Whole Life Education
Homeschooling is more than an education for kids. It’s a life-practice. It’s a path, a way, a philosophy of living that guides, well, everything while you are living a homeschool life.
What would happen if we stopped seeing learning as confined to “school hours”? What if all of a child’s life could be celebrated as the laboratory for learning?
In fact, even if you don’t homeschool or aren’t any longer, education can continue to be a way of life rather than something “done to your kids” six hours a day away from home.
When I call homeschooling a life-practice, a path, a way—I mean that we, the adults, remain curious about who our kids are becoming. We keep bringing our attention to the whole person who is learning EVERYTHING all the time.
We don’t divide how they are doing into:
- “They’re fine academically, but socially awkward.”
- “She’s bad at math, but loves writing.”
- “He’s obsessed with video games so I’m going to put him in soccer.”
- “Homework always comes first.”
- “I wish my child would read better books, not comics.”
All of Life Teaches
Education as a whole life means that we’re as curious about a child’s fascination with cooking as we are supportive of their struggle with multiplication. Once we see the struggle and we identify the joy, we look for ways to bring those two together—where is this difficult lesson, concept, idea a part of this child’s real life? How can we bring them together to make meaning, to help connect the dots between abstract lessons and hands-on learning?
- We see helping a child learn to make friends as valuable—as important as learning to read.
- We take time off of a difficult subject in order to shore up the child’s confidence in their strengths before returning to it.
- We notice that tonight, our youngest child is whiny at bedtime—and then recall that this child got the least amount of conversation, eye contact, and attention today. So we come alongside this child to talk, to listen, to connect.
Homeschooling, education as a way of life means: ALL of life teaches. Our only task is to slide into that slipstream, notice where our kids are, and meet them there.
This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!
