Reason Number 5024…
…Okay, so maybe we should begin with reason one as that is what got each of us to take this leap of faith plunging our families into these inexplicably, unexpectedly beautiful waters of the perfect IEP (Individualized Educational Plan).
Define your Why, (you homeschool) to create the most amazing day-to-day How (you homeschool). Your Why can truly be for any valid reason: faith, family time, safety, character, education, pursuing other areas of passions such as music, art, sports, and so on. Your How can truly be any approach that drives your passion of growing up your children toward their best current and future selves: at your knee learning, unschooling, life schooling, books, texts, workbooks, experiences, hands on, worksheets, and so on. If your Why was a knee jerk, your How will be a tenuous and daily battle and definitely needs to be defined ASAP in order to thrive.
Define your Why before trying to create your How.
Perhaps you have already begun patching together a How according to a friend’s How and are wondering why it is lacking in focus and joy. Your driving focus is your Why and must first be defined before a How will ever bring satisfaction, confidence, and enjoyment.
For our family the Why was in order that our children might have a childhood. My educational background was exceedingly non-traditional from relaxed half day island schools to wonderful less-than-half-day home school with a tutor to drastic full day college prep schools. Start to finish, it was non-traditional. Up until the U.S. all day school structure, my job was to learn how to be a person of honor, character, and interest, and I was encouraged to do this by being a child. The U.S. model was how to be useful to our country which meant knowing how to sit still, do as told, don’t question, move at the sound of a bell- it felt like being jammed into a jacket three sizes too small, and successfully squelched my joy of learning and life until homeschooling my own children recaptured it seven-fold!
We wanted our children to have a childhood with time to play, explore, adventure. We trusted that in seasoning in an adequate amount of education in the form of playful in-the-moment learning/experiences that, along with 24/7 attention to faith, character, and diligence, the children’s extensive amounts of freedom to explore and discover life, love, learning would eventually blossom into a balanced educated person. So far, so good!
We (parents) learned how to put into practice in-home training sessions that, on the outside seemed like play, but beneath this cover of fun was intense teaching of an practice in self-government, self-regulation, self-motivation- all of the ingredients needed for a balanced and successful future self. No books were used outside of snuggled together read-alouds. These children often accurately stated, “We don’t do school.” At the time I cringed, but now I see how lovely it was that they did not see what we were doing as being even close to what their friends were doing at school (both home and traditional).
In defining our Why we easily created our How. Books were our sources of entertainment, and, eventually, our tools of teaching/practicing curiosity and diligence. We cracked our first real (in the traditional sense) math workbook halfway through first grade and it was love at first sight, our first history text around grade 2 and it was rapturous reading and discovery of where we fit in the world, our first composition lesson in grade 3 for our girls and 4 for our boys and it was zero to sixty for about eight weeks and then smooth sailing, with science constantly all around us. My children have been given great leeway in all things by approaching me with the words, “Mom, can we do a science experiment?” I learned to take the world ‘experiment’ as their loose phrasing of “We want to blow something up” or “We want to dissect something found in nature or wired into the car.”
If your Why is to win the spelling bee or attend an Ivy League college, then your How should begin the books and flashcards early and maintain a steady diet of academics. If your Why is because your child needs to move more, is hands on, has trouble paying attention then do not build your How around the traditional book/worksheet pacing. If your Why is more family time then build your How into family events, trips, snuggle time. If your Why is to protect your child from harm it might be more difficult to create your How without determining your child’s current interests and passions on which to focus and expand your teaching toward, but it can be done.
You have the freedom to determine the course of your How according to your Why. So many moms that I counsel, support, and encourage feel bound by How as it is being done in traditional schools even as they state that the Why traditional schools do not work for their child or family. If it is not working and you repeatedly attempt the same course of action, well, you know what that means. Avoid redundancy that is not working, dig deeply into your reservoirs of courage, breath deeply of your faith that you are equipped for all things He places before you, and adjust mindfully your daily How by defining your macroscopic Why.