Tomorrow morning we start our homeschool year. I often choose the Nativity of Mary as a starting date because leaning on Our Lady a bit helps me fight off that choking feeling of panic that rises in my throat every year at the beginning of September.
So, here we go.
I have written before about my ambivalence about homeschooling (Darn that new Inside Catholic site — it’s very cool and all, but I can’t seem to make the links to my old columns work anymore). My husband and I have prayerfully determined that homeschooling is the best choice for us in our current circumstances, but I don’t at all pretend that homeschooling is the ideal or that it’s for everyone.
It simply isn’t. No system of education is.
My precious charts! Nobody touch my precious charts!
The truth is, I think I find homeschooling especially stressful because I have never been a “planner.” I am a “do-er.” I see homeschooling moms who oooh and ahhh over curricula, who have nifty little planners all filled out with liturgically-themed popsicle stick craft projects, state capitals poetry exercises, and recipes for Cooking Your Way Through Roman History, and I wonder at the vast variety of God’s creation.
Because I am not sure at all that we are of the same species.
It would appear that some of us are genetically pre-disposed to be homeschoolers. I am not.
There is something about the broad responsibility of homeschooling that makes me feel like, no matter what, I must be doing it wrong. Or not enough. Or I am using the wrong books, or I shouldn’t be using books, or my kids aren’t getting out enough, or they are getting out too much, or I have too rigid a schedule, or I have too loose a schedule, or I am doing too much housework at the expense of the kids’ educations, or I am educating the children at the expense of basic sanitation, or I am paying too much attention to the little kids and not enough to the big kids, or I am paying too much attention to the big kids and not enough to the little kids, or …
Well, maybe you get the idea.
The white board in our classroom.
Whether I am comfortable in my role as a homeschooler or not, I have to admit that God put me here, and that it is His will for our family to learn at home for yet another year.
Would I rather be dancing through the aisles like those parents in the Staples commercial? The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?
Maybe.
But when I consider the idea of sending my kids to school, an entirely different kind of choking panic rises in my throat.
Which leaves me to think that it’s not homeschooling that is especially hard. It’s just plain parenting that is especially hard.
All parents, whether their kids learn at home or in a classroom, should lean hard on God’s grace. Because though our details might differ, God calls every one of us to sacrificial love through our family lives. And that’s not likely to come easy to any of us.
Perhaps it’s time to mom up. Perhaps the time for analyzing our schooling decisions for this year is done and what’s left to do is only work hard and pray harder — whatever it takes to live up to God’s particular call for me here in this particular family.
Hang on tight, kids. Here we go.
(cross-posted at DanielleBean.com)
You and I certainly agree! I have lots of energy, lots of kids and really poor organizational skills. Yet, they keep learning things, dog-gone it. We went to visit Gram and Grandad this weekend and they could tell me the name of the rivers we crossed (Mississippi and Missouri) and who explored the length of the Missouri (Lewis and Clark) and a few more little tidbits along the way. We’ll keep rolling along for this year, anyway.
“Which leaves me to think that it’s not homeschooling that is especially hard. It’s just plain parenting that is especially hard. ”
Amen, Danielle. The proper approach it to discern which type of suffering is right for your family.
Thank you for this Danielle. I am not a homeschooling mom though my experience teaching briefly years ago in a Philadelphia public school made me a big fan of the idea and I greatly admire all who do homeschool. We are blessed to have a strong parochial school system in our archdiocese and our daughter attends our parish school. Having also taught within our local Catholic schools I am familiar with the curriculum and we have been blessed with wonderful teachers thus far. Still I too question aspects of my child’s education far more than my husband does. Perhaps it is the teacher in me but I constantly question whether I am doing enough at home to reinforce what she is learning at school or is the homework she gets enough and should time at home, esp. in the summer be for less academic, but still enriching, experiences.
One thing I have encountered recently is the mother of a large homeschooling family who within a few minutes of meeting me was trying to convince me to homeschool my daughter. I truly do think homeschooling is a wonderful way to educate but this woman’s family makeup is very different from my own and as much as I think homeschooling is a fantastic idea I do feel our daughter, an only child who was adopted from China, is better off not being homeschooled by me but in a loving and nurturing parish school which also happens to have a large number of children adopted from Asia, including two of her cousins. We left the size of our family up to God just as this woman did. In her case God gave her seven children. In our case we were blessed with one to parent and three little souls in heaven. Had we had many children perhaps our educational choices would be different. As we start the school year I ask that all parents be respectful of the choices others have made for their children. Only God knows what blessings and crosses He has given a particular family.
That said, perhaps us moms, whether homeschooling or not, need to trust God more and worry less. I know I do.
Great piece. I needed to read this today. (Now I have to hurry up and sew the hem on daughter’s uniform!)
PS-The photo of your white board made me smile!
Thank you for your honesty. As a soon to be homeschooling mom I worry about these things already but, as you say, already worry about them now just being a mother.
As a person homeschooled through most of jr high and all of sr high, I can personally testify to the fact that a clean or messy house, not enough time with friends or too much, whether my mother was being rigid or lax, staying home kicked ass. I read tons, acquired a bunch of kooky hobbies and friends, and went to college a year early. It isn’t for everyone but when it is your kids will appreciate it, regardless of the mess or schedule or whatever, I think.
Danielle,
The most successful homeschoolers I knew (including us) were not the ones who were super organized with neatly filled in plan books. In point of fact, most of those super organized types didn’t actually last all that long as homeschoolers. The ones who did had kids who did lots of workbooks, but little learning on their own. For a number of years I had a plan book. In September it was pretty well filled in, by October it was getting spotty and we rarely actually did what it said we were supposed to do. November through January the pages were usually blank (not because we weren’t doing anything, but because I wasn’t getting around to writing anything down). I’d have a massive guilt attack somewhere around February and try to rescue it again only to fail by March. I ultimately used the plan book more for a record book of what we actually did (although even there I was sometimes pretty lax about what I filled in). Yet somehow the kids learned enough to go to college on scholarships and graduate debt free. We had a free wheeling, eclectic mix. I kept buying text books every year because it gave us at least a bit of structure. However, the core of our homeschool program was actually the books I read aloud to them and the things they went off and learned on their own during the “non-school” hours of the day and year.
What we succeeded best at was not killing their curiosity and love of learning. Having taught in both public and parochial schools at two stages of my life I can say pretty confidently that the biggest problem with schools (other than the horrible, horrible social structure) is that by the time kids hit middle school their love of learning new things has been pretty much knocked out of them.
Since my brother-in-law’s family has done things in a similar manner with similar results we’re pretty confident that disorganized homeschooling actually works remarkably well. You just have to figure out how to translate it onto paper for school authorities occasionally. They’re the only ones who really care about all those neat little boxes and popsicle sticks.
For anyone who wants to read more on Danielle’s ambivalence about homeschooling, check out “I Love Homeschooling… I Hate Homeschooling” here: http://goo.gl/5GTu
(Sorry for the hassle, Danielle! We’re getting those links fixed soon…)
Had to laugh — my cousin is actually doing the Cooking your way through Roman History with her three homeschoolers.
Danielle, I feel the same panic that you describe only this year, I decided a few months back that I had to put all the kids in “regular school”…for a variety of reasons. But one– and not th most important one, and perhaps it would change nothing if it were different– that I have to admit is that I felt like I wasn’t doing anything right.
Now my son, 8, has been in public school for one week and is miserable. The kids think he is weird and make fun of everything from his lunch (pb &j??) to the way he urinates (!!!!). I am already feeling worse than I ever did while feeling bad homeschooling.
But I think that the secret IS to “mom up” and lean on the Lord. I made a decision, after prayer, and I have to see what happens which, I am really, wimpily, sorry to continually realize is just the way that parenting goes. Particularly when trying to teach your children Love.
The worst thing about sending the kids to this public school is the way that societal evil manifests in so much of daily school life. As a homeschooling mom, I didn’t haveto confront this relentless, daily assault. My counselor and I decided prayer to the children’s guardian angels is in order. I think that must also be appropriate, for many reasons, even for the homeschooling family.
Echoing Liz, I think that a problem with schools today is that classes sizes are generally so large that not much quality learning happens and discipline problems are harder to handle, thus creating an atmosphere antithetical to true learning. With homeschooling, individual attention to students’ educational needs and personal development are more likely (especially when attended to by someone who loves the students). Small private schools are more successful at education because they more closely resemble the home environment in these regards. I have seen some great independent Catholic schools (see napcis.org) that are doing tremendous good for Catholic families.
This is spot on. The different kinds of panic that overwhelm a parent does lead one to realize there is no easy way out of this. I have home schooled for 12 years, but this year have sent the 3 oldest children to the local Catholic high school. It is a huge relief, although there is panic involved. But mostly it is a huge relief. I am still home educating my 5 other children, so there is plenty of panic to go around!
Danielle: You and thousands of moms have your thoughts. We homeschooled all five children through high school, and as of a year ago, finished. Whew! Actually, child no. 4 would not do his work at home, not even the excellent Calvert Curriculum, so he went to public school in 9th grade. I was organized somewhat; did lots of field trips; very active in 4-H (what a blessing for public speaking skills); taught in homeschool co-ops (and still teaching, I might add). How did these kids turn out? Normal, I think. One is a nurse in a large city, one is a grad student in another large city, one is fluent in the language of the country she lives in, one is a freshman in college and taking flying lessons, and one is still trying to figure out what to do with what money. Most of them have traveled overseas numerous times. We stink at math, but somehow they got to the point they are now without being brains in that department. So, there you are. If there had been a good Christian school in the area, we may have chosen that direction. Since there wasn’t, we did the whole nine yards…with prayer, perseverance, and sometimes patience.
Doesn’t Spongebob-exposure shrink a child’s brain?
thanks. i needed that. can we have a replay in about 8 weeks, 16 and 24….i know i’ll need it!!!
Oh, thank you, Danielle! Thank you for saying it for me, as well. Yes, this is so hard. I feel like I fail in so much. History… kind of hit or miss… writing… more hit or miss… mass…. I want to go but it is a haul and such a huge chunk out of our time. It is all just so hard and I feel like, well, exactly like you said it. I can do all things (well, most) but cannot do all things well. And at times, feel like I cannot do most things even kind of well.
Thank you for expressing it so well!
Can I plan for you and you carry out the plans for me? I’m one of those who enjoys planning it all out, but the follow-through gets messy. Oh, well, I learn a lot while planning, and my urchins pick up something. At least, they do math every day (almost).
Right now I only have one officially homeschooling, with the other three not being school-age yet. I just keep my expectations minimal: 1)I figure I only have to do AS WELL AS my local public school to be a success. 2) Introduction rather than mastery is the ultimate goal./You can lead a horse to water (making it aware that it exists) but you can’t make it drink.
I recently read Mary Hood’s The Joyful Homeschooler. Even though it is not Catholic, I can’t recommend it enough.
Just keep on, Danielle. Your children will do well. I have to fight tooth and nail to have organization in my life. I do not belong to the naturally organized.
Yet, things seem to turn out pretty well anyway, in spite of days that we just skip school, or don’t start till noon, or I’m on the couch with morning sickness, or a child breaks his arm.
I have 8 children and have been homeschooling since my oldest began 3rd grade. She is now 26, married to a sweet man and has three wonderful little children. She did excellently on her SAT’s when she graduated from HS. Oh, and she was the one who could make 2 hours of school take 10 hours! My oldest son is 19 and he began college one year ago. He just began this, his second year as a junior because he was able to CLEP out of a whole year of college classes. He is studying animal veterinary sciences and is on the deans list. He had to take out a loan for school last year, but this year all of his expenses were paid for the grants and scholarships! This boy also used to sit at my table and take 4 hours to do a 1 hour math lesson. I almost ripped all of my hair out trying to teach him to read. I never settled on a history curriculum that I liked the whole time we were schooling yet he CLEPped out of World Civ I and II.
My other children are 17, 15, 12, 9, 4 and 2. We still have days we never get to school. I still sometimes grit my teeth and roll my eyes (hopefully where they can’t see) while teaching reading. I’m still looking for the perfect history curriculum (18 year search!). And I’m quite sure I will never feel like I have it all together.
But homeschooling works as long as you’re willing to just plug away at it. My children are happy and confident young people. So different than how my husband and I turned out after our years in the public school system.
I’m still early in the homeschooling thing (a first grader, a pre-schooler, a toddler and a baby) and I’ve found that I do best with a vague weekly plan.
Basically for my oldest, I do math, reading and religion every day. (This takes between 1 and 1.5 hours on a BAD day.) And then, we have read alouds, outdoor time and playtime and trips to the library and whatnot. And if we don’t get to something one day, we’ll do it the next.
I make up for the laxness by doing year-round schooling. So, even with my total slacker approach to each day, we started ‘First Grade’ at about halfway through a first grade year.
For the littles, the basics are all that really matters, I think…. of course, talk to me again in 3 years, and I’ll probably be in a completely different place! (And more stressed. With an even messier (is that possible???) house.
A
Danielle,
I think what you have managed to do, better than anyone else writing on homeschooling, is to acknowledge that it is not “the answer” for everyone. Families come in all shapes and sizes and with different needs – schooling is just one of the many choices that needs to be made.
Having said that, I am certainly aware of the problems in public schools (4 of my kids are in public school) but, *for me* it is a compromise I must make for my sanity. One of the comments talked about the constant assault on children when they enter school and I can attest to that, too. We counter some of the cultural attacks by doing simple but effective things at home (e.g. no TV or computer during the school week, dinner together, no cell phones for the older kids, reading books together, taking walks as a family, basic old-fashioned together time, no pop music, Scripture reading, learning about the Saints, no computers or TVs in bedrooms, no gaming systems, etc…).
I’m still praying about my youngest and maybe he will be the one who will be homeschooled and I keep my options open with my middle two children also. If I knew of serious problems in the public school (fortunately we live a conservative area so our school doesn’t do anything troubling – annoying? yes, but troubling? No.) I would make the sacrifice and pull them all immediately. I might not be pretty, but I would do it.
On the bright side, my one son actually wrote an essay about abortion complete with a drawing of a baby in utero which hung on the wall in 4th grade right along side all the other essays. He was also able to present the Catholic side of the Crusades in his 9th grade AP World History course. My daughter talked about Purgatory in the lunchroom with her Lutheran friend and she also talked about salvation outside of the Church when her social studies class studied the Holocaust. My middle son also wrote an essay about abortion when given the theme: “Stand Up.” He talked about doing the right thing and choosing life.
Thanks for being so honest with your feelings. Good Luck!
Thank you Danielle for being honest about the homeschooling lifestyle. I don’t believe that the vocation to teach academics in one’s house is a universal Catholic calling, nor do I believe that children sent into the world to school are doomed to lose their faith and become sociopaths. We are all sinners. A parent can not produce a perfect child, nor can a school produce a perfect student.
I love, love, love this article! I’ve read it and re-read it because it says exactly what I have been trying to put into words.
But, I have one question for all of you homeschooling moms out there:
How do you know you are being called to Homeschool?
I have been going in circles about this decision for years now and it’s making me and my husband crazy! I feel like I’m being called, but I can’t put into words exactly why or how I’m being called, besides that it comes into my head all the time…
To Contemplating:
You pray about it…..as I’m sure you have….and have Faith that He will guide you. I too thought about this venture years ago, before ever having children. Now with my oldest being PK4, I pray all the time for Wisdom as the sure signs to answer this “calling” have been few and far between, but they have been there nonetheless so I’m Leaping …in Faith…and am so glad to be reading posts like these:-) Blessings to everyone’s year!
Thank you. This is what I needed. I was blaming my lack of motivation on the fact that I didn’t have a planner for the first time in years!
Oh do I know that panic. This is the first year that we’ve ordered a “boxed” curriculum, since I too am not a planning mom. I’ve always wanted to keep things loose and flexible. Well, to my surprise, the less looseness and flexibility of this year has resulted in less stress. Who knew?
To someone who asked how you know if you are called to homeschool, I’d recommend the Ignatian methods of decision-making. This is assuming, of course, that your husband is also ambivalent and there are no obvious stumbling blocks that might indicate God’s will one way or the other.
My favorite method of decision-making is to make two lists — a pro/con list for sending the kid to school, and a pro/con list for homeschooling. I try to just put down every single thing that comes to mind, no matter how petty. What I’ve found, after prayfully doing this, is that the lists tend to reveal to me clearly where my reasons are most selfish and irrational.