Families around the world have been thrown into homeschooling. Or rather, the coronavirus has sent everyone home, and much of schooling has been ‘outsourced’ to families. Having homeschooled my kids who are now in high school, my opinion is that making sure they know you love them, and letting your youngster pursue whatever fascinates them have been great ingredients for homeschooling.
What Is School, and How Do Kids Learn?
I’ve homeschooled my two kids who are now teenagers. When my kids were little, I had vague recollections of my experience sitting in rows in a classroom at school at their age, and assumed that kids are empty vessels eagerly awaiting “knowledge.” (I imagined an ornate ceramic vase on top of each child’s head, and a watering can above the teacher’s head – or my head as the homeschooling parent – spouting streams of knowledge across the classroom toward those vases atop each child, who wears a wan smile as they appreciate the knowledge being poured into them.) Homeschooling isn’t like that.
Kids Have Their Own Ideas
Kids have their own ideas. They’re curious about the world. Many will balk at worksheets managed by their parents. I know, I know, Ms. Teacher has assigned particular worksheets or class time online so your youngster doesn’t fall behind, and you want your child and yourself to ‘pass’ schooling. You may worry that deviating from the schedule would make your youngster go wild, going back to school with their hair disheveled and their clothing askew, having lost their academic (and social) abilities, and having to do the grade over. I’ve also heard that one can cover in 15 minutes at home what is covered in an hour in a classroom, because Mr. Teacher has to keep asking Jimmy and Johnny at the back of the room to stop hitting each other, Jamie is more focused on doodling than listening, and other kids aren’t learning because they already understand the material or don’t understand it at all.
Flow, or Being in the Zone
Flow, or being in the zone, makes productivity soar, while apathy decreases it. What I’ve seen as a parent, time and again, is that children who are given the time to explore their interests and then apply themselves are in the zone, and their results are astounding. The difficulty for adults is that we want productivity or a plan for it, now. I wasted a lot of time at the beginning of sheltering-in-place, watching YouTube and scrolling the internet. I’m no longer even interested in that, and following other pursuits with gusto, including weeding. If someone had asked me to pull weeds a month ago, I would have dragged my feet. One day I decided to transform my yard, handfuls of weeds at a time. It’s been several weeks now that I weed for maybe an hour a day, and fill our green bin every week. Kids also need some time to decompress before they are ready to identify their interests, apply themselves and soar! Adults need to trust that this will happen – sooner or later.
Adore and Appreciate Each Other
If you want your kids to learn in a way that paves the path for them to appreciate and adore you, help them identify their interests, and then structure ‘school’ around those by offering books/classes/online programs. These supportive programs can incidentally offer reading (English!), and classes (structured learning and possibly ‘socializing’!). My son and his friends practiced grammar by writing ‘gory’ stories one year, with prompts to reread their work with the next step in their writing, including, “What type of letter does a sentence start with?” (Answer: a capital letter.) I understand this may be more or less feasible in these crisis times, and we all need to give ourselves a break; parents are already amazing: they are keeping things together for their family. (What I’m trying to say is that you are already doing a wonderful job and to give yourselves a break from excessive pressure from the high standards of implementing a teacher’s job on top of your other job(s).)
Love Makes Everything Fall into Place
If you can give them control over their time to follow their interests, they will feel so on top of the world that they will achieve with a vigor that goes above and beyond your expectations. Letting them take the lead can be a struggle for adults because the time prior to their being able to show us the achievement may look like wasted time. That’s why every family has to work out what feels right. If kids feel loved and engaged, everything else will fall into place.
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