you left the house each day, would you go? If you worked in a place where your co-workers and perhaps even your boss called you stupid and lazy, would you go? Then why do we as parents send our little ones if they experience these things?
Assigning homework
One of the main complaints parents voice about the local school system is the amount of homework. Although some repetition may be good and even necessary, four or more hours of homework each night seems a little excessive for second and third graders. As those of us who spent any time in the corporate world know, all work and no play leads to burnout.
WITNESSING YOUR CHILD’S PROGRESS
Remember those first toddler steps? Your child stood, wavered, and then plunk! Down he went. But he stood up again, wobbled a little, and took one step, and then another. You were so excited that you could cheer! Maybe you did (and soon after found yourself cuddling a crying toddler who was startled at that great big noise).
Homeschooling is like that. When you teach your child at home, you see the thrill in your child’s eyes when she learns to add for the very first time. You hear the first words your child learns to read. You get to explain the wonders of the stars to wide, fascinated eyes.
And farther along, you unfold other mysteries of life to your learner. What is an atom? How do you solve this math problem for n, and why does anyone care what n might be in the first place? What happens when you forget to add salt to that bread loaf that you just made? (Oops. Saltless bread loaves aren’t very tasty.)
Watching a child learn is a bit addictive, and with homeschooling, you have the opportunity to see it all (even the frustrating I-wish-I-could-throw-my-pencil parts). No matter how old your students may be, the sparkle still comes into their eyes when they master a new skill just like it did during those first steps. One of the greatest joys of homeschooling is getting to see your children learn for the first time over and over.
Homeschooling looks at education from a different perspective. You don’t need to prove that your child is learning by assigning homework for her to do after hours. You’re the parent, you are the one teaching your child, and you know whether she gets it or not. If she doesn’t understand the concept, you can tell by the dazed look in her eyes. If she does understand, there’s no reason to spend the next four hours reteaching the same concept after dinner. You can always test the child over the material if you’re not sure. Chapter 24 talks more about grades and testing.
Making homeschooling more than school at home
Homeschooling isn’t really “school at home.” Instead, think of it as independent tutoring sessions day after day. Most homeschooling can be done in two to four hours per day with no homework, and that includes high school. Because you teach 1 and not 20 or more, you can explain concepts in much less time than a conventional teacher. Sometimes independent reading or assigned projects fall outside that range, but the vast majority of homeschoolers find that they don’t need to assign homework for their children to maintain their skills.
If a child misses a concept today, you can always reteach it tomorrow. Teacher’s manuals include reteaching time nearly every day as they attempt to catch the learner who didn’t quite understand the first time. If you wait until the following school day to tackle a particular skill again, you give the concept some time to settle. Within the next 24 hours you may discover a new and fresh way to present the skill, or your student may gain the extra processing time he needs to understand it.
It didn’t take too many months before he realized that finishing a math page within 10 to 20 minutes proved to be much more fun than staring at the math problems and thinking about all the other things he could be doing. Now he does his math quickly and well, within a decent time frame, and we move on to other things.
Using the extra time
If you opt for school without homework, what do you do with all the time you save? You suddenly have time to sit with your family and enjoy an after-dinner movie — during the week. Maybe you find the time for those volunteer opportunities that you always wanted to do. Or perhaps you may fill the hours playing board games or card games with your children.
Children think of all kinds of things to do when they find themselves free from homework. They build contraptions and coliseums in LEGOs. They grab the clay and populate a pretend town. They draw paper dolls along with stunning wardrobes. They run, ride, and skate. Once in a while, they may even grab a book and read on their own, without you prompting them. When I want my son for some miscellaneous reason, I first look on the sofa to see if he’s camped there with a book. More often than not, my quick sofa search ends the quest.
It’s 8:15 a.m., and you’d rather do anything than open that textbook one more time. These are the mornings I look over the children’s heads, catch my husband’s eye, and ask if he thinks the taxi could be here by 8:25 — in time to take the children to the local school. Of course, the answer is no: Who ever heard of a taxi arriving within ten minutes? But the question releases the tension, and I feel a little more ready to face the day.
Everyone has those can-I-call-the-taxi days. Sometimes the best antidote for low enthusiasm is to make yourself open the books and begin the day. The very motion of doing what you don’t want to do acts as a kind of therapy, and you find that you become interested almost in spite of yourself. Sounds stoic? Perhaps, but it works.
If the taxi urge comes on you because your children wake up in a less-than-amiable mood, you may want to turn the day upside down and begin with an exercise in creativity. Pull out the construction paper and scissors, the clay, or the recorder flutes, and have at it. Dance and wiggle to some upbeat music. After everybody spends some time creating and the juices start to flow, math looks much less reprehensible.
Once in a while, nothing settles the nerves but a day off. This is the day to play in the snow, picnic in the park, or go to the zoo. (If you visit the zoo and talk about what you see, it counts as a field trip!) After a day of rest or field tripping, you feel more refreshed and ready to hit the books again.
If you really and truly took the day off without doing anything educational, remember that you may need to teach an additional day at the end of the year to meet your school-days quota. However, when the doldrums hit in January or February, it’s worth an extra day or two in late May. After all, who can put a price or time limit on sanity?
Getting used to a lack of stimuli may take your children awhile, especially if you bring your kids home after they spend several years in the school setting. Everything is programmed in a school setting. You eat at a certain time, open your math books at a specific point during the day, and place all the day’s homework into your to-take-home folder.
Homeschool isn’t like that. After the day’s work is done, children are free to pursue
