Entries Tagged 'methodology' ↓

Years, ago, before I finally got brave enough to have laser eye surgery, I wore contacts.  Either contacts or coke-bottle glasses.  20/200, no lie.  With astigmatisms.  My nieces, so very near and dear to my heart in those pre-children days (children of my own that is, and the girls are still very near and dear!) would watch me put in my contacts with awe.  They always said I was “putting in my eyes!”

I am so glad to have stumbled across this today.

I feel as though I’ve been looking at homeschooling through old, jaded, public-schooled eyes.  Now that I’m attempting to journal (on paper, not here) Gamma’s goings-on and questions, I’m seeing far more learning and inquiry than I could have imagined. And I’m sure I’ll “see” more as I really learn to recognize the learning taking place right before me.

My head is still spinning.

I have read more about educational theory and philosophies in the past week or two than you can imagine.  I’ve run into a multitude of choices I didn’t even know we had.  Reggio?  Steiner?  Project-based?  Problem-based?  I find it very telling that the choices that appeal to me most are the ones that most closely line up with unschooling. But let me assure you, if we’re applying labels, Alpha will be much more comfortable with the term inquiry-based learning.

The Camp Creek blog has been just a wealth of information and inspiration.  THIS is an approach I think could actually work in our house.  For EVERYONE.  However….

I find it rather ironic that, when I first set up this blog, I made a point on our about page of saying “we don’t label our children.”  So why am I so insistent upon labeling our children’s education?  Searching for an identity in the homeschool blogging community, maybe?  (as if being a secular/atheist homeschooling family isn’t identity enough!!)  I don’t want to be fenced in by a label three years from now, when Gamma decides he wants to, I don’t know, tackle math in a textbook.  Or when Epsilon is a little older and loves phonics and workbooks and lots and lots of structure.  (ha ha ha)

So I have decided to abstain from the worksheets, and the phonics program, and the checklist.  Instead I’m going to more actively track his interests and his questions, and encourage him to pursue them.  And document everything, for my own sanity.  I’m finding that, when I do that, the other things get accomplished along the way.  Let’s see if it continues.

I’ve got to tell you… we’re having a hard time over here.  I’m really struggling.  What happened to my sweet, compliant Gamma?  In his place is this moody teenager, trapped inside a five year old body.  And what happened to the endless patience I used to possess?  He’s sullen and rebellious, I’m bitchy and short-tempered and…. well, Alpha may or may not have called me a harpie tonight.  And he may or may not have been kidding.

All my well-laid plans and schedules seem laughable at this point.  I’ve actually seriously considered the local public schools once more.  Are they really as bad an option as we thought?  (yes) What about the local Catholic schools, which are purported to be stronger academically?  Could we abide having our kids indoctrinated, and just do some un-indoctrinating at home?  (no, obviously) Obviously, I was just being a wee bit melodramatic when I started talking public school — it’s not a good fit for our family and we’ve always known that.

But, somehow… somehow I always thought we’d just segue naturally into homeschooling.  Gamma’s curious by nature; I love to research and learn new things.  He and I are extremely close.  I knew he wouldn’t be the sit-and-fill-in-workbooks kid that I was, but I thought I had accounted for that.  Apparently I don’t understand his personality and learning styles nearly as well as I thought I did.

(And how the hell do you figure out the learning styles of a 5 year old, anyway?  Why are all the tests to figure out your learning style geared for those who have already completed the crux of their learning??)

I like to think this is the norm — that all new homeschoolers experience this uncertainty, and have to re-evaluate as they go.  The dreaded term “unschooling” has popped up a few times in the last few days, all met with an immediate negative shake of the head from Alpha.  There is great value, he says, in formal knowledge and structured lessons.  I agree, for what it’s worth.  I just don’t know that they are of value to a five year old, or even a ten year old.  To a fifteen year old, pursuing the path they desire in life, I think formal, structured lessons are well-advised. But to my kindergartner… I think close family relationships and pursuing your interest of the day are more beneficial.

If I choose to pursue unschooling (please, someone, give me a less-volatile title for this concept!), I may be soothing one relationship (mother and son) but irritating another (husband and wife).  I’m uncertain in which direction to proceed.  Do I keep going, and eventually bend my child’s will to my own?  Or follow his?  In which case, bending my own?  And what lesson does that send?

Tomorrow… tomorrow we are making cookies, and dog food (home-roasted turkey, rice, and veg — nothing but the best for our Border Collie/mutt), and perhaps making a trip to the library to look for crochet books for me, and Wii games for loan, and whatever perks the interest of my boys.  Tomorrow we are taking a break.  A break from the fighting, and the nagging, and the 5 year old pretending he can’t spell “not” in his phonics  program, but completely able to sound out “La Flûte Enchantée” and figure out that was French for “The Magic  Flute” and beg to go to it because he loves the music.

JJ, please move to Belgium and be my best friend for a year and help me figure out how to do this!!   Because the only homeschool support here is unabashedly christian (good for them; if you’re going to take a stand, take it unabashedly), and I find myself completely on my own.

This will hopefully become a weekly feature.  In keeping with the laid back, CM-ish tone of our homeschool, Gamma narrates a story we’ve read a few times this week, from Aesop’s Fables. **edited to add: from here on out, Gamma is dictating.  I just did the typing, because I’m a wee bit faster than him.  For now…

*****

A fable is a pretend story where animals act like humans and talk like humans.  There is always a lesson at the end.

The Lion and the Mouse

A mouse ran over the lion’s nose while he was sleeping.  It woke him up!  He waited his moment and then flashed out his paw onto the mouse’s tail!  He let him go because he wouldn’t make much of a meal.  The mouse promised that he would pay the lion back.

The lion was stalking his prey, a zebra, at dusk.  He finally got caught by a hunter’s net!  It held him fast!  He roared!  And it echoed through the forest so that everyone could hear him, even mouse.  The mouse ran as fast as his little legs could carry him to the lion.  He helped him get out of the net by gnawing on the net with his teeth.  The lion broke free.

The mouse said, “You see, I told you I’d pay you back someday.”

“A little tiddly thing like you helping a king of beasts like me,” said the lion.

The lesson: KINDNESS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN STRENGTH

Deciding on a homeschooling method has got to be one of the most frustrating tasks I’ve ever set out to accomplish. Why? Because every method sounds perfect. Well, maybe not perfect. But every method appeals to me in different ways. Although there are many, many more approaches out there, these are the ones we’ve considered for Gamma and Epsilon. I’m assuming most readers here are already well-familiar with all the terms I bandy about. If not, visit Ann Zeise for a good overview.

School at Home: Ahhh. Familiar, structured, and all the details laid out for me in textbook format. No gaps to worry about — at least, no gaps that aren’t common to most children. But, knowing Gamma, also no joy. Although he’s young and we’re still discovering his learning styles, I’m pretty sure his style isn’t sit-still-and-glue-your-eyes-to-the-textbook. He’s not a multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank kid. He’s an experimenter. A doer. A think-for-himself kind of kid.

Classical: We love the idea. Rigorous academics, real books, chronological history. All these things are very appealing. But WTM seems… well, a little too rigorous. The emphasis on memorization and the hard-hitting grammar and spelling programs etc… I guess I find this to be a little too much like school at home. Better school at home than if we followed the traditional textbooks and timelines of the public schools, but still not something that is ideal for my sons.*

LCC, in some ways, appeals a little more. The principle of multum non multa makes sense to us, and the pace seems a little more relaxed while still maintaining a great academic standard. However, the division of classical, christian, and modern studies seems a little awkward to me, and I’m having difficulty seeing how that would really play out in our very secular household.**

Charlotte Mason: I, Beta, find CM very appealing. It’s kind of classical with an unschooling twist. The short lessons I think are especially good with young boys like mine, who don’t like to sit still and listen intently because there is so much more to see and do! It allows plenty of time for children to be children and play and be free. Real books? Check. Chronological history? Check. Art and music appreciation but in a fairly laid-back way? Check. Where CM fails us (or perhaps where we fail CM) is in one critical-to-CM area: nature study. I tried to start this with my son. I really did. And he went along, fairly patiently. But he doesn’t want to observe polliwogs or butterflies or learn how flowers grow. He wants to get out a telescope and stay up all night and watch the stars. Or put on a lab coat and explode something in my kitchen. But nature study? Meh.

Unit Studies: The idea of picking a subject near and dear to Gamma’s heart (say, the moon, for example) and then basing our other studies around it is very appealing at the outset. The whole family would be learning together, and be totally immersed in the subject. It sounds great, but the few times I’ve tried to implement this, it seemed a little forced, and Gamma quickly tired of it. And a lot of work goes into preparing for a unit study. To have it fall flat means hours of wasted time, time I could have spent building Legos or reading with him, instead of sitting in front of the computer while he plays quietly beside me.

Unschooling: I find unschooling to be a siren-call — it’s alluring and seductive, and yet terrifying when I fully contemplate it. First-hand experience has shown me that self-directed, self-motivated learning is an amazing, wonderful thing. And it really does happen. Gamma already astounds us with things he’s learned by himself — he asks questions and experiments with how things work, and tries out new ideas all the time.

So why the hesitation? Firstly, I don’t know that I can trust it. Don’t get me wrong. I trust the kids. I don’t think that all they’ll do is watch television all day long. The television is on right now. Gamma is playing with the Lego spider he built – only he’s turned it into a spider-spacecraft hybrid and is flying it around the living room. Epsilon is playing with trains and scribbling on a piece of paper. But I worry about my ability to be able to answer questions, when I don’t know what question will come next. Or how effective I would be at strewing. And Alpha? Alpha, too, can see the learning happening, but is too much the engineer to feel comfortable with something as touchy-feely as unschooling. Perhaps with a different label applied he’d be more accepting.

Sigh.

What we’re really searching for is a well-rounded, academically-sound education for our boys, with science and math at the heart. Real books, hands on, but still plenty of time for boys to be boys. Any suggestions? CM, with “real science” (as Gamma puts it) in place of nature study? Our own take on LCC? Any other suggestions or options I haven’t considered? Whatever we do choose, I’m sure it will be a meld of a multitude of approaches. In a word: eclectic!

*At this point I’m assuming Epsilon will have similar interests and learning styles. Only time will tell! We’ll obviously adjust to his distinct personality when the time comes.

**Yes, of course we plan for our children to be biblically literate. In fact, we plan for them to be familiar with tenets of all the worlds major religions, not just christianity. But that’s a topic for another post!