Confessions of a Second Generation Home Schooler

I am over at the Natural Parents Network sharing a little of my experiences on both sides of homeschooling.  I was homeschooled from the third grade through high school, have been a teacher (private schools and college) for nearly fifteen years, and am now homeschooling my own children.  The biggest secret that I can pass on is to trust, nurture and protect your child's inborn love of learning.  We don't have to try to make them thirsty for knowledge--we just have to allow them to drink.  Read our story over here!  :)

An Idealistic Control Freak Considers Unschooling

Image credit bjmcdonald on Flickr

I have always thought that those personality quizzes from magazines and Facebook are fun.  I've always considered myself to be a self-absorbed, navel-gazing perfectionist who takes herself far too seriously um, self-aware.  The results for me seem to fluctuate a bit depending on the test/my mood, but there are a couple of constants: I am an extreme introvert, and an idealist.  When I was younger, the introvert part caused some anguish, but I have pretty much made peace with that.  Now it is the idealist part that I struggle with.  It is extremely important to me to be authentic and consistent, and it really bothers me when my life and my beliefs don't mesh as well as I would like.

Like Jacob, I wrestle and wrestle and refuse to let go of it, even when I don't seem to be getting anywhere.  This school year is resurrecting all my issues regarding unschooling, and I have been a total grouch.  Not only have the kids been responding to my lack of peace, but also to my lack of boundaries.  When I am uncertain about where I stand, they have a knack for pushing on that very spot until I come to clarity.  In other words, we have been butting heads a lot over school work.

I am really drawn in my heart to unschooling.  Deep down, it is what I believe.  Or at least, what I want to believe. We pretty much have done that up until now.  But now I am homeschooling two kids, and the oldest is in second grade.  We should be taking this seriously! (said in my sternest voice).  I am a college instructor, and spent five years teaching K-12.  Even though my experience lines up with unschooling, my programming doesn't.  I am afraid.

I have always thought that fear was a terrible reason to homeschool.  I pitied the children whose parents homeschooled them out of fear of contamination by the big, bad evil world.  But now my choices regarding their education seem to be just as fear-based (and just as inaccurate).  On days when they happily dive into new material, I rejoice.  Yesterday, I read two chapters of a fabulous thriller written by my seven year old.  Her story was remarkable.  Visions of a future where she was being published danced in my head.  I listened to my five year old happily count by odd then even numbers, fives, tens and hundreds, and smiled smugly to myself.  It was working!  Then, today, when they wanted to spend all day playing computer games, I felt like a failure.

My children taught me to trust their bodies and mine with breastfeeding.  They taught me to trust the process of birth.  They have been teaching me to trust their hearts and desire to grow and treat others well as I discipline them.  And, slowly but surely, they are teaching me to trust their desire to learn.  But I am not quite there yet.  I freak out inwardly.  I feel inadequate to provide the kind of environment and support that will really allow them to excel.  And, I'll be honest--my pride trembles and quakes lest they seem to be lacking in things that other kids their age are being taught, even if the actual content is irrelevant. 

So, what is an idealistic control freak to do? 

I don't know yet.  But I am slowly realizing that it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing approach.  Kids in public school are not motivated to study academics all day every day.  Expecting it from my own children seems a tad unreasonable.  But, they are far more motivated than many of us have been trained to believe.  

It is easy for me to shake my head at the one-size-fits-all mentality in obstetrics, in vaccinations, in sleep issues and breastfeeding, and even education, as long as it is abstract.  But in real life?  With a toddler and three year old who make any kind of schoolwork with the older two a challenge?

I am trying to find the balance between backing off and supporting them, and nudging and leading them into things that they might enjoy and profit from tremendously, if they only had more exposure to them.  Maybe one day I will wake up and realize that there really isn't a conflict at all.  Maybe I will grow in trust.  Maybe I will see that it isn't working and that we need something far more structured.  I don't know yet.  I just know that I am learning and stretching and growing right along with them, and that this whole parenting gig is really tough, as well as full of unspeakable joy.

I will keep you updated as I process through this, and I welcome your input!  Now, I am off to examine my belly-button lint in microscopic detail...

Transition Tips: From Homeschooling to College

Photo by Max Wolfe on Flickr

I'll be honest.  The last couple years of my homeschooling were half-hearted, at best.  I was bored.  I skimped on the work, especially if it involved further boredom, any assignment that involved writing (dislike plus boredom), or math (dislike plus difficulty plus boredom).  My mother was in despair.  She was convinced that college would be incredibly difficult for me, and feared failure on my part.  I lacked discipline, motivation and focus.  I lacked study skills.  Did I even know how to take notes?  To her intense relief, (and surprise), I excelled in college.  It was a much better fit for me, and being able to take classes that I was truly interested in made a huge difference.

It was completely different from what I was used to, of course, but homeschooling, even the half-hearted kind, actually prepared me more than we realized.  I also got some very helpful tips from friends that I am passing on here:

Photo by velkr0 on Flickr

* Sit front and center.  Really.  When this was first suggested to me, I struggled not to respond rudely.  That sounded like the last thing I wanted.  A nice, inconspicuous corner near the door was much more what I had in mind.  However, I soon began to see the wisdom in the advice.  I am deplorably distractable.  If I sat anywhere else, within seconds I was paying more attention to the other students around me than I was to the instructor.  It was amazing how much easier it was to concentrate when I was directly in front of the instructor.  It also had the nice bonus of making the instructor think I was serious about wanting to learn.  And, I discovered to my amusement that if you actually fell asleep in class, the instructor was less likely to notice, since they were trying to make eye contact more with the center of the room.  (*Note: I never fell asleep in class [although in a few classes I wanted to], but a friend whom I shall call Mateo did regularly, and the rather grumpy instructor who used his little red laser penlight to humiliate other slumbering students [it was a widespread problem in this particular class] never caught on).

Photo by jimmiehomeschoolmom on Flickr

* Take thorough notes.  Then, go back and rewrite them.  This was my best study secret.  My first version of the notes was always messy--scribbles, doodles, etc.  I would go back and rewrite them, filling in any missing details, making it actually legible, color-coding, etc--essentially creating my own study guide--and it was amazing how much it solidified the information in my mind.

*  Meditation.  I made it my habit to meditate on Scripture in the first few moments of each class while everyone was getting their books or notes out and shuffling stuff around.   One of the things that I retained from the Gothard stuff was that meditation on Scripture would be blessed with success.  Even if you are not a believer, I think that a couple of minutes of quiet meditation will center you, clear your mind, reset your emotions and enable you to fully focus on the lesson.

* Get help.  I hated writing with a dark and deadly passion.  In particular, the time-honored formulas of outlining and editing didn't fit me at all.  I did much better with the spider-web approach, but after throwing together a rough draft, I was usually sick of it and didn't want to work with it anymore.  I would take it to our writing lab at college, and they would go over it with me, making suggestions here and there to polish it.  Having a fresh eye always helped tremendously, and got me over the boredom hump.

* Consider a community college, at least for the first couple of years.  Class sizes are much smaller, you get more individualized attention, it is cheaper, and you can live at home.  It makes for a much less abrupt transition if you can study in peace and quiet at home and sleep when you want instead of navigating dorms and a roommate.  While those are certainly worthwhile experiences, it can be easier to make those adjustments once you have already adapted well to the academic side of college life.

* Work study programs may be for you!  I needed money, of course.  Who doesn't?  Working at the international language lab at my school was absolutely perfect for me.  Not only did it supplement my income, but it was convenient, they worked around my classes, I was able to study on the job, and got to meet the coolest people ever.  It was an ideal stepping-stone in many ways, and especially in making friends and exploring the social side of college in a way that complemented rather than detracted from the academic side.

* The basics like attend class, do the assignments, talk to the instructors.  I threw them in just to acknowledge them, but really, if you aren't doing that, then you should probably rethink your reasons for being in college in the first place.  There are cheaper ways to goof off.  (That said, I quickly discovered the delicious joy of cutting the occasional class.  Timing, however, is everything).

As I mentioned in this post, homeschooling equipped me far beyond what I realized at the time.  Help from amazing instructors and wonderful friends propelled me the rest of the way.  Transitions are tough, whether you are two or twenty, but they can also be full of fun and excitement.  I hope that if you are making the switch to college from homeschooling that it will be a time of joy and growth!

Adventures in Learning: Homeschooling and College

Photo by JSmith on Flickr

One of the best parts of my week has been watching my brother start college.  We are nearly fifteen years apart in age, but very, very alike in many ways, and it has brought back a lot of memories of my own experiences beginning college.  Although I had gone to kinder, first and second grade at regular schools, we switched to homeschooling when I was in the third grade.  The first year was frustrating, but we found our groove, and I continued all the way through high school.  Well, sort of.

The only method we knew was taking school books, reading through them together and then writing out the answers to all the exercises.  It was boring.  And I loathed writing.  By middle school, I had developed the habit of racing through any multiple choice responses and marking anything that actually required a written response with a "DL" (for Do Later).  I pretty much never got around to doing it later.  The last couple of years of high school I wound up doing very little, period, for several reasons, including the fact that the correspondence course we were using sent us the wrong books and took forever to rectify the mistake.  My mom was near panic.

In retrospect, all the time that seemed to have been wasted really wasn't.  I read voraciously.  I traveled a lot, including trips out of the country, for weeks at a time.   Some of my most treasured memories are of weeks spent traveling with my grandparents.  Those are far more valuable than any rote schoolwork!  I worked in the summers and learned a lot by the experiences there.  In reality, although we had no concept of it at the time, I was unschooling myself, and learning about all kinds of things by following my own interests and passions.

Some might consider that a rather inauspicious background for college.  I did, back then, and I think my mom did, too.  I know she was very worried about my success in college, and since she had actually done it before and I hadn't, I trusted her judgment.  I was terrified of failing.  I needn't have been.  In over 165 credit hours, I had one B.  The rest were straight As.  One day in Biology lab, the professor pulled me aside and asked if I was homeschooled.  I nodded in surprise and asked how he knew.  He responded that I and one other student out of the 73 in our section had nearly perfect scores and were easily at the top of the class.  She was also homeschooled.   He said that after decades of experience in teaching, it was almost always the homeschooled students who were so successful.  I was told the same thing by other instructors.

The truth is that homeschooling prepared me for college in several ways:

* I learned how to learn.  Years spent basically teaching myself had helped me refine my study skills.  I knew what worked for me and what didn't.  Rewriting my class notes to make my own study guide was the most valuable way for me to study.  For some students, it may be an entirely different strategy.  I was able to concentrate on the things that I already knew worked, and gradually incorporate new approaches as they seemed appropriate.

* I wanted to learn.  This was key.  I took classes that I was actually interested in, or that would at least allow me to take the ones I wanted to take in the future.   And because I was accustomed to seeing school as academic rather than social, it was easy to maintain focus.

* I viewed my instructors as allies.  I have seen many students come out of high school with the idea of teachers as "other"--totally foreign beings whose attention it is best not to attract.  After years with my mom, speaking up was so ingrained that I couldn't have stopped that in college even if I tried.  I had respect for my teachers, but I also had respect for my own thoughts and opinions.  The vast majority of my instructors was excellent, and welcomed collaboration, initiative and input from students.

I believe that if I had gone to a traditional school, a lot of my motivation would have been stifled, and I would have been more focused on getting through than on learning.  While our homeschool experience wasn't perfect, I am incredibly grateful for it.  I started to say that it shaped me into the person that I am today, but that isn't exactly true.  It kept me from being shaped into someone else. 

At this point, I don't know for sure what our educational choices will wind up being for our family.  We are happily homeschooling for now, and gradually leaning more and more towards unschooling, although we are not and may not ever fully unschool.   We may eventually decide to use a public or private school.  I expect them to attend college (since my husband and I are both college teachers, it just seems likely), but they may choose an entirely different path.  Regardless, I hope that learning will always be a glorious adventure for them, and I believe that homeschooling will give them a foundation to pursue their dreams.

All Play and No Work...

If you see my Facebook updates, you probably think we are *that* homeschooling family. You know, the stereotypical one where the kids do nothing but play all day. Today, we spent over five hours at three different parks! Most days when I am not working involve the park, the zoo, the aquarium, or two out of the three. Backyard picnics are common, and we are familiar with well over a dozen different parks in our area. That is a very deliberate decision on my part.

As we began looking into homeschooling, I was most familiar with the traditional school-at-home model. Lots of seat work, plenty of worksheets, etc. When I first began to hear of unschooling, I was extremely skeptical. Like most of us, I had been inoculated early with the drudgery-is-discipline mindset that we must all get used to doing things we don't enjoy, so let's start young.

My life hasn't really borne that out, though. I like my job. I enjoy what I do at work and at home with my family. OK, I loathe housework, but even then, I can see some satisfaction from the results (or at least I would if things would actually stay clean for more than a split second...alright, so housework is not the best example. Still, it is something that I choose to do--on those rare occasions when I do it.) Anyway, my point is that I don't do tedious things that make me miserable just for the sake of doing them.

Reading some of the Charlotte Mason beliefs regarding the importance of outdoor play for children really resonated with me. My own memories of hour after hour spent exploring, climbing trees (there were many days where I spent as much time up in a tree as I did on the ground), playing with my sister and friends, learning new skills and testing my abilities reinforced the value of this time.

So, the last several months, whenever possible, we have spent as much time out of doors as possible.  What have we gained?  Plenty of exercise and vitamin D and other health benefits.  Lots of new skills, including monkey bar prowess, backwards somersaults, increased balance and agility and a greater understanding of gravity, momentum and other forces.  Stretched and vibrant imaginations.  Increased cooperativeness and improved social and interpersonal skills.  Confidence.  Better sleep at night and greater peace after afternoons spent getting the wiggles out.  Hundreds of joy-filled memories.  And somehow, with all this, academics haven't suffered.  There are many, many reasons why we homeschool.  The freedom to do all of this is a substantial part of it.

It's OK to just be OK

I've missed you all! Our computer is still dead, but I can get some library time every now and then to get online, so I'm going to try to take advantage of it to get caught up on your posts and add some of my own when I can.

I admit, I used to sneer at the state slogan "Oklahoma is OK." Way to embrace mediocrity, right? Perhaps I wasn't the only derisive one out there--it was changed to "Native America." But, like many of us, I pursued perfectionism. I still slip into it some, but I am learning to let go of the pressure. I want my children to know that it really is OK to just be OK at things, and not be perfect. (Be honest now--do you know anyone who has achieved perfection? I don't, certainly not me.)

Lately I have run into several parents who have heightened my awareness of this whole issue. Ariana started taking tumbling classes as her birthday present. She loves it! It is the first time she has enjoyed a class on her own so much. At the second class, she was practicing cartwheels, handstands, forward and backward somersaults and flips, the splits, backbends and many other things that I could never do in this world. Of course, the cartwheel wobbled and didn't land anywhere close to vertical. The flips and much of the rest consisted of the teacher positioning her and walking her body through each part. Nothing screamed future Olympian, yet Ariana beamed with pleasure as she tried each one.

Another little girl was clearly far ahead of the rest of the class. She was really good! Yet, as I listened to the girl's mother, I began to feel sorry for her. The girl was about 5 years old, and as she executed a very good--but not exactly perfect--cartwheel, the mother sighed in exasperation and said that she had been videotaping her daughter and showing her that her knees weren't always perfectly straight, but her daughter still made mistakes sometimes. She went on to say that she was so relieved that they had an opening in the Saturday class, because after a full day of kindergarten her daughter had not been doing well with two classes in the evenings, but she had dance or other classes every night and Saturday was the only time they could fit this in.

I was kind of glad that the mom wasn't looking at me, because I am sure my face reflected my judgmental horror. I wanted to ask, "Does she ever have any free time? Does she ever get to do anything just because she wants to? She is FIVE YEARS OLD!" I could imagine the poor little girl coming home after a day full of school and extracurricular classes that rivaled any adult's day at work, hopefully eating and then trying to do homework (and don't even get me started at some of the stories I've heard recently about the homework load for K5!), practice dance and tumbling (with videotapes to point out every flaw!), and what else? Falling asleep in the tub before catching a few hours of sleep?!

OK, I realize that I've been very hard on the mom, who, it is to be hoped, merely wants to provide her daughter with access to several enjoyable and beneficial activities. I've also used more exclamations than strictly necessary. Yet I truly was aghast at the way this girl's day was crammed so full of activity, and wondered when or if relationships or relaxation had any place at all.

The next few days I had several similar encounters, and while the mom I described may be a bit over the top, she isn't alone. For several years I taught superkids like the little girl at one of the top private schools in the area. They were worried about their college schedules in fifth grade, already planning to sacrifice electives that they enjoyed for the ones that they needed to get ahead. I had a first grader who burst into tears when he forgot an accent mark. These kids had learned well that they needed to excel--in everything, all the time. They were very bright and amazingly successful, for the most part. Yet I believe the price was way too high.

Ariana is smart. She loves academics, just like Carlos and I. Homeschooling has caused me to seriously evaluate our goals for her. In the beginning, I was sure that unschooling wouldn't fit well for us. However, I decided to let this year be sort of an experiment, knowing that we could always change things that weren't working. While not perhaps strictly unschooling, we've been following Ariana's lead. I spent a lot of time inwardly gritting my teeth or biting my lips when she chose to play with Joel and Elena, or spend time cooking or do other things that seemed important to her. Even though I know that she is constantly learning, things like worksheets and standardized written work are just comfortable to me, you know? Yet, as I looked over the objectives for this state year by year, I realized that not only is she not falling behind, she is actually at least one year above grade level in all subjects, and further ahead than that in reading. If I were pushing, she would probably be further ahead, but to what purpose?

As I see her personality and confidence blossom, her sparkling enthusiasm in everything that she studies (she is obsessed with venomous animals at the moment, especially pit vipers) and the delight she has in spending time with all of us, I can't believe that we are missing out on anything important.

Sure, structure is good and all that. And sure, we should try to do well at the things we do. I also recognize that many kids are driven and motivated to succeed on their own, without parental pushing and prodding. But, what if, instead of focusing on achieving success in activities or even academics, we focused on successful relationships? What if we put the effort into enjoyment? Would we even know how? (Children are good teachers of this, if we let them teach us).

I think I've shared before my favorite quote by Jamie Buckingham, "Nothing is as important as wasting time with God." It really is OK if we are just OK at the activities in each day. We don't have to excel at everything we do. Sometimes, the best (or only) way to stay sane is to give ourselves permission to waste some time and enjoy those we love.

Why so serious?

I love academics. Really. My husband and I are both teachers, I feel comfortable and happy in an academic environment, and always have. Yet, today while I was doing schoolwork with Ariana it hit me how differently we approach it, and it was humbling.

As soon as I suggested that she get started, she came bounding over, full of enthusiasm. I asked what she wanted to work on, and she wanted to practice writing with her phonics book. We went through several pages, and she kept asking for more. Her writing has improved tremendously, and she was making all the letters the correct size without being reminded and beginning at the top. She is decoding effortlessly most of the time, and knows which sounds are associated with the different letters.

I should have been as delighted as she was. Instead, I found myself increasingly frustrated as she happily doodled and added extra letters to the page. Rather than merely circling the letters that corresponded with the drawings, she began X-ing out the ones that didn't match the letter and drawing the correct letter underneath.

After working on the letter H, she started acting silly, giggling and scribbling and circling all over the page. I opened my mouth to reprimand her for messing up the page as she beamed and said, "Mom, this is hilarious! Get it? Hilarious goes with H!"

I stopped myself and looked and listened. I was getting upset because the page wasn't as nice and neat as I wanted it to be. What did I really want? A pristine page? For...what purpose? I wanted her to be serious. Why? Because learning isn't supposed to be fun, let alone hilarious? Ay, ay ay.

She was being far wiser than I in the moment. She was showing initiative, going beyond what was required, and incorporating even more skills than the exercise called for. Why was my instinct to shut it down as if that were a bad thing?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I love to fill quotas and put things into nice, neat little boxes and rows. I like the safety of following the letter of the law. But my five year old was following the spirit and delighting in it. We have barely begun the school year, and already I am learning new lessons. That is a good thing. I hope to capture the same joy that my daughter has in that.

Right after working on that, a friend linked me to this article, which, while on a slightly different topic, is still relevant, and very powerful. Check it out! http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/let-the-children-play-some-more/