As with most mamas, I want the absolute best for my children in all areas and aspects of life. I want to make sure that when my kids come of age they have been given the most solid foundation with which to build their lives. Because I have chosen to homeschool my kids I often feel an overwhelming sense of duty to get it right educationally because if I don't I have no one but myself to blame. More and more often I have been feeling a huge sense of urgency to get this whole homeschooling thing figured out (and all of the kinks that come with choosing this lifestyle) because my children are getting older and older and my time to "fix" whatever I have broken in them is becoming shorter and shorter. There are no other teachers with whom I can try and work out their educational life. No other adults who handle schooling day in and day out and can offer suggestions or give extra help as they could if I actually sent my kids to a school outside of the walls of my home. I cannot help but constantly, at least lately, think of all that I am doing wrong educationally for my kids.
But then I start to think of all of the kids who drop out of high school. Or of all of the kids who cannot read or write properly when they graduate from an educational setting that is considered mainstream. Or I think of all of the kids, like myself, who really did not learn all that much in school. (Or at least I didn't retain that much.) Which leads me to wonder if I am wasting my time shoving the textbooks that the kids and I have been working on since last July down their throats? I mean, how much of the Algebra that Andy and Josh have been doing (and hating very much) contains information that they have actually retained or will one day need? Or is it really all that important if my kids know what a past particle verb is? I am sure that I learned those things at some point during my schooling years, but I cannot tell you what those are unless I look at my teacher's manual as I try to teach them to my own kids.
If I follow public school ways and cram textbook after textbook down my kids throats why don't I just throw them into public school where another adult can do that job for me? What is the point of homeschooling? Is it to school at home? Or is there more to it than that?
Do I want to teach my kids to follow their own interests which inevitably will allow them to retain the information they are seeking because it actually interests them? Or do I want my kids to just follow a book even though it makes them miserable and they retain very little, if nothing at all, because as adults they are going to have to do things that they don't like, so they might as well get used to it now? Do I want to teach my kids to think outside of the box? Or do I want to teach them to follow the rules no matter what even if they don't make sense or if they don't sit right with my kids?
I guess the thing is is that I don't have any of the answers that I am looking for right now. I know that I have spent thousands of dollars on curriculum this year and I don't feel like we had a very productive school year despite the pages and pages of work completed. And I think my kids would agree with me. The kids and I haven't had fun this year. Learning hasn't been a pleasurable experience. It has been painful. I am completely burnt out and my kids are burnt out which is something we all experienced in public school, so if the point of homeschooling is to not having it be like public school then why am I still thinking in traditional ways? If I am going to do schooling at home why not just send them back to school?But if I don't want to school them at home any more and I don't want to send the kids to public school where does that leave me? I don't want my kids to run around like banshees with nothing to do all day. I don't want to raise a pack of heathens. But I also don't want to raise kids who become adults who live a life doing a job they don't love just to pay the bills. I don't want my kids to not be passionate about what they do. I want to raise kids who think outside the box, who respectfully question authority, who know what their passions are and then follow them.
Right now, I feel like I am giving my kids an education. I am making sure that they do their book work and have pages and pages of this book work completed, but in doing this I don't feel like my kids are learning how to learn. That is a huge disservice to them. I want my kids to be curious about the world around them, gobble up information about what peaks their curiosity, and then to learn as much as they desire about that subject. But in allowing my kids to learn this way our school days will look much different and I am not sure that I am brave enough to go that far off of the beaten path.
Which then leads me to think about the fact that I have this amazing ability to create such a unique journey that is off the beaten path, but is this amazing organic experience for my whole family. I start to think about what a disservice I am doing to them by not exploring the area in which we live in more. And how much we could learn from the area in which we live in. There is so much geography, history, science, etc... to be learned and explored just by venturing outside the walls of our home. We live in the southwest!!! How exciting is that? And then, before the end of this year, we will be living in a totally different part of the country, so why are we not taking advantage of all of the different things the southwest has to offer? If we are going to follow Bob around to all of the different places that his career is going to allow us to go why we inside doing book work day in and day out? Why are we not visiting museums, parks, hiking trails, etc...that are unique to the area where we are living? Our education should be a hands on experience that will allow us to actually learn something instead of just reading something in a textbook, answering questions about that reading, being quizzed and tested on those things, and then repeating that same cycle over and over again.
I bet if you actually asked my kids what they have learned this year they will most likely not be to give you an answer despite the notebooks of work they have completed. Why am I doing this to them? Why am I doing this to myself? Am I afraid of what other people will think if we structure our school days differently? Am I really not that much of an outside the box thinker even though I pride myself on being one?
It seems like once a year I get to this point of being overwhelmed, burnt out, and stressed about school and just as I am getting ready to make some big changes in terms of the way we school I chicken out and go right back to the textbooks that we all have learned so much from. Why can't I be more brave and seek the hands on learning experience that I know I could give my kids if only I was willing to let go of what other people thought and to truly think outside of the box?
How we spend our moments is how we spend our lives. I am too uniquely wired to be normal, so why am I trying to do normal things? Why am I trying to do "normal" schooling at home when I could be allowing my children the freedom of tailoring their own education to fit their own needs not the needs that a publisher suggests my kids have. God granted me permission to raise my kiddos just by the shear nature of having them been born to me. He knew what kind of person I was prior to gifting me my kiddos, so why am I not living up to my uniqueness and giving my kids a once in a lifetime childhood full of amazing learning opportunities?
Again, I don't have the answers yet. Or maybe I do - I am just not sure I am brave enough to see them through. I guess the question that begs to be asked is this: Do I have enough time left with my kids to continue being a coward? If not the only option for me is to stand up and be brave - no matter how scary that may seem - their futures and their lives may depend on it.
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