Get to know the people who live with you; become fascinated by them; learn from them; protect them. Everything falls into place when you genuinely like each other and no one is seen as an adversary.
Archive for the ‘Homeschool Advice’ Category
You’re Not in a School Classroom
As you plan ahead, care less about “getting through” and “getting done.” Instead, deep dive, excavate, explore, get curious, find the mystery. That’s the sweet spot of learning.
The temptation to do “all the things” can be strong. Remember: you will feel more peace and make more progress if you simply incorporate one thing at a time.
- Give yourself permission to use an entire day to play with the math concept.
- Allow yourself to read three chapters aloud rather than one.
- Enjoy Poetry Teatime, rather than rushing through it.
- Immerse yourself in history for a week—no other studies, just websites and documentaries and non-fiction books and games and crafts.
When you allow yourself to immerse in one thing, you will be surprised at how “other” things come into the learning, naturally, without forcing it. When you leave the “one thing” behind, you will find you have fresh energy for the next thing.
You are not in a school classroom. You can bend the structure of learning to your family and your pleasure. That’s one of the joys of home education!
This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!
The Wrong Personality?
Have you noticed how easy it is to wish away your chief personality features? Do you think to yourself, “I’m the wrong personality for my temperament”? You might wish for a clean, orderly home in your heart, but your personality style is relaxed Bohemian. Or you are the sort who keeps a ship-shape house, but wish you could relax when your kids make big, creative messes?
Layered on top of the structured versus unstructured selves we bring to homeschool are our memories of school. We compare what we do at home (even when we don’t want to) to what we experienced as children. We react against it (“I’m not doing that!) or we we suffer because of it (“I’m not teaching my kids anything”).
The temptation to overhaul our essential selves is powerful. Advertising everywhere tells us we are one tweak away from being the fantasy person in our heads. We may be able to resist Botox or Coach purses, but the seductress for home educators is any “method” that results in effortless, joyful learning where parents and kids get along all the time.
We hop from one program to the next like frogs on lily pads forgetting to consider which personality is implementing the philosophy!
Let me let you in on a little secret.
There’s no one personality type that is better suited to homeschooling than another.
Let me drill down further.
There’s no one personality type that is better for parenting, loving, nurturing than another.
Every type has its marvelous strengths, and (darn it all) each type has its blind spots and liabilities.
What you and I need to do is to become self aware people—able to recognize when our personalities are creating the hum of happiness and productivity, and when they are sapping the energy from the room and causing pain.
Here’s to being both ourselves and letting go of what isn’t working.
This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!
Self-Care is Not Selfish
Self-care is intentional.
Self-care is not selfish. Another way to say “self-care” might be: “meeting my own needs.” Your needs will reveal themselves whether you deny them or notice them. Taking your needs seriously enough to meet them is loving and necessary.
It’s also a great model for your children (and your partner).
.
When they see that you choose to go out with friends once in a while, or take up a new course of study, or need ten minutes to regroup, or that you are more interested in your own life than in regulating theirs, they become aware that they can live that way too.
When you let them know when they hurt you, when you speak up for what you need, when you ask for help, you are teaching the whole family how to care for one another.
You are not the sole designated need-meeter, nor are you responsible to fashion a vision for this family that you single-handedly foist upon or require from everyone.
Your true vocation in the home, in your family, is to be a source of care—for others, but also for self. The symbiosis of these two will create the momentum you need to sustain all kinds of wonderful activities and intimacies for a long time to come.
Self-care is not selfish.
This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!
The Best “Testing” Method is Not Testing
The idea of testing is so embedded in our imaginations as the best measure of learning, it’s difficult to “give it up.” Yet homeschooling invites us to do just that! Rather than examining your child like a patient in a doctor’s office looking for what’s wrong, try giving attention to the healthy growth your child has achieved in the last little while.
Kids LOVE to show what they know, to “show off” to impress their favorite adults (aka YOU!). Give them the chance to steal the show—invite them to:
- give you detailed analysis of how to go up levels in Mario Kart,
- explain to you the intricacies of their doll’s wardrobe, or
- retell the details of that one battle in the Civil War that they have studied for months.
If you want to know what they know about language arts, ask them to explain a passage to you from a book they’re reading (let them pick the passage and ask them to tell you everything they notice about it).
If you want them to demonstrate skill in math, ask them to create the most challenging problem they have ever attempted to solve and then to solve it and show you how they did it.
Let’s move away from the style of education that says the teacher knows what you should know and it’s up to the student to guess what that is, in this amount of time, using this method.
Your best “testing” method isn’t testing it all. It’s a big juicy conversation that rambles and integrates what your child knows, has learned, and is still discovering.
This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!
