.
So, when everyone is happily completing pages, reading, and skip counting, when the home is humming and our relationship is peaceful, some of us experience an involuntary panic.
This material is too easy. She must not be learning.
He whipped through that passage too quickly. He must not be challenged.
This book is fun, so it must not be that educational.
I better take in the car.
I’m going to ask ________ about why (he or she) doesn’t _________ more often.
We move into “anticipate the next crisis” mode. To avoid the surprise attack of the next crisis, we create one—one we can control!
Instead of staying home enjoying this (surely temporary) peace, we take the show on the road—adding the challenge of managing lots of kids out in the world.
Some of us buy brand new curricula so that everyone is suddenly thrust into the learning curve of “new” rather than enjoying comfy and familiar. We can’t appreciate the joy of mastery—we only esteem struggle to learn the next step/process.
Some of us look around at our friends (in person or online heroes) and decide that what they are doing is better, and judge our happy peace as undisciplined or, conversely, not free enough.
We refuse to allow the feeling of happiness to “settle in,” because it might mean we are not being conscientious enough about educating our young.
What if we were to while away the hours without diligence and pain and struggle and effort? Would that mean we were irresponsible parents/partners/home educators?
Time for a sip of coffee.
That peace you hear? That’s the sound of your life working.
That happy completion of pages, the successful reading, the repetition of skills learned and now mastered? That’s the sound of education taking root.
No one wants to struggle with a new challenge every day. Some of the joy of learning is getting to use the skills cultivated. It feels great to copy a passage without any struggle whatsoever. It’s awesome to rip through a set of math problems, knowing you’ve got it! You get it! You can bury that page with accurate answers and even show your work.
Kids who find their daily groove and rhythm—knowing what is expected and then being able to live up to that expectation—are happy kids.
Don’t wreck it! Enjoy it!
This is the life you are shooting for! Problems will find you again, without you even trying. So for now, celebrate the modest joy of ordinary happiness and success.
Let yourself off the hook. It’s wonderful if everyone likes the curricula, finds it a bit “too easy,” and successfully moves through their work with skill. Even professional athletes repeat the same drills at age 30 that they learned in Little League—mastery relies on practice and practice is all about repetition of skills, not struggling to learn new ones all the time.
You are doing something profoundly right when you feel that whoosh of peace in your home. Pause to notice. Inhale. Then…
Exhale and smile.
Cross-posted on facebook.
I had this odd little homeschool habit. See if you can relate.
If my kids and I found something wonderful to do in a day, and if that wonderful activity wasn’t already on the calendar for a week or more prior to doing it, and if that something wonderful dawned on me out of the blue—a fresh, bright idea—and we acted on it that day (not scheduling it for a future date so that I could put it on the calendar first), I felt guilty counting that experience toward “school.”
In other words—spontaneous education felt fake (like I was getting away with something, like I was not a serious educator).
I imagined that most homeschoolers had schedules and plans and knew what was coming each week. Certainly school teachers must never lecture on the fly or succumb to inspiration of the moment rather than inspiration that led to a “plan” for some time later.
The cycle looked like this. We had our routine—the practices we usually did each day. Then I’d get internally, unconsciously fed up with the daily predictability. We’d be studying some cool topic like gems or fingerprints or Vietnam. Bam!
Let’s go to Little Saigon!
And off we’d go. Dropping everything. We’d have a fabulous, learning immersed day.
That I didn’t count.
Because it wasn’t planned.
Because I hadn’t thought about the learning values in advance; because good teachers don’t string together a bunch of inspiring moments and call that learning; because the event/activity/outing wasn’t a part of an integrated unit of study—it felt hap-hazard and too dependent on my flights of fancy.
My educational drive came from behind. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with a unit study about the the gold rush until we were knee deep in fool’s gold. I felt my way. The ideas would come as we read. How could we read about panning for gold and not pan for gold? So we abandoned all our other school work and planned a “panning for gold” party. The kids even tried to build a sluice (failed, but the effort was awesome!). The fake gold collected was traded for sarsaparilla and licorice. That party project sidelined math, science, read aloud time, and copywork for a month.
It was big and disruptive and unplanned. Not in a single one of my books. Just a moment of following this nagging thought: How can we read about the Gold Rush and not try it?
Similarly, I didn’t know what to do about the solar system and my kids—books didn’t quite get it. Small pictures about unimaginable sizes. Once we were reading, though, the scale of the numbers related to planets blew my mind (space is huge!)—I wanted to blow my kids’ minds. I called my next door homeschooling neighbor to help me. We went outside into our cul-de-sac, and attempted to replicate to scale, the space between the planets and the sun. Discovering we’d have to send the youngest child more than a mile away to approximate Pluto’s relationship to the rest of us ended that project—and made its primary point.
And eliminated math pages, phonics, and handwriting time. And nap time. And laundry.
That night, still on a solar system high, my kids and I drummed up the idea to host an impromptu planetary tea party (at night! with the stars!). Our neighbors joined us, and the oldest girl surprised us, dressing up like Jupiter! (Red blotch over her eye.)
But was this learning? I worried about it. I hadn’t made a lesson plan in advance. Were parties and field trips and impromptu experiments enough?
Back to the workbooks and planned curricula we’d go.
However, no matter how many days we logged in the workbooks and planned activities, I couldn’t tell if the kids were making the kind of progress they should be making. I had no measuring device to reassure me. Eventually we’d get bored or restless or the flu would visit and all semblance of the routine would go out the window.
After a holiday, I’d regroup and start again.
What I couldn’t know then that I do know now is that it is MORE than enough and life looks like this stitched together variety of practices, habits, and flights of inspiration. Taken together, you work your way around the circle of learning (planned activities, lessons, incremental worksheets for skills, field trips, parties, spontaneous crafts and experiments, wasted days, child-led days, parent-led days). All of it comes together.
It’s both enough, and never enough.
Learning doesn’t have an end point—you know that because you are still learning almost as much as your kids are while you educate them. Don’t you sometimes wonder how they let you out of college when you can’t remember a stitch of information about Manifest Destiny or the Pacific theater in World War 2 (and you were a history major!)?
Because of your natural home educator neuroses, you will cycle through these various educational styles over and over again, attempting to “hit” the target that keeps moving backward from you.
That’s how it is supposed to be and is. Even the least “schooly” among us are still standing by, alert, seizing those moments when they can support and honor the natural curiosity of their children.
When you feel the anxiety of “never enough” creep up, remind yourself that every day—no matter what you do—your intention is the good of your children and their educational advance. Research and buy curricula, plan amazing experiences, follow your flights of fancy, be inspired by your children’s curiosity and ambition to try things, provide resources, set up a routine…
…and trust the process.
In the end, it’s all learning and it all counts and it’s enough. Your kids will take what you give them and expand it beyond what you ever imagined. They will know how to do that because you will have modeled so many different ways to learn right in front of them for their whole lives. They’ll be comfortable with structure, freedom, exploration, testing, routine, inspiration, abstraction, practical application, curiosity, expertise, practice, performance, and achievement.
The subject areas are merely opportunities to show your kids what it is to learn through a variety of means so that they can continue that journey on their own after they leave home.
So hats off to you! On the calendar or not, it all counts. It’s enough.
Top image by Brave Writer mom, Andrea
I have 3 kids homeschooling right now– 2 girls ages 13 and 10 and an 8 year old boy.
I have a collection of teacups and everyone loves choosing their cup for the day. My 10 year old likes to plan the treat which has varied from peanut butter and jelly sandwich triangles to freshly baked banana bread. However simple the snack is we always set it out on pretty serving plates.
Our poetry collection at this point is mostly Shel Silverstein and they happily dive in to each choose a poem to share. At first my son was reluctant because it seemed ‘girly’ but he has had a great time and has even helped make up some of the treats.
We have had some great conversations but my favorite thing about poetry teatime is that I feel free to sit down and just enjoy a treat with my children- no guilt.
Tiffany
Image (cc)
Grade levels are designed for schools, not home. Children similarly aged (not necessarily similarly skilled) are put into bunches and taught by one teacher, using materials designed for that group.
Home educators typically start their journeys with grade level products. They buy the entire slate of materials for Kindergarten or First Grade. As the oldest gets older, younger kids slide into the K or 1st position. By the time the oldest is in 5th grade, there may be three or four kids who are school aged, all with individual sets of products not necessarily coordinated in any meaningful way for you, the teacher of multiples!
The question becomes: “How do I teach all these levels simultaneously?”
It’s a great question! After all, children aren’t sent to be away from the home to a teacher in a separate building, while a parent at home makes meals, shops, and earns an income.
Rather, homeschooling families live in houses, condos, and apartments. They have more going on than an education. They’ve got pregnancies to contend with, toddlers and babies, all the necessities of life from food to laundry to dental appointments, and the pressure to figure out how to educate on the fly (very few home educators have any kind of training whatsoever!).
The secret to success is abandoning grade level.
You want all your kids learning about the same stuff together. They will automatically perform at “grade level” or according to their skill set. You can talk about Native American tribes with kids from pre-K to 10th grade. All kinds of materials and books can be gathered and used, together. DVDs, historical fiction, personal accounts from living Native Americans, studying maps, visiting burial grounds or Native American landmarks, making foods, weaving facsimiles of rugs or building replicas of their teepees and dwellings—what of this can’t be done on some level by everyone?
The goal is to create a shared family learning adventure. History and science (even literature) can, to a large extent, be studied collectively as you supply skill appropriate challenges within that context. At least everyone will be on the same page in terms of vocabulary, story, and focus. When you learn this way, students contribute to each other’s educations naturally, in conversation, through sharing their work together.
The 3 R’s (reading, writing, arithmetic) may seem like they are more grade-level bound, but that doesn’t meant you have to stretch yourself thin like a taffy-pull to get them in each day for four or more kids.
Set a time aside for when everyone does copywork. Light candles (one mom literally gives a tealight to each child-they write their name on the candle holder) and tell everyone—this is the time for copywork. You might be amazed that the youngest kids sustain a longer attention span when they are writing at the same time as the older ones. Once a week, kids can pick copywork for each other (knock knock jokes, or riddles, or favorite passages, or quotes from a favorite TV show). A sharing of the burden is possible—perhaps the older kids help the younger ones find passages that they would enjoy. Perhaps the younger ones can offer to decorate the writing of the older kids with stickers or artwork.
When you work on writing, suggest a project and have everyone contribute to it (a family letter, a collective report—each person contributing one page). Conversely, each child can work on producing writing for a family topic (subject area). They will select the kind of writing that matches their skill set, but all will focus on writing about artwork or nature or a response to a Shakespeare play.
Math can be done one at a time, if you need to teach specific concepts. But even then—it’s possible to discuss a math concept with the younger ones that the olders already know how to do. The older kids can demonstrate it in action or they might be partners during frisbee-toss skip counting. They can be asked to work with the younger child in secret and then come back to show off to you, the parent.
Reading time ought to be all together, when possible (memories get made here!). Start with the read aloud novel (whole family), followed by silent reading for older kids and reading library picture books for younger ones.
The idea is to do things together—as much as is possible. When a child needs your undivided attention, pick a time that doesn’t compete with someone else’s similar need. Put your child on the calendar with a date and time—be present. The tendency is to attempt to teach important concepts in the midst of bedlam, and then to wonder why the child isn’t making progress.
If you keep the family together for most of the day, you also build momentum. You won’t be juggling kids who are restlessly waiting for you to help them. There will be productivity happening throughout the morning and into the afternoon. Dinner time will involve talking about the immersion in WW2, rather than each child having a different area of history to discuss and no one to discuss it with!
Home education is about a culture of family learning. Drop your memories of grade level. Focus on shared subject area learning, and group projects when you can.
