I was on Facebook today, as I often am. It’s my outside link to the world! Anyways, an image was being shared about Homeschooling. It related that Homeschoolers are NOT trying to do school at home but are instead trying to do Homeschool. It completely reiterated my beliefs of education.
I believe education should be a natural process provided for children. It should not be a routine of learning things that are not of interest or that are not necessary. It should not be rote learning and memorization of facts. Those can be learned while doing interesting things very simply and easily.
When I first began homeschooling my son, he was just a little boy. At the time, I was convinced, mostly by others who were involved with Public schooling, that our school needed to be just like the public schools, in a classroom setting with specific curriculum. Boy was I ever WRONG.
As the years passed, I began to learn more and I began to understand the learning differences in my children, I came to realize that I didn’t want a public school education for my children. If I had, I would have sent them straight to that big yellow school bus that carried them to that brick building everyday. I didn’t choose that and that was not something I wanted for their education at all.
What I did want was for my children to learn naturally. I wanted to instill a natural curiosity about life and how and why things work as they do. I wanted them to feel a sense of accomplishment as they figured out and learned these things seemingly on their own.
I also didn’t want my children to feel pushed educationally. I don’t ever want them to feel like they are having to do work above their skill levels before they are ready. During this journey of homeschooling we have had many challenges but all along, I could hear God directing me to just keep trying and remain patient. I didn’t always listen. I often fell into the “he should be doing this by now” trap. “She is more than ready for this, why isn’t she doing it.” The reason is because God wasn’t ready for their minds to open to those things. He had other plans for them in life. He wanted them to remain children, just as I did.
As I began to follow the paths opened for us in learning and I began to learn more about these things I thought I should be pushing, my children began to learn. They began to show strengths that I thought they were missing, yet were learning all the time. They began to learn independently in things that interested them most. All I needed was to be patient and as always the Lord would provide. And he has!
It is a joy to see my children today. It is a blessing to see how much they have learned and how far each of them has come. They are each very different in their learning styles but they are each learning just fine.
School for us differs every month, as they need it to. One month we may watch tons of movies on subjects we are interested in or may need to learn about because it goes along with our learning process. The next month we may do tons of worksheets to learn. And the very next months may contain tons of books that we read together. How they learn the lesson is not the important part. Learning the lesson is what’s most important.
Right now I am once again re-arranging curriculum. This past month has been a video lesson month for us but now my children are requesting book work and worksheets to do. They are ready and need this. I’m fine with this because they are willing to do the things necessary to learn more. The video’s have peeked their interest in learning and they are ready to learn even more. For us, games work the same way. They enjoy learning through educational games on websites and DS games they have. All these things work together for us educationally providing Homeschool.
Education was not meant to be a routine schedule provided in an institution. Education is a process that is taught 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as learning comes up. It doesn’t stop when you walk out of a school building and it isn’t the responsibility of a teacher to provide to a child. It is a parent’s responsibility to ensure your child knows how to learn all day long, as learning never stops.
This is homeschooling for us here at Luv’N Lambert Life. What is homeschooling for you?
I don’t fall prey to this one as much now that I have my children. In fact, I tend to be more selfless than anything. I put my children and their wants first. I put other’s needs first most days too. Funny how having children really will change you!
