It all started here:
Well, not really. It started decades ago, of course, because everything does. Start long before you know it does.
But that afternoon, that Sunday afternoon at the Magic City Art Connection, thoughts, feelings, intuitions and convictions came together, and I understood some truth. I’d sort of made the decision a couple of months before, but at that moment, I really saw why.
So yes, we – the boys and I – are embarking on a homeschool/roamschool/unschooling experiment. I don’t know how long it will last. I’ve told their school we might be back in January, but we might not. We will definitely have to see how it goes, but even now, the older one is saying, “I think when we get back, I’ll want to keep homeschooling.” I always tell him: You might want to wait on that. We both all be racing towards the school at that point.
I’m going to talk about this during the week and try to avoid a big mega-post, as I am always tempted to do.
So I’ll start with some very Convenient Bullet Points:
- This is not about a deep dissatisfaction with their particular (Catholic) school. For the most part, I’m happy with their school, and so are they. I’m grateful for it and the people involved. It’s a solid Catholic school in a good parish, and both of them had good years (1st and 5th grades).
- This is fundamentally about a dissatisfaction with school.
- Montessori has always been on my radar, but never a possibility, mostly because I really believe that the education of grammar school children should be grounded in the everyday practice of the Faith. A Catholic Montessori might be ideal – and they do exist – but just never where I’ve happened to live.
- I have resisted this for a long time, in my own spirit. My arguments against it are not all selfish, either. We are not a big family in a busy neighborhood bursting with children. It is me and the boys, and I am anything but cavalier about that. I have always - always – welcomed the presence of helpful, loving, authoritative, truth-telling teachers in my children’s lives, and they have each had their share of inspiring ones. They need to know this is not just me speaking. Even with other activities, which, as long as we are in town they will do – they do Scouts, they do sports, and as long as we are in one place we’ll hook up with other homeschoolers – yet, even with that, I’m acutely aware of the possible wear and tear on our family dynamic – on all sides.
- That said, the dissatisfaction with school won’t go away. On many levels, which I’ll go into tomorrow, perhaps.
- There is a spiritual dimension to this. I have been feeling nudges from a million directions, but have resisted the sacrifice. But I am sensing that at least for now, I am supposed to say yes to it. I have the time, the resources, and the freedom. I see gaps, I see the potential for flourishing, and – with sacrifice and grace – the gaps can be filled and deeper flourishing can be encouraged at home.
- They’re good with it. They’re not unwilling or fighting it at all.
- I am leaning towards a roamschool(because we will be traveling) model. Like Julia, I have certain areas which I a stickler for, which I think are building blocks, and which will be constants – a few of which I think are being neglected in the present situation, grammar being an important one. We will do curricula in math, spelling, grammar and probably Latin. So it’s probably stretching to call it unschooling. Yeah. I think I just want that as a cover for my disorganization. Oh, we’re unschooling, you know…
- I told Dorian and Jen that I am trying mightily to avoid reading homeschooling blogs – it is just too overwhelming and, like reading mommyblogs in general, deeply demoralizing. But in trying to figure out resources and materials, it’s hard to avoid them.
So that picture?
We went this downtown art festival last month. And waaaay in the back, behind all the booths, was this area set up for kids. As you can see, it was a mess – stocked with all kinds of big tubes and what seemed like insulation and ties and chicken wire.
I watched the children – not just mine, but all the children who drifted that way. They would spy this glorious mess, and they would run to it, and then they started building. Sometimes forming teams without even discussing it, sometimes working alone. There was no hesitation – every child who saw this array – this possibility - ran to it, plunged into it, and started figuring things out. It was play, but it was quite purposeful and as you watched them, you could actually see them all, in their groups and on their own, thinking things through.
What happens to that?
A couple of weeks ago I was telling this story and describing my thought processes to someone who I didn’t expect to oppose me, but nor did I expect him to be sympathetic. He surprised me. He was completely sympathetic and revealed that he and his wife are seriously considering homeschooling as well, simply because they are frustrated by and weary of the inefficiencies of the schooling their children are enduring, as well as the extreme orientation to standardized testing.
To be continued….
Prayers for you Amy as you embark on this adventure. I loved this post for so many reasons. mostly for how beautifully it reflects how you are listening to and inspired by the Holy Spirit and your own mother intuition. I do hope you continue to share. Though I have been homeschooling/unschooling a long time, I am very inspired by your words.
As the husband of a career public education (utterly dedicated) teacher I will watch with interest. Our kids are all grown. The youngest being 20 (how’d “that” happen?). When we converted everyone assumed my wife would switch to the Catholic board. No, and throw all those pension years away? No thanks, we already sacrificed my pastor pay cheque. No, here in Ontario the Catholic board is seriously wanting in Catholicism and increasingly so since seeking government funding back in 1980. No one calls it the Separate Board anymore not because that’s no longer politically incorrect but because it is no longer Separate (consider the recent passing of Bill 13, the in name only anti bullying Bill that is really the Gay indoctrination Bill). That said, there really wasn’t much choice.
In the mid 90s we had our kids in a (supposedly non) denominational Christian school, fully privately funded. It was narrow, parochial and expensive. That lasted 3 years and was among the worst for our children. We felt we couldn’t homeschool though as my pastor pay cheque (noted above) just covered the bills and we had been committed to having one parent home when the kids were young.
I’m rambling. I thought I had a point. I’ll stop. Anyway, I wish you well and thank you for inviting us to watch your journey.
Oh, I did want to ask about why “homeschooling blogs [and] mommyblogs in general, deeply demoralizing” to read. I don’t read them (perhaps obviously) but I am wondering if there may be a connect with my reasoning per another stratosphere of blogs.
Selfishly, I hope that wherever you are you’ll find a moment or two to blog occasionally. How do you plan to find your own time for writing? I assume you will still have deadlines to meet whether on the road or in Birmingham. Perhaps work is also an integral part of the plan.
“If it is not on the test, it doesn’t get taught” or something close to that was attributed to a public school official. Which reminds me– Don’t some states require unschooled/roam schooled/ home schooled students to take the mandated tests?
Thanks, Owen! Can’t read them because they seem to describe reach heights of creativity, achievement and bliss that I will *never* be able to achieve!
Thanks, Maria:
Alabama doesn’t require homeschoolers to adminster standardized testing. Alabama homeschooling law is actually kind of interesting and I consider it quite permissive with a weird twist, although I met someone a few weeks ago who homeschools her kids and is moving to Texas because she feels the homeschooling laws there are less restrictive.
Have you heard of or read about John Senior and the integrated humanities program at U of Kansas in the 1970′s? Many of us have taken our inspiration and philosophy for home schooling from this beautiful experience.
I have heard and read a bit about it, and it is odd because we actually lived in Lawrence up until 1973 and my father was a political scientist, so I have wondered if he knew John Senior. I need to read more about it, though, so if you have any suggestions, please let me know.
Ah. Well, not at all the same reason then why I find many, many personal and large new outlet blogs within a certain niche essentially unreadable these days.
Pertaining to your core message in this post, your journey period and reflecting on my(our) own journey I found the 8 min homily of yesterday by our university chaplain/associate pastor to be golden. http://www.basilianvocation.org/media/reverb/11sunotb.mp3 [you can listen and if it jives, moderate this post published and if it doesn't, no harm done].
Hmm, now I have a better picture of what you are aiming for. So I can make concrete suggestions based on eleven years of homeschooling (can’t believe it has been that long).
Yup, grammar, got it. I am Catholic, but I used A Beka’s grammar books for elementary school because they are thorough and self-directed (no mom involvement other than corrections! yes!). Their fourth and/or fifth grade books would be good for a sixth grader with a weak grammar background.
I would suggest forgetting about spelling curricula. Frankly, if they are good readers they will pick up as much spelling as they are capable of learning. Two of mine rely on spellcheck and three spell well; it seems inborn. Their father and my father also can’t spell, despite everyone’s best efforts. If you want a vocabulary curriculum, that’s a different animal.
Also, as a non-scientist, I would strongly recommend looking at Sonlight’s science curricula for the elementary grades. They use beautiful (secular) books and incorporate wonderful hands-on stuff that would be highly portable and lots of fun for a rainy day. I haven’t used them beyond fifth grade, and I wouldn’t recommend the worksheets per se, but lots of the fourth and fifth grade stuff would be fun with a slightly older child, and the kindergarten/first grade stuff is just as fun for a second grade child. You can just toss/ignore/not purchase the small amount of creationist stuff they include in any given year.
So, there’s my two cents, and I will be really interested in seeing how this all evolves. You’ll do a fine job because you know your kids best. And I totally get how homeschooling/unschooling is a redirection away from school as a concept rather than of their wonderful teachers and specific school. When my homeschooled kids were little, it was all about being within the family and unfolding their personalities gradually. Now it’s more a turn away from listening-based learning as the primary method of instruction, and focusing on the real-world skills of reading, writing, and figuring out problems. Not to mention developing their talents.
Good luck!
Amy, do you understand how relieved I was to see that by “unschooling” you meant, “not unschooling, but you know, sort of like kind of, and hey, we’re nerd people, it’ll work”. Because I was going to be sooo jealous. And thinking, “Wait a minute! How come I’m not unschooling? If Amy can, I can, right??”
Anyway, don’t read homeschooling blogs. Very bad for you. Except Bearing, Scrutinies, the Darwins, places like that.
To help in avoiding homeschooling blogs, look for yahoo discussion groups for specific curriculum. I belong to one for my history/literature curriculum that’s specifically Catholic (the group, not the curriculum, hence the group), one for a math program, one for a writing program, two state-wide lists, one local list, one just friends who are homeschooling for organizing play dates etc., 3 for high school level, … The best lists allow some off topic discussion so when you find a group you fit in with, then you can ask – so what about math/grammar/science that isn’t young-earth-creationist etc. Hint: get the digest.
Keep in mind that the curriculum has to work for Mom and for the child. I always said I would never use a scripted program. I am now (All About Spelling) because two of my children needed it [it was the third program for that older child and the first he's had some success with], but I don’t follow the directions exactly (no tiles. They promised no more temper tantrums about spelling if they didn’t have to use the tiles.)
Thanks for sharing. Truly. This is quite timely for me. I have an almost-four-year old. She’s our only child. We’re in our 40s. Not the typical homeschooling situation in our neck of the woods, but I am used to being atypical. :) I had concerns at first about it just being the two of us during the day together. I have been reading/perusing curricula and philosophies…reading a Charlotte Mason book right now called When Children Love to Learn. For me, it is more of a going toward something than running away. The things you wrote, many of those points have been on my mind. Thanks for sharing your processing/journey with us. I look forward to more insights and sharing along the way!
I would really love to know more about roamschooling – I’d like to go more places with my kids, and that was what originally sparked my desire to explore homeschooling. Lots of field trips, that kind of thing. Then gas prices went up.
Congratulations and best of luck, Amy. I’m excited to follow your new venture. I wish we went on more field trips, but then I chicken out because of the hassle of dragging the crew of youngsters everywhere. It gets easier as the bigger ones grow older and more helpful, though.
The Texas laws are very easy for homeschoolers. Basically, you think in your heart, “I’m a homeschooler”, and poof! you’re classified as a private school. I miss that. Ohio has some reporting laws — not onerous, but a bit of a weight on a disorganized person like me.
Oh this sounds so exciting. I look forward to reading about all your adventures.
I’ve always been very drawn to “roamschooling”. Hopefully one of these days we’ll get around to it. I tell myself I’m waiting for the balance to shift from mainly toddlers/preschoolers to mainly elementary school age kids. Then it will get magically easier, right?
i think of what we did with Bella’s kindergarten year as unschooling. I tried to do a little bit in the way of teaching her to read but when she didn’t seem very ready I backed off. We did a bit of math, mainly counting and measuring as it came up and some fun games on Dom’s iPad. I bought a science book and we did a few lessons but mainly we identified flowers and trees and the birds that come to our feeders and we planted a garden and read lots of books about science stuff. But mainly we read and read and read lots and lots of books and she seems to absorb everything like a sponge. She especially loves lives of the saints and has now discerned a vocation to be a religious sister.
For first grade we’re going to be a bit more structured because I think we all need more structure. I’ve bought a math curriculum that we’ll start with in the fall. I’m currently teaching Bella and Sophie to read using a book that provides easy scripts. We’ll be reading some ancient history and maybe making a field trip to the MFA to look at the Egyptian, Greek and Roman exhibits. And more lives of the saints and more novels. But none of that is very scheduled– though I hope to try to be sure we do math daily. And I need to do better at doing a reading lesson every day except there’s this pregnancy and morning sickness getting in the way. And in the new year another baby.
Mainly we have lots of unstructured play time. Bella was inspired to build a doll’s house out of a diaper box after we read some of Rumer Godden’s doll books. And then she made furniture and paper dolls to go in it. Now she’s making another one for Sophie.
What Melanie describes sounds so perfect for the lower elementary grades! It does get a little more complicated when you hit middle school, and even more so with high school. It’s tough to balance freedom to learn against structure and things that are tough to love, but require discipline. Math stands out in this regard, although one (and only one!) of my kids loves, loves, loves it. The other balancing act is the usual one for parents of more than one kid, which is the sort of balancing that comes from combining unique individuals with unique needs.
We have been homeschooling for 7 years now and it seems to be going well. One daughter made some noises about wanting to go to a school building school, so we investigated a couple of Catholic high schools nearby. The religious ed textbooks looked pretty textbook-y, probably ok. The literature reading lists were pretty uninspiring–not sure why Tennessee Williams is so popular.
But the biggest eye-opener was the number of books with titles like _How to Get a 5 on Your AP ______ Test_. I was prepared for standardized tests in high school, but the proportions of test preparation vs actual reading, writing, and discussion seem to have been reversed. Nobody was too inspired, so I think we’ll keep on with the homeschooling.
The flexibility in scheduling is nice. Lessons on a new musical instrument, can do. Mass every morning, can do. Spend an extra few days reading Robinson Crusoe, can do. Miss a few deadlines–hey, that’s just like grown-up life too!
Best of luck Amy!
As I recall, there is a high school with an International Baccalaureate program in Birmingham — maybe more than one. There would surely be Advanced Placement classes in many subjects in the high schools. That is thinking rather far ahead I suppose, but I do think that there is something to be said for a traditional high school experience. What makes all the difference is class placement. In my experience, there are very intelligent, dedicated, and inspiring individuals teaching those classes in high schools. There are also opportunities to participate in band, chorus, clubs, social events, and athletics. Juniors and seniors are often able to go off-campus and take some of their classes at colleges while still in high school. In looking back, I cherish the memories of some of the wonderful teachers that I got to know over the years.
I guess I could have been briefer by saying that I can easily see homeschooling through elementary and even middle school grades, but I would not have wanted to miss the experiences of high school.
Hi Dewey:
thanks for your comment!
I have 3 older kids who have been through high school and college, two of them in IB (in 3 states, total, including one of the IB programs in Bham).
I have no intention of homeschooling (or whatever) through high school, but nor do I think that the IB/AP track is ideal – at all. I have real issues with it, and believe that dual enrollment in college courses is a more efficient and realistic and less-test-driven means to that end than IB and AP. But that’s a whole other thread!
Amy – There is a Catholic unschooling group that has just started meeting. We will be in the loft at O’Henry’s Coffee Shop by Brookwood Mall on Thursday, 6/21 at 6:00 p.m. if you would like to join us. I met you at the Cathedral this past year when you were helping with our adult ed program. You can contact me at: moduvall @ hotmail . com. Blessings – Monica
Yes, I do have a suggestion for reading about the Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas. (See about 14 comments ago….I haven’t been here in a couple days) My father-in-law, who was converted through John Senior’s influence, wrote a book about it called Truth on Trial: Liberal Education Be Hanged. Robert Carlson is the author. It was published in 1995. If you can’t locate it, contact me through email and I can send you a copy.
We’ve always (mostly) had that model of a small core, with a lot of free space around it, for younger kids. Our non-negotiables look a lot like yours — just gotta do math and what the English call “literacy” (which I think is a far better term than “language arts). And while I came at those things, math particularly, as “stuff we just have to hold our noses and do,” what I’ve found is that funnily enough, the things I either hated in school (math) or assumed would be boring to my kids (grammar) have turned out to be intensely interesting to do together.
I won’t lie and say that every moment is bliss, because it isn’t, but overall I love the experience of learning *with* my children. That’s what I can offer them — I’m not a crafty mother, or a baking mother, or even a creative-hands-on-experience mother, much. I don’t think I’d make anyone else feel bad about herself as a homeschooling mother, let’s just put it that way. But I can love books with them (even when they think they won’t — with virtually every new book we open, I have to make them a deal that if they hate it by the end of the first chapter, we’ll stop reading it. I can think of maybe instance in which we actually stopped reading after the first chapter), and I can be a student with them.
And I do love homeschooling high school, mostly because I like having my older children around. My oldest is in college now, a thousand miles from home, and thriving; I’m very grateful for the intensive time we spent under the same roof. As with any homeschool situation, it’s not a panacea, but it does make their ongoing sense of connectedness to the family, and my ability to focus on them as whole people, *easier* in many ways. Not to mention that dual-enrollment is the most awesome thing on the planet — second maybe only to my husband’s kind colleagues who let my kids take their classes under the radar, before they’re old enough to qualify officially for dual enrollment. That, truly, is the bomb.
I fantasize about going on the road for a year with my kids, doing a Travels With Charley kind of thing around America. Dunno if it’ll ever happen . . . but it’s what I’d love to do.
Amy…just to let you know our meeting at O’Henry’s has been changed to 7:00PM. Monica wanted to make sure you knew. Hope to see you there!
Kathy..we are doing a spur of the moment road trip..so not this time…but please keep me in the loop!
Absolutely…have a safe trip!