I am wrestling with the idea of homeschooling.
To do it...or not to do it...that is the question!
I follow The Pioneer Woman very closely...and have ready many of her homeschooling ideas, and forums she has. I recently ran across this post, from March 2010. I think it sums it up pretty well. Although our lives are very different, she makes many good, valid points.
The main one being..."It works for us!"
Enough said!
"I homeschool my punks. And well into my seventh (is that possible?) full year of homeschooling, I sometimes completely forget the fact that homeschooling, to so many people, is a foreign, unnatural, and sometimes shocking concept. I forget that before I made the decision to homeschool, I always pictured homeschooling parents as denim-jumper-wearin’, no-fun-havin’, no-social-interaction-gettin’ fruitcakes who rap their children’s hands with switches if their cursive writing doesn’t have the proper slant. And most of all, I forget that every time I post photos of my school-age children sitting on horseback and holding calves’ legs in the middle of a weekday, folks might wonder if these poor kids ever go to school. Marlboro Man and I decided to start homeschooling our kids seven years ago. Our oldest child had just completed her first full year of kindergarten, and we were already exhausted from the transportation challenges we’d had to endure that year. The school bus willingly picked her up, yes. But it showed up at our house twenty miles in the country at 6:45 a.m”¦and brought her home at 4:30 in the afternoon, her snoozing, sweaty face plastered against the bus window. Something about my five-year-old spending upwards of three hours on a school bus each day didn’t seem quite”¦right to me, but the alternative was for me to load up all my rugrat punks in the car and make two round trips to town each day. And something about me spending that amount of time in the car didn’t exactly make my skirt fly up either.
Around this time, my glorious friend, Hyacinth, and I met with a group of cool couples from the big city with whom we were discussing a potential project. Through the course of our meeting, we found out that a couple of them just happened to be homeschoolers. After the utter shock of finding out that “cool” and “homeschoolers” could, in fact, coexist in one sentence, my head started swimming. I leaned over to Hyacinth and whispered, “You think we could do that?” She looked at me, rolled her eyes, and stuck her finger down her throat.
I went home, mentioned it to Marlboro Man, and he said, cool as a cucumber, “I think we should do it.” I spent a week researching, evaluating curriculum choices, and trying to find one compelling piece of information that would give me cause to run far and fast away from making the decision to homeschool my children. I never found it, spent the summer amassing the materials we’d need, and we started that fall. Hyacinth did, too. Poor girl.
While transportation was my primary motivation for choosing to homeschool, every day I realize more and more advantages to this unnatural way of life. The flexibility is perfect for our ranching lifestyle, allowing the kids the opportunity to work with Marlboro Man during busy times. Another benefit, which also sometimes makes me want to pluck out my eyelashes one-by-one with needle nose pliers, is the sheer amount of time we get to spend together as a family. Though I frequently want to send them all on a month-long picnic in our north pasture, I do sense a real connectedness that has formed in our household over the past few years. There’s a sense that we’re a team, that we’re all in this together, and that any learning that needs to be done around here is a group effort.
An offshoot of this, and probably the source of the most gratification for me, is seeing our older girls begin to teach our younger boys. I’d always heard that this phenomenon begins to evolve in homeschooling households””this older-kids-teaching-the-younger-kids thing””but actually watching it unfold is a real thrill. I figure in about a year and a half, I’ll just lay on the couch, watch bad daytime television, eat Jello pudding, and just let my girls handle all the educational responsibilities in this house.
Just kidding. I think.
The question we get asked most frequently is “What about socialization?” The only response I can offer is that my kids are actively involved in soccer and karate, and they have cousins they get together with frequently. They take summer art classes in the big city and have some cool friends. It’s about as normal and chaotic as it can be.
Lots of people support our decision to homeschool. Some are quietly guarded. Others think we’re mentally ill. I vacillate between all three myself. Believe me, if you’re shaking your head reading this, I understand. If you think I’m a nutjob, I totally get it. If you think my kids will grow up to be weird, you’re probably right. And if you think I’m a freak? You’re right on the money.
But you know what? It works for us.
I homeschool my kids. This generally doesn’t ever involve my wearing a head covering or waking the children before daylight to recite their prayers, though who am I to judge those who do? It also doesn’t mean I have a flagpole in my living room or categorized three-ring binders lining my bookshelves or laminated alphabet letters bordering my ceilings, though if I were more dedicated and organized, I might. That I educate my children outside of the regimen and routine of a school classroom does not mean they’re without peers, have dandruff (though again, not judging), spend all their spare time memorizing presidents, or wear pocket protectors, though one of them currently has a bit of a nosepicking problem I’m trying to get a handle on. Not that I’m one of those mothers who gets all worked up about nosepicking””after all, they’ll eventually grow out of it, won’t they? But since we’re one of the very few homeschooling families ’round these parts, I don’t want to give anyone in the community any ammunition to judge us. And for some strange reason, I’d rather be judged on the basis of something that isn’t true””like “Ree’s running around with that handyman of theirs” or “Did you hear Ree and Marlboro Man are pregnant again?” or “Ree got Botox on her hands so they wouldn’t be so veiny any more“””not about something that’s actually a reality for us, like one of our four children regularly sticking his or her finger into his/her sinus cavity and rooting around.
So where was I? Oh. Homeschooling. What I want to say is, I’m a relaxed homeschooler, which basically means I need a legitimate-sounding title for not holding my own feet to the fire when it comes to following a rigid school schedule. But what I’ve found is, after six full years in the homeschooling trenches, this approach is the best fit for me.
When I first started out, the fear and uncertainty I felt about homeschooling caused me to go a little berserk. In preparation for that first year, I created an intricate color-coded chart that accounted for each and every thirty-minute time slot from 6 am to 4 pm. With wide-eyed naivete the likes of which I’d never spewed from my soul before, I actually believed I could create structure on a piece of paper that would POOF! magically translate to structure in my chaotic household. And in my life. And in my mind. Folding laundry? Easy””I just assigned it a thirty-minute time slot. Breakfast? No sweat””same thing. Same with history, handwriting, math, reading, science, Latin, and Neurosurgery4Kids, or whatever other hairbrained, ambitious elective I reckoned I could teach my five- and seven-year-old at the time.
I followed my psychotic color-coded schedule to a T”¦for four days. Then I gave up and used it to wipe my toddler’s bottom or maybe as a barf towel since I was deep in the throes of morning sickness with my fourth pregnancy at that point. What I found then, and the truth that I still, to this day, embrace, is that some days? There’s frankly more than thirty minutes of laundry to fold in this manure-caked house of mine. Or some days, maybe I just flat don’t want to fold it. And if I do fold it, maybe I don’t want to fold it from 8:45 to 9:15 while my five-year-old is doing her Organic Chemistry! Did anyone ever think of that? I might just want to pick my toenails instead, or surf the internet for essays regarding the movie “Munich” or stare at pictures of Toni Collette, the only woman for whom I’d ever consider leaving Marlboro Man.
And when you have a baby or a toddler and you homeschool””fuhgettabouta schedule. There is poop when there should be math. And there’s crying when there should be literature. And with that color-coded schedule that lasted four whole days, if something got in the way and you missed a thirty-minute block of time, you were screwed””there was no more time in the day to be had. And all I did when I tried hard to stick to a rigid schedule was fail, and then I’d feel like a loser, and that wasn’t fun. Because I’m not a loser, dang it. I’m not. No, I’m not. Stop saying that.
I’m not.
So I’ve settled comfortably into this life””this life of a relaxed homeschooler. Now, I do have specific, quality materials I use””a bit of an a la carte hodgepodge. But I’ve come a long way from the “thirty-minute goal” approach with which I began. Heck, I don’t even have daily goals anymore. Or weekly goals. Or monthly, even. My goals are yearly these days. I know what grade my kids are in, what materials they’ll need to attain a certain level of knowledge by the end of the year, and I jump in. Some days, I’m pleased with the amount of work we get done. Other days, we never look at a book because the kids are working cattle or I decide I can’t be bothered with Advanced Physics or Underwater Basketweaving on that particular day. Some days, my kids surprise me with their insight and intelligence. Other days, I’m sure they’ll be playing ukuleles on Venice Beach before they’re twenty.
And well they might. But I refuse to believe it will be because I chose to wipe my baby’s bottom with that color-coded schedule rather than let a piece of paper tell me when I had to make my bed.
Plus, I can always go visit them there. I wouldn’t mind seeing Venice Beach again"
(taken from...http://thepioneerwoman.com/homeschooling/2010/03/why-i-homeschool-and-what-my-approach-is/)
To do it...or not to do it...that is the question!
I follow The Pioneer Woman very closely...and have ready many of her homeschooling ideas, and forums she has. I recently ran across this post, from March 2010. I think it sums it up pretty well. Although our lives are very different, she makes many good, valid points.
The main one being..."It works for us!"
Enough said!
"I homeschool my punks. And well into my seventh (is that possible?) full year of homeschooling, I sometimes completely forget the fact that homeschooling, to so many people, is a foreign, unnatural, and sometimes shocking concept. I forget that before I made the decision to homeschool, I always pictured homeschooling parents as denim-jumper-wearin’, no-fun-havin’, no-social-interaction-gettin’ fruitcakes who rap their children’s hands with switches if their cursive writing doesn’t have the proper slant. And most of all, I forget that every time I post photos of my school-age children sitting on horseback and holding calves’ legs in the middle of a weekday, folks might wonder if these poor kids ever go to school. Marlboro Man and I decided to start homeschooling our kids seven years ago. Our oldest child had just completed her first full year of kindergarten, and we were already exhausted from the transportation challenges we’d had to endure that year. The school bus willingly picked her up, yes. But it showed up at our house twenty miles in the country at 6:45 a.m”¦and brought her home at 4:30 in the afternoon, her snoozing, sweaty face plastered against the bus window. Something about my five-year-old spending upwards of three hours on a school bus each day didn’t seem quite”¦right to me, but the alternative was for me to load up all my rugrat punks in the car and make two round trips to town each day. And something about me spending that amount of time in the car didn’t exactly make my skirt fly up either.
Around this time, my glorious friend, Hyacinth, and I met with a group of cool couples from the big city with whom we were discussing a potential project. Through the course of our meeting, we found out that a couple of them just happened to be homeschoolers. After the utter shock of finding out that “cool” and “homeschoolers” could, in fact, coexist in one sentence, my head started swimming. I leaned over to Hyacinth and whispered, “You think we could do that?” She looked at me, rolled her eyes, and stuck her finger down her throat.
I went home, mentioned it to Marlboro Man, and he said, cool as a cucumber, “I think we should do it.” I spent a week researching, evaluating curriculum choices, and trying to find one compelling piece of information that would give me cause to run far and fast away from making the decision to homeschool my children. I never found it, spent the summer amassing the materials we’d need, and we started that fall. Hyacinth did, too. Poor girl.
While transportation was my primary motivation for choosing to homeschool, every day I realize more and more advantages to this unnatural way of life. The flexibility is perfect for our ranching lifestyle, allowing the kids the opportunity to work with Marlboro Man during busy times. Another benefit, which also sometimes makes me want to pluck out my eyelashes one-by-one with needle nose pliers, is the sheer amount of time we get to spend together as a family. Though I frequently want to send them all on a month-long picnic in our north pasture, I do sense a real connectedness that has formed in our household over the past few years. There’s a sense that we’re a team, that we’re all in this together, and that any learning that needs to be done around here is a group effort.
An offshoot of this, and probably the source of the most gratification for me, is seeing our older girls begin to teach our younger boys. I’d always heard that this phenomenon begins to evolve in homeschooling households””this older-kids-teaching-the-younger-kids thing””but actually watching it unfold is a real thrill. I figure in about a year and a half, I’ll just lay on the couch, watch bad daytime television, eat Jello pudding, and just let my girls handle all the educational responsibilities in this house.
Just kidding. I think.
The question we get asked most frequently is “What about socialization?” The only response I can offer is that my kids are actively involved in soccer and karate, and they have cousins they get together with frequently. They take summer art classes in the big city and have some cool friends. It’s about as normal and chaotic as it can be.
Lots of people support our decision to homeschool. Some are quietly guarded. Others think we’re mentally ill. I vacillate between all three myself. Believe me, if you’re shaking your head reading this, I understand. If you think I’m a nutjob, I totally get it. If you think my kids will grow up to be weird, you’re probably right. And if you think I’m a freak? You’re right on the money.
But you know what? It works for us.
I homeschool my kids. This generally doesn’t ever involve my wearing a head covering or waking the children before daylight to recite their prayers, though who am I to judge those who do? It also doesn’t mean I have a flagpole in my living room or categorized three-ring binders lining my bookshelves or laminated alphabet letters bordering my ceilings, though if I were more dedicated and organized, I might. That I educate my children outside of the regimen and routine of a school classroom does not mean they’re without peers, have dandruff (though again, not judging), spend all their spare time memorizing presidents, or wear pocket protectors, though one of them currently has a bit of a nosepicking problem I’m trying to get a handle on. Not that I’m one of those mothers who gets all worked up about nosepicking””after all, they’ll eventually grow out of it, won’t they? But since we’re one of the very few homeschooling families ’round these parts, I don’t want to give anyone in the community any ammunition to judge us. And for some strange reason, I’d rather be judged on the basis of something that isn’t true””like “Ree’s running around with that handyman of theirs” or “Did you hear Ree and Marlboro Man are pregnant again?” or “Ree got Botox on her hands so they wouldn’t be so veiny any more“””not about something that’s actually a reality for us, like one of our four children regularly sticking his or her finger into his/her sinus cavity and rooting around.
So where was I? Oh. Homeschooling. What I want to say is, I’m a relaxed homeschooler, which basically means I need a legitimate-sounding title for not holding my own feet to the fire when it comes to following a rigid school schedule. But what I’ve found is, after six full years in the homeschooling trenches, this approach is the best fit for me.
When I first started out, the fear and uncertainty I felt about homeschooling caused me to go a little berserk. In preparation for that first year, I created an intricate color-coded chart that accounted for each and every thirty-minute time slot from 6 am to 4 pm. With wide-eyed naivete the likes of which I’d never spewed from my soul before, I actually believed I could create structure on a piece of paper that would POOF! magically translate to structure in my chaotic household. And in my life. And in my mind. Folding laundry? Easy””I just assigned it a thirty-minute time slot. Breakfast? No sweat””same thing. Same with history, handwriting, math, reading, science, Latin, and Neurosurgery4Kids, or whatever other hairbrained, ambitious elective I reckoned I could teach my five- and seven-year-old at the time.
I followed my psychotic color-coded schedule to a T”¦for four days. Then I gave up and used it to wipe my toddler’s bottom or maybe as a barf towel since I was deep in the throes of morning sickness with my fourth pregnancy at that point. What I found then, and the truth that I still, to this day, embrace, is that some days? There’s frankly more than thirty minutes of laundry to fold in this manure-caked house of mine. Or some days, maybe I just flat don’t want to fold it. And if I do fold it, maybe I don’t want to fold it from 8:45 to 9:15 while my five-year-old is doing her Organic Chemistry! Did anyone ever think of that? I might just want to pick my toenails instead, or surf the internet for essays regarding the movie “Munich” or stare at pictures of Toni Collette, the only woman for whom I’d ever consider leaving Marlboro Man.
And when you have a baby or a toddler and you homeschool””fuhgettabouta schedule. There is poop when there should be math. And there’s crying when there should be literature. And with that color-coded schedule that lasted four whole days, if something got in the way and you missed a thirty-minute block of time, you were screwed””there was no more time in the day to be had. And all I did when I tried hard to stick to a rigid schedule was fail, and then I’d feel like a loser, and that wasn’t fun. Because I’m not a loser, dang it. I’m not. No, I’m not. Stop saying that.
I’m not.
So I’ve settled comfortably into this life””this life of a relaxed homeschooler. Now, I do have specific, quality materials I use””a bit of an a la carte hodgepodge. But I’ve come a long way from the “thirty-minute goal” approach with which I began. Heck, I don’t even have daily goals anymore. Or weekly goals. Or monthly, even. My goals are yearly these days. I know what grade my kids are in, what materials they’ll need to attain a certain level of knowledge by the end of the year, and I jump in. Some days, I’m pleased with the amount of work we get done. Other days, we never look at a book because the kids are working cattle or I decide I can’t be bothered with Advanced Physics or Underwater Basketweaving on that particular day. Some days, my kids surprise me with their insight and intelligence. Other days, I’m sure they’ll be playing ukuleles on Venice Beach before they’re twenty.
And well they might. But I refuse to believe it will be because I chose to wipe my baby’s bottom with that color-coded schedule rather than let a piece of paper tell me when I had to make my bed.
Plus, I can always go visit them there. I wouldn’t mind seeing Venice Beach again"
(taken from...http://thepioneerwoman.com/homeschooling/2010/03/why-i-homeschool-and-what-my-approach-is/)
RSS Feed