Perfect Homeschooling, Curriculum Choice, and Regretting Decisions

A new homeschooling mom on our local list had some questions about tutors, curriculum, and generally freaking out because she can’t figure out the perfect way to get started because she’s afraid of regretting her decisions

I responded to her, and I thought I’d pass this along for those of you who are struggling with fear, regret, perfectionism, or self-doubt. Or, if you are interested in being a stronger, more resilient homeschooler, this post might interest you.

Dear “Alysa”,
I have been reading this thread with interest. After your last email, I thought of some things that might relate to your situation:

1) There is no way to make everything perfect. Letting go of that expectation now will go a long way in making life as a homeschooler, and as a parent, less stressful. Also, expecting things to be perfect is a great excuse for not taking any risks and avoiding responsibility. Own your decisions by knowing that every choice has a risk. Even choosing public school.

2) I understand about the idea about not wanting to regret your choices. The best way to not regret your choices is to understand two things: 1) That you ALWAYS have the option to change course. When you make a bad choice (and you will eventually, we all do), it’s not about the result of that choice that makes us who we are, but whether or not we have the resilience to stand up, dust off the dirt, learn from what we did, and move forward. If you know that you can recover from any choice, then making choices is easier, and more empowering. You’re also more likely to make good choices, because they will be made based on your integrity and love of life, not from fear. 2) You can’t possibly know whether a choice is going to be a good one or not until you’ve made it. Doing research is important. And listening to others’ with experience is also important. But in the end, the choice you make is yours to own. Even if other people might wag their finger at you and say “I told you so,” sometimes we have to make certain choices to really understand where to go next. Listen, absorb, then make a choice, and know that you have lots of other options available for you if that choice doesn’t pan out.

3) Tutors and curriculum: It’s obvious you are very very new to homeschooling. I say that because once you get involved in the homeschooling support groups, go to a couple conferences, subscribe to a few magazines, read a few books, and generally get some experience in the HSing world, you’re going to look around and say, “OMG, how can I possibly choose from everything there is to do???” and you’ll probably look back and laugh at yourself that you didn’t know how to get started with tutors/curriculum. Remember, there is NO rush to get started with these things except in your own mind. Wanting to have a handle on exactly who to follow, who to pay, and what path to take is like trying to hold on to the sand on the beach so as not to get swept away by the tide. It’s better to stand up and let the sand be there to make a sandcastle, not to save you. Tutors and curriculum are FINE. Use them, do them, but don’t let them be your master. Don’t rely on them to show you the way or to make you feel less panicky. They won’t. They will only be a baindaid for that fear. The fear doesn’t come from not having these things. Figure out where the fear is REALLY coming from, and the tutors/curriculum/classes and other concrete learning tools will be there for your enjoyment.

It’s totally normal to be hyper when you’re starting out something SO new, an interesting, and BIG, and fun, and scary, and all that. So, enjoy it. Sign up for everything, get really going. Then, when you feel yourself burning out, back out, do less stuff, and relax. Whether you start by relaxing or start by going into overdrive, you’re still doing a great job and learning about your role as a homeschooling parent.

In the end, there are only 3 things that matter for a child in today’s world of technology and global culture:

1) Relationships, relationships, relationships. This trumps everything. All the tutors and curriculum in the world cannot make up for relationship issues in the family. So, when making decisions, always choose to favor strengthening the relationship you have with your child.
2) Love and curiosity about the world. If a child has this, it doesn’t matter how much or what a child learns. A child who is in love with the world, and curious about it will succeed.
3) Knowing where information is. It’s not what you know, but who, where and when you know. If you know where to get info, that is a much more important skill than actually knowing things. In fact, knowing too many facts can give us the false impression that we don’t need to know any more. (This is part of why kids in school often don’t do a lot to study above and beyond what’s taught to them.) It’s important for people to know they don’t know everything, and that it’s not a life requirement to know it all. Having a strong grasp of available resources allows us to let go of feeling like we aren’t good enough because we don’t have all the president’s names and dates memorized like our cousin Sam does.

Good luck to you and enjoy your child. I hope you’ll come to the HSC conference. There you’ll find out more than you ever want or need to know about curriculum, tutors, and other things you can teach with. Until then, relax and enjoy your new life of freedom.

Encouraing Your Child to Take Responsibility

These quotes are from the Five Love Languages of Children, by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell. They were such great gems, coming from a “mainstream” source, I just have to share them with you.

You can help your child to be responsible (and therefore motivated) in two ways. The first is to patiently observe what your child is drawn to; that is, what your child enjoys, appreciates, or likes to do. Then you can encourage him in that direction. If you see an interest in your child in studying music, you can encourage that. But the key is to let the child take the initiative. When parents take the initiative to convince a child to take music lessons, the results are seldom positive.

A second way to help your child be motivated is to remember both you and your child cannot take responsibility for the same thing at the same time. If you wait and allow your child to take the initiative, she may then be motivated because you have allowed her to take responsibility. If you take the initiative and try to convince her to do something, you are assuming responsibility. A child is seldom motivated when this happens.

…

Helping a child to be well motivated by permitting her to take both initiative and responsibility for her own behavior seems to be a well-concealed secret today. Most children are placed in a position where a parent or teacher takes the initiative and then assumes responsibility for her learning. Adults do this because they genuinely care for the children and mistakenly believe that the more they take initiative and responsibility, the more they are doing for the children. However, this is a serious mistake.

The lesson to be learned here, in my opinion, isn’t that we should let our kids take all of the initiative. Certainly, our society tends to err on the side of pushing our kids to follow adult ideas of what they are supposed to do, and then we wonder why kids spend so much time “worthless” activities. But going to the opposite extreme of being hands-off is no better.

No, the lesson isn’t that we should stop trying to introduce new things and just let the kids do whatever they want, such as many parents who try “unschooling” think they should be doing. What we, as parents, learn from Chapman and Campbell, is to acknowledge that when we take the initiative, we are taking responsibility for our children’s learning. This means, that when we are directing them and telling them what they should be doing, they aren’t thinking or learning how to be responsible. They are being put into a passive position of knowing that they no longer are responsible, because mom/dad/teacher is in control.

So what’s the point of taking the initiative then? Because, there are indeed times when the kids benefit from us take the reigns. They benefit only if, after we step up and take initiative to get things going, we back off, then let them be free, to decide for themselves what, and when, the next step is, even if the next step they decide isn’t the one we expected them, or wanted them, to take.

Educating our kids is an alternating of us taking responsibility; first it’s our turn, then it’s their turn, then it’s our turn, then it’s their turn. It can also start with the kids taking a turn first. It doesn’t matter who goes first. The important thing is that it’s not totally up to us to “get” them to take responsibility. And kids aren’t in a vacuum. They want to know what we can show them too.

Learning how to know when it’s our turn is part of the deschooling cycle. It not always our turn. And it’s not always our turn when we want a turn. We can play around with taking our turn to take initiative and responsibility, then letting go. By trying this out, we can watch our kids’ reactions. Do they resist us? We’re probably taking too much responsibility away from them. Are they begging us to show them one more time how to do it? We might need to step up a little more and be a model of educational motivation.

Motivation never comes from us, parents. We cannot ever motivate children. That has to come from their souls. If we spend too much time taking responsibility for our children’s learning, we’ll be upset if they aren’t motivated, because we feel that their motivation is somehow linked to our desires. But it’s not. Their motivation belongs to them, not us. That’s why it’s important to give our children many opportunities to take initiative, not just when we expect them to.

Cameron’s New Desk

We bought Cameron a new desk. Doesn’t that sound so “home-schooly?” Well, this desk is different.

The desks in school do not resemble any other kind of desk or workspace that we encounter in “real life”. These kinds of desks are also the least conducive to learning and working as a group. The way desks are set up in a school room, indicates very clearly that these children are not part of a group, but they are individuals who are expected to go along with what the rest of the group is doing, without actually interacting or thinking with them. It’s not allowed to cross the desk line and chat with your neighbor, work together (unless specifically OK’d by the teacher), or communicate in any way, including passing notes or texting. Once a child is sitting in that school desk, he is in is own isolated place, where the only looking out is directed and controlled.

When I see a picture of a school desk in a homeschool house, this is what I think of - a child who is sitting in his own world, ready to be directed and told what to do, surrounded by invisible walls.

Granted, not all homeschooling families treat a school desk as such. But if this isn’t how we are going to use a school desk, why get one at all? Why use our space so inefficiently?

The kinds of desks adults, and people who feel free, choose, are desks with drawers, space, plugs, and places to put up pictures. The desks we work at represent the kind of thinking we are doing. Working at our desk should feel like it’s setting us free, not like an invisible prison, no matter how comfortable or “normal” it seems.

My husband and I chose not to get our kids desks. They work on the floor, the various tables in the house, and on the couch. Their projects can be anywhere, and they are free to decide where.

My husband and I also work in these spaces, on our own projects. The space is available, free, open. But we also have our desks where we have our “stuff”. These desks are our sanctuary, and we choose sometimes to work there. (In fact, I’m working at my desk as we speak, after having worked on the couch for a half-hour or so.)

Modeling, as we know, is the most impressionable teacher. Our 9-year-old son, Cameron, proved this to us by deciding last week that he, too, needed his own space to do projects. In particular, he needed a space where he could leave his projects 1/2 done, and nobody would bother them. He decided he needed a desk.

To me, this is what a desk should be. This is the kind of workspace that encourages learning and exploration. It leaves the possibilities open. It requires no permission or dicta of what to do there.

Cameron still works on the floor, and on the general spaces. It’s his choice, and he knows it. There are limitations of what he can do in the shared space, and there are limitation of what he can do on his desk, but these are limitations set by practical experience: using water on his desk will ruin his books, leaving out a domino project on the living room table will end in dominoes everywhere at the hands of a curious 4-year-old sister.

When Cameron asked for a desk, I waffled, because I thought the idea of sitting at a desk and working was such a homeschool cliché, it almost hurt. Then I realized, that him having a desk like mine, is freeing, not confining. So, we ended up buying him the same exact desk I have, and put it in his room. It has lots of space, he sits at it when he wants, and it can be used for many different things - not just hunching over workbooks and taking notes.

In my opinion, school desks should be outlawed, and replaced by tables. I can see how teachers would want children to use desks so they don’t socialized during class and “mess around.” But using desks is a very primitive way of making sure kids are paying attention and interested in the task at hand. If that’s what it takes, then the problem is bigger than desks.

I realize that many schools do use tables instead of desks. I think that’s great, and these schools are a good example of one small way that they can give power to choose their own learning back to the kids. Let’s give our kids tables and open space, not a chair with a little piece of wood to write one. Give them space to learn, and they will learn bigger.

One Homeschooler’s Socialization

This morning I told my children what our plans were for the day. Here is part of the conversation:

“Kids, we’re going to the museum. Our friends Joe and Sam will be there.”

“YAY!” they shouted. And all three of my children threw their arms in the air and hopped around.

“Also,” I added, “there’s going to be another family there. They have two kids. I don’t remember if the kids are your age, though.”

Cameron, who is 9 1/2, turned to me and said, “It doesn’t matter how old they are, Mom. We can still make friends.”

I smiled. I guess I still have some deschooling to do.

The Search for Homeschool Curriculum

Little do people know that when they are on the search for homeschool curriculum, what they are looking for isn’t the best book or superior materials — they are searching for themselves. When they find that perfect curriculum, and that perfect set of activities, projects, approaches to education, they have found what was already inside them. They have found themselves, and they have found their children.

When we know ourselves, and we know our kids, the search for curriculum stops, and it becomes a process of endless discovery.

When we search outside of ourselves for the answer, we will look forever, until we find the thing that mirrors back onto ourselves. When we get that mirror, we can give the outside thing the credit, or we can admit that, in fact, that thing is what we are looking for because it showed us who we are. Everything we need is inside us already. It just sometimes takes things on the outside to show that to us. Then the question is, can we be honest about it?

Searching for the right curriculum for our kids at home is a worthy search, so long as we realize it’s a search for discovering our children, not a search for a way to make our children be the ideal person we want them to be. If we have an ideal of who our children are supposed to be, we’ll be searching for the right curriculum until our children leave home.

I propose that we change our search for curriculum into a frame of mind of discovery. When we see it as a window into our children’s world, and into our own hearts, it will become an entirely different process. And the best thing? It creates less grief. Because instead of being frustrated that a curriculum doesn’t work, instead, we can be glad because it has taught us something about ourselves and our children. Every trial and error we make adds to the equation, and no effort is worthless, no time is wasted, and probably the most important, no money is wasted.

Curriculum is not the enemy. It’s not any more an enemy as the proverbial hammer is to a new carpenter. How and why we use any kind of non-experiential curriculum (i.e. workbooks and textbooks) is far more important than whether or not we are using it in the first place.

Stumble It!

Homeschool Teacher Training

Recently, I was in a conversation where a homeschooling mom wanted to start a homeschool teacher training program. (Scroll down to see a sample.)

When I first heard her intention, my immediate reaction was to think, “You’re barking up the wrong tree.” But then I realized, I lot of people would probably sign up for something like this. In fact, many of the new homeschooler’s I’ve talked to have asked questions about homeschooling that a homeschooling class would promise to answer.

Do homeschoolers need training? What are the benefits and the disadvantages to offering a class like this?

One of the first problems I see with a homeschool teacher training is how easy it would be to reinforce school-parent ideas in the home education setting. School teachers, or those with “a lot of experience teaching many kids” can offer such a class, and provide lots of solid, experienced-based advice…for the classroom. This kind of class can easily perpetrate the idea that homeschooling is, and should be, school at home.

Now, what if this class were taught in a completely different way? What if it was a more open-ended, self-discovery sort of course? Instead of being told what to think, the teacher helps the parents see how much freedom and flexibility they have in teaching their kids at home. In essence, it would be a class in deschooling. Is that an oxy-moron? Would it be possible to teach without teaching in a classroom setting?

The other problem with offering a teacher training course to new homeschoolers is that it just might catch on. I could see how easily it would become the de-facto expectation of all homeschoolers to take such a course. If that’s the case, isn’t that, again, buying into the very system that we left?

A teacher training course for new homeschoolers is a neat idea - to teachers. I say this, having been a teacher, that it does appeal to me in that, “I want to help people,” sort of way. But it’s not helping people to offer a homeschool teacher training course. It’s actually encouraging people to hang on to the apron strings and pull the school mentality of top-down education right into their own living rooms.

I’m not saying that school-at-home is bad, or that people who choose to use that method are not effective educators. (They are. I’ve seen it.) What I’m saying is that learning how to be a homeschooler is not taught. It’s not something we can take a class on. We can only become better educators to our children with experience and self-motivation. (This is also true of classroom educators, BTW.)

And here’s the truth - if we want to be better homeschoolers, everything we need to know is already easily available to us. There are no longer any gatekeepers to knowledge.

This is the biggest truth that new homeschoolers must learn - that our culture creates the illusion that we must be allowed into the grand library of information by a certified key-holder. By offering classes that “train” homeschoolers, we are perpetuating that myth. New homeschoolers have to go through their own growing pains to discover, on their own, that everything they could possibly want to know about how to be a better homeschooler is already available to them. Everything they want to know about motivation, management, school subjects, being successful, or anything else, is right there waiting to be discovered. No key required.

That said, here’s a free sample of my own version of homeschool teacher training. Feel free to add anything in the comments.

1. As your homeschool teacher training facilitator, I encourage you to question everything I say. Question every person who tells you how to homeschool. But also listen carefully, and let new ideas bounce around in your head. In the end it’s up to you to decide on what’s right, but you can’t make a wise choice on what’s right unless you are willing to listen to what people are saying. And you can’t make a wise choice if you take what the experts say as truth without question. (And, anyone who is insulted or angered by your questioning or doubt, take a big step back and find another source for information.)

2. Theory is important, but practice is more important. The best source of information on how to make decisions in your family are the members of your family. What might sound good in a book, or what might sound good coming from an experienced homeschooler, may or may not work for you. It’s not about what “should” work, but what “does” work.

3. Have a clear grasp of what’s important to you and your family. If you know what’s important to you, then all other decisions come a lot easier.

4. It’s not what you know, but who/where you know. Make it a priority to get informed on who knows the haps around town, and know where to get all kinds of information. Become your own door to the universal library of knowledge.

5. Relationships trump all. If I had to pick one thing that makes the biggest difference in homeschooling success, it would be the strength of our family relationships. If you got that, you’re set.

6. Check your ego at the door. When you’re homeschooling, it ain’t about you, folks. It’s about the kids. Deal with your own issues, come to terms with your own educational experiences, then move on. Don’t get confused between what’s best for the kids and your own educational or life hang-ups.

7. Find at least 10 different sources on how to teach children at home, and read them all. I can’t make you understand the importance of getting a diverse set of opinions on homeschooling. You can only see it once you do your own research.

8. Teach your children like this is your last day on earth. Or, teach them like it’s your first. Either way, it’s better than wasting our precious time because we’re obsessed with the future, or than teaching our kids as if we (parents/adults) have nothing left in this world to discover.

9. In the immortal words of Tom Cochrane, “Life is a highway, I’m gonna ride it, all night long….” Live life with your kids. Enjoy your time with them. Be in the “now”, and keep your head high as you gather more and more life experiences. You’re making memories with them.

What’s your number 10 to add to the unofficial, homeschool un-teacher untraining?

Deschooling Gently Update

For all of you who are sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for news about Deschooling Gently, I’m happy to say that I just received an email from my publisher saying that she doesn’t need any more from me right now.

Can you believe it!? Deschooling Gently is only a few short months away from being on the NY bestseller list! Er… I mean.. well, at least you’ll be able to buy it from Amazon.

If you’re interested in getting yourself a copy before all of your friends beat you to it, head on over to my publisher’s website to pre-order it.

(This is where Tammy takes a pause to do a little dance…. there, all done. Wewt.)

Keep your eyes peeled for the ongoing saga that is… Deschooling Gently - the book. (I wonder if there will be a movie version….)

5 Ways to Get Organized, Deschooling Style

Raise your hand if you think one of the benefits of school is it keeps us organized. If you raised your hand, you aren’t alone. One of the biggest fears and frustrations about homeschooling is the daunting task of staying organized. Here are 5 tips to help you get and stay organized in a deschooled home education.

1. Pick 5 things that are the most important, then let the rest go. One of the problems with homeschooling is we have this idea that we have to do every little thing. And that everything we do has to be in order, on schedule and in compliance with the invisible homeschooling perfect mom criteria. All of this gets overwhelming, and then we either end up giving up altogether, or we kill ourselves trying to keep up. The truth is, very little matters so much that if we didn’t do it, our world would fall apart. And among those things that matter this much, our own fears are usually far worse than the reality of not doing what we “are supposed to.” So, pick 5 things that are the most important to keep organized, and then focus on those 5 things. If the other stuff gets done, excellent. It’s icing.

2. Get everyone involved in the organization program. Often times, homeschooling moms work super hard to get organized, only to have it all messed up by someone who isn’t on the same page about the organization system. When we get everyone involved in organization, we all have a vested interest in keeping things organized. My son’s room was a big mess. When I cleaned it myself, it got unclean again very quickly. At first, my way of getting him involved was to ask him to keep his room clean enough that I could make it to his bed in the middle of night to save him from a fire, without tripping over his toys or slipping on his clothes. He had a vested interest in me saving him in a fire, so he kept a path to his door clean. Then, one day, he had a sleepover with two of his cousins. I told him that his cousins wouldn’t be able to sleep in his room if his room wasn’t clean, and there wasn’t enough room in the living room for them all to fit. He really wanted them to sleep in his room, so he was motivated to clean it. We worked together (actually, that was mostly my husband and my son working together), to make his room more organized so the things on the floor would have a place. Overall, his room has stayed relatively organized, because he was voluntarily involved in the process of getting it together.

3. Make it a game. Instead of being a chore, organizing and cleaning can be a game. It can be any kind of game from “who can find the most Polly Pocket clothes” to “let’s see if we can find anything to sell at the garage sale this weekend ” to “Did you know we still had this?” (it becomes a game of who can find the most off-the-wall thing that we didn’t know we had.) I also make organizing a game for myself as well. My game is, ‘How much of the stuff on my desk can I throw away, give away or put on my husband’s desk?”

4. Have less stuff. The less stuff we have, the less we have to organize. If the idea of being organized is overwhelming, maybe the problem is that there really is too much to have to deal with. Reduce the amount we have to deal with, and suddenly, it becomes easier. Have a garage sale, give away books to the library, or give away to the local charity. If you’re having trouble organizing the “school” stuff in your lives, same thing holds true - maybe you’re doing too much. Do you REALLY need to have every single detail of a child’s learning be recorded? Does it matter exactly how often or how much time is devote to math or science? Are you putting too much importance on numbers and quantities, and how it might look from the outside? If we’re talking about not being organized enough to remember when to go to classes or forgetting about play dates, again, think about doing less, and let the kids help keep track of the stuff that they are interested in. It’s funny how the stuff we really want to do, we don’t have any trouble organizing that.

5. Get away from the house and do enjoyable or relaxing activities. Everything we are doing can seem very overwhelming when we are in the midst of it all. Toys, books, clothes, schedules, have-tos, dishes, everything… all that stuff is in the house. It’s daunting, taunting, and all around annoying. Getting away from the house gives us space to think about what’s really important. It also re-fills our energy tanks, so when we come home, we’re able to see our problems with new eyes, and renewed motivation. If you find that going out makes you tired, and not wanting to do anything when you get home, you still win, because at least while you were out, you didn’t make your house even less organized than it was before.

Everyone has a personal organization style. What’s your style? How do you get organized? What was your bigged issue? Did you figure out a way to get through it? If so, how?

Stumble It!

Off to the Editor!

Today, I turned in my finished draft of Deschooling Gently to my editor. I’m so excited! There is still quite a bit of work to be done, but this was the biggest step. I feel like now, this is really, really, going to happen.

Thank you to everyone who reads my blog. Having you here inspired me to write this book in the first place, and your continued support is priceless to me. Big hugs to you all!

Top 10 Tips for Deschooling

Inspired by this great post at LifeLearningToday on the top 10 tips for Britney Spears and anyone feeling lost in life, I offer a parallel list.

Top 10 Tips for Deschooling

1. Slow down and let learning happen. Our culture encourages us to push our kids to learn faster, better, more. What if we said, “It may take a day, it may take a year, it may take 10, but they will eventually learn. We’re in no rush?”

2. Let go of our grip on fear. Fear is a natural emotion. It tells us things. But if we let fear control us, we don’t make wise decisions (or we don’t make any decisions at all). Feel the fear, explore why we have it, then walk right on by it and discover our own path to education.

3. Let go of the notion that making mandates on our kids’ learning means we’re good teachers. Good teachers are listeners, watchful, adaptive, curious, supportive, non-judgmental and accepting. Not controlling.

4. Create a circle of supportive people. Whenever we make a major life change, it’s important to have people around us who support our decisions and trust us. Create a group of supportive people around us by going out and supporting others and accepting them.

5. Seek out help, but don’t follow advice blindly. There is an infinite amount of literature out there about learning, homeschooling and parenting. Seek it out, learn and explore. But remember the final decision on which advice is appropriate is up to us individually.

6. Have a concrete understanding of why we want to homeschool. Create a list of positive reasons to homeschool. That list can remind us why we are putting so much effort into our new life when it seems like nothing is working. It can also help us refocus on what’s important so we don’t get lost in the details.

7. Find a mentor or someone to emulate. LifeLearning said find a life coach. I think that’s fine too, except, that there really aren’t any life coaches in the homeschooling community. (Would you use one if there was one?) Instead, we can find role models or mentors to help us on our way.

8. Take baby steps. Lasting change is easier to accomplish with small changes. Also, pick one thing at a time, instead of working on everything at once. Big changes and working on too many things is the psyche’s way of setting ourselves up for failure so that we don’t have to change, since it’s so easy to give up with such overwhelming self-imposed demands.

9. Exercise daily. Good advice for anyone.

10. Get involved with something outside of homeschooling. School is restrictive because it keeps kids insulated in the world of “education”. Get involved with things that have nothing to do with education, and teach kids what life really is about.

Got something to add? Any of these tips resonate with you?