"It is a very recent idea, and a crazy one, that the way to teach our young people about the world they live in is to take them out of it and shut them up in brick boxes. " -- John Holt
I will say 'we' and 'us' a lot in this article. It refers to my husband and I, as we are both a team on this and we both put in time to learning education styles when we would much rather be reading about ancient history, doing art, or something else. :P I am the home educator most of the time, but when his dad is off, I take time to work and his dad is a silly dancing monster who is engaged and loving.
These are some paintings we created together before homeschool formally began.
When we first started our homeschool journey, little L was 3 and we started with traditional education. It was easiest to find materials for, really tempting as his academics would 'match' those of his 'peers', and it was what we knew. It didn't take us long to figure out why we started homeschooling in the first place- to get away from that style of education. I attened public school my whole childhood, with a breif stint at a middle college for 'troubled' youth in Flint, MI my home town. He, my husband, moved from public to Catholic private, to public, to Cahtolic private, to public, to online distance learning. We thought we had good perspective on education. Bah. Good perspective on what NOT to do. >.>
We were doing worksheets almost all day. 2 writing worksheets, 2 math workseets (one on time, one on money), as well as french, reading, journaling, and music. It would hurt my soul when little L at 5 would groan with displeasure at the thought of 'learning'. Honestly, I wasn't having any fun either. This is when I first started thinking, "Perhaps learning does not have to look like this? Perhaps he doesn't need to be a clone of his peers?"
He would do these things, but I could see that these worksheets were not lively at all and debilitating his love and thirst for learning. He wasn't doing it for him. He wasn't interested in the least. He was doing it for me. This realization crushed my heart but strengthened my soul. I realized there was minimal art, and there are many things I will need time in forgiving myself for. I do not feel we did anything 'wrong', I feel we did things rushed from the pressures of society, specifically for home schoolers to 'perform'. We also went through 2 major family deaths. I lost my father and my husband lost his sister. Our son lost his grandfather, and his aunt whom we lived with while he was an infant. We, as a family were lost in grief for a time.
This is a paining little L created when his aunt and grandfather passed. He called it 'the anger frogs'.
I was stressing myself out to adhere to a schedule. I wake up at 4 AM each day (sometimes earlier) to create art and do yoga. Art is like breathing for me, I need time to do this as it is deeply healing for me at my center. Yoga keeps me chill during the day. _ It is much more than that but the story of my journey towards SMADHI is it's own story. I go to bed only after the kitchen is ready for the next day. So sticking to a rigrous, set schedule was in fact a far heavierload than I realized. I didn't know there was another way at the time.
There is a fine line we all must walk when we are holding any child's hand and guiding them towards adulthood without killing or greatly discouraging who THEY are within. The measure of a child's flourishing is not the cognitive stunts and tricks he can do to impress adults, like some kind of scholastic circus animal.
Rather, it is his ebullience. A child who is cheerful and energetic is a child fully engaged with life. And a child fully engaged with life is on his way to becoming a bright and confident young adult who is capable of, and game for, acquiring whatever knowledge and skills he needs to achieve his own goals and aspirations. If schooling is making your once ebullient child sullen and anxious, then that kind of "education" is doing him and his future career absolutely no favors.
I urge any other homeschooler to take the time to research any and all education methods you can. Even if, like us, you are unable to find any other homeschoolers who are secular. We have just found homeschoolers who are not teaching from scripture, it has taken 4 years of looking.
I re-evaluated what my role was in the family as a mother and home educator. I was ignorant to many types of education methods, and decided to change that. AKA I spent a week calling myself out on my own bullshit. It was kind of hilarious but I don't recommend it.
We visited 6 schools in the area. Waldorf, Montessori, Reggio Emilia, Co-Op, Sudbury, and Harkness. We live next to Chicago in a city so these schools are almost everywhere. Lucky for us it was just after Yule this 'wake up' happened, so there were a few open houses where my son could come with too! He loved seeing all the classrooms and despite all this, asked if we could make our home into a classroom instead of him going to school. The whole family was elated that he still wanted to try despite our ignorance and agreed.
We decided on Montessori, Waldorf, and Sudbury all mixed together in our home to provide the best education we could. This meant throwing out all of the old worksheets and really sinking ourselves (family, parent, and teacher selves) into the modalities.
I went to curriculum websites for each of these and downloaded eBooks that were available as well as talks. Waldorf sites are a treasure trove for this, and there are so many blogs out there for this subject I was really blown away and pleasantly surprised at the amount of people who would like to help give a hand to those who were in my situation. This journey has not only aided our whole family in the homeschooling endeavor but it has helped me know the steps to become the person I needed to know when I was my son's age. The past 3 weeks have changed me, like A LOT a lot. I guess it goes to show you can't judge a book by its cover.
We have since found rhythm(byeeee super stressful schedule, won't freaking miss ya at all.) , we have found finger plays, we have found songs to move our bodies, we go outside at least twice a day (There is no such thing as poor weather, only poor clothing.), and we still make time for french and music(did you know music was considered to be math in the early Renaissance?). Best of all, art is integral to our day. We always make something. Our day revolves around creative expression, and at times this has brought me so much joy I cannot help but cry. It is incredibly healing to my inner child so I cannot thank my son enough for all he has done simply by being himself.
This is a watercolor painting of a parrot we saw at the petstore yesterday.I drew it, he colored it. Our main lessonis 'Dinosaurs' so we saw fish (pre-evolved dinos) and birds (what dinos are bleieve to have evolved into) in one day and discussed how birds did and did not look like dinosaurs.
I will be making a post shortly of our daily rhythm, the charts we use, and how we stay on task despite not having a schedule. Did any of you readers out there find any aspects of your child's education journey challenging? Share it in the comments! No matter how our children learn, parents are the childs first teacher. Thank you for reading! Have a great day.
-Meenah