Help
With Your Rule
Question Re: Holly's Homeschooling Part II
Dear Holly,
Thank you so much for your wonderful website and book! I am slowly working through creating my own Mother's Rule, one small step at a time. I'm finding, though, that I'm having a very hard time keeping the homeschooling time in proper balance. When I read your post about limiting school to three hours a day I thought, "Wow! That sounds so wonderful." But I'm afraid to do it! I, like you, was trained as a teacher. In addition, my husband is an academic, so I want my children, if they should so choose, to be equiped to follow in their father's footsteps. However, I'm finding that schooling (we are using Calvert) is taking nearly all of my time. Reading your book helped me realize that I have been neglecting my other obligations, and I am working
toward a schedule and rule that is more balanced and, I pray, more in line with God's will. But it is such a struggle for me! Yet I plan to dive in and do it! I would love to know more about your personal journey from how you were taught to teach, to how you now homeschool, which sounds like such a breath of fresh air to me. It would be truly encouraging to hear your thoughts. Also, how can I discern when I'm being motivated by a good desire for my children to excel, and when I'm being motivated by pride?
Labels: Homeschooling
posted by Holly at 8:14 PM
7 Comments:
Oh dear! :-) I have so much to say that perhaps this can only be answered 5 years from now in another book when I get it all organized in my head! But in the meantime, let me see if I can piece together a few main points for you.
First off, Calvert is a weighty program. I admire the organization of their program and it's progression - I have analyzed it myself and designed a program similar - but - it is also practically-speaking fairly unrealistic in my opinion, if you want a life outside of academics. The Grade 6 Science text alone is 600 pages long. This works well if I want to assign 4 pages of science every day all year - but hey - these are the requirements of a technologically & scientifically minded culture - they stress what they consider is important. For me, having faith, I know there is more than science or academics alone...
Another important point to keep in mind is, that as soon as I begin to talk about 'other things' in education, there can be a tendency to think Holly is 'anti-intellectual' - and this couldn't be more untrue! I marvel at learning - I thrive on truth - I study all the time myself! I would never want less for my kids.
But just like I am tempted at times to sit down and study so much that my housework falls to ruin, so too, I look at excessive time every day at academics is the same unbalanced temptation.
My gosh! Where do I start to explain this???
FIrst - there is a lot of busy work in many curriculum packages and texts - but you and I know as teachers, we NEVER did 'all the pages' as a teacher . We picked out what was important - focused on what we thought was good and needful - and then tested on that - so much so, that we could never use the standard text tests because we didn't cover the same material.
Secondly - even in schools, there is a three hour instructional time. But at home, we are doing private tutoring. It is soooo much more intensive!
I remember reading about a lady who homeschooled her children 3 hours a day, all year long except for Easter and Christmas (using Calvert I think!) and her kids graduated from highschool at the odd age of 10 or 12! She finished grade 1 in 5 months. So, 3 hours a day of formal 'instruction' is what is usually required by law in schools - the rest is just crowd management or the 'other' type of experiences we too ought to be providing for our kids - like physical activity, art, music, nature & field trips etc..etc (and from our Catholic point of view, prayer, sacraments, faith reading and discussion, liturgical celebration).
Thirdly - This is where I say it becomes very very important to know what we are looking for, otherwise we are at the mercy of the publisher who made the textbook. Most of the materials in textbooks are options! Even Seton which has a structured curriculum recommends that it's parents alter the curriculum to fit the child.
But, unless we know what we are looking for, we are intimidated in a way by what the 'experts' say - so we feel we MUST do all the exercises and every little page. I personally consider this a form of academic gluttony. Better a few well-chosen skills and content courses than too much unorganized mess - we wouldn't want academic indigestion!
I find that if a mom is truly interested in discovering what constitutes academic work and the subsequent freedom which comes from her 'understanding' the material to be taught, then Mom needs to do some studying - and I'd recommend anything in the Design-A-Study series (by Kathryn Stout) - not as a way to always design your own studies, but as a way to get a clear overview of the subjects AND then assess what you are being asked to do in the texts. On the other hand, for a laid back homeschooler, these books are excellent guides for skills to cover at some point. They also enale group work multi-level which can be very challenging, especially for us trained teachers.
Also, when I was a teacher, I never assigned homework . I felt that if I couldn't teach children their spelling words all day at school, why bother sending it home? I felt that I was called to make my classtime responsible and I was accoutnable. I felt they had to have a family life at night, I function in homeschooling the same way. School is a part of life, a very important part of life, but it is not a god. It has a place and needs to be kept there.
Lastly, as I truly feel I am rambling here... I truly felt my most important revelation came when I dicovered that my desire to return to 'school methods' as I experienced in school was a result of cultural conditioning. That because I had been raised that way, and because all the authority figures in my life said school was best (and everything I did in school), that I was not culturally free to look at my options...
I spent a good long time (years) arguing with myself about which method was best... and I was always split... School methods vs free learning methods... I couldn't reconcile them ( I was looking at them from an either or position...)
But then I realied a number of things which truly changed my mind and helped me begin to resolve things:
-that the school system as I had experienced it was invented by a guy called Comenius over 500 years ago - sitting in his study - and thinking education meant instruction... and he planned an all-inclusive curriculum , schools, grade levels, textbooks, instruction etc etc.... and I realized there was probably more to education than this
- I read about early man teaching Johnny caveman to light fires and hunt sabertooths; about the Greeks who focused on reason and strength and beauty; about the Romans who emphasized justice and practical skills; about the Jews who emphasized religious faith... and I thot - Hey, there is more to life than geography and science alone
- I remember reading that history wasn't even a normal subject in schools until the early 1900s... woah... so why was it pressuring me now?
- I read that the whole methodology of schooling is based on the Scientific Method (as a result of the scientific revolution of the Renaissance) - where we focus on facts and observation and testing... and realize HEY! I am teaching persons, not inanaimate matter!
- And then I realized that, in my subconscious mind, I felt I was being a faithful Catholic by doing what all my childhood authority figures said was good. But that, as a person, a teacher, a mom - I had a few ideas about Catholic Education that would certainly improve things... especially when I found our schooling tedious, yet learning was meant to be a wholesome human process!
So - I decided it was time to focus on the essentials - and for this, I recommend Kathryn's Stout's materials - at least at this point til someday I get to write about it! :-) So if there are ABC reading skills, then in Septemebr I will focus on A and have my child master it; in October I will focus on B and have my child master it; , in November I will focus on C - and then I will forget ABC until next year or until a grade level 3 years from now! And I don't care if the text wants me to also have her master X,Y,Z and then do it all over again next month too ! For me, the essence is learning, not covering material over and over.
As for your very last question - re discerning the difference between your children excelling and perhaps pride - I would ask yourself WHY you are doing it - I think we can sense when there is something wrong. I think the cultural conditioning thing may be a big issue for you as well, teacher that you are.
One other thing I had wanted to mention - when I read Dr Conrad Baars book "Born Only Once' about living an affirming life, and basically how love manifests itself in relationships, I was struck by how the whole person formation needed attention to the emotions and the heart - and how too much pressure for schoolwork or intellect took away from the emotional formation (something that we as schoolraised kids actually know very little about, since we are not aware of any emotional formation in our lives - and educators back then wrote often about how they didn't know anything about it either! I think the psychiatrist couches of the 60s thru 90s and the new millenium stem directly from this lack of attention to the human heart and the emotions, as does the rebellion in society - who now cries "I FEEL" over "I think" - a pendulum swing - and I personally believe this is because the heart was NOT addressed in the past - and being a natural necessary good part of the human person, the heart MUST have it's place!)
John Paul II is doing just this in Theo of Body - bringing the HEART right alonside reason and will - and I believe a new phase of education is inevitable - for the new springtime of the faith - where the heart attains its rightful place in our daily lives, alongside the importance of mind and will.
And I figure that little book by Baars explains perfectly with an insightful reading how to form the heart.
So I decided that cutting down school time was a way to bring balance by fostering the quiet/leisure/nature time necessary for good emotional formation, and for time to be in relationship with my kids. There is more to life than school - do we not remember this lesson in our own hearts when we attended school? When adults insisted we remain in our seats on a lovely spring day and we just longed to get out in nature and feel the sun and smell the earth? Would such an opportuity not in fact be a way to inspire awe and wonder and thus to encounter God in creation??? But no, grammar always came above this - and yet , we know we find God in his creation. So there has to be balance.
And sometimes. when I used to focus too much on school goals , I would get more frustrated with my kids than a mom ought! (It was almost like an inordinate attachment to schoolwork!!! Bordering on obsession!) And since Jesus came to teach us love first, I felt that there was a real chance that my school expectations were hampering my relationship with my kids by my own impatience and task-oriented teaching , instead of person-oriented relationship. This played a very large role in my decision to reduce school time to 3 hours daily - of which I usually spend 2 hours and the kids do the extra hour - give or take, depending on the project on their own.
Books I highly recommend re opening one's eyes about whole person formation - Baars' "Born Only Once"and "Feeling and Healing Your Emotions"
These provide a missing link in education in my opinion.
Thanks Holly! You're answer is so helpful, and gives me a lot to think and pray about. If I could just ask one more question (and I hesitate to ask any more of a busy mom :-)), how do you manage to fit everything in within three hours with several children and different grade levels? I have four school-age children from Kindergarten through 5th grade, and a preschooler and toddler. I have read your fun ideas for activities for the younger ones, and this has been a great help! I'm now trying to find ways to juggle giving the school-age kids the help and individual attention they need during schooltime, while not ignoring the needs of my little ones. Often I have four kids all needing my help at once, or one child who can't progress in his work until we sit down and work one-on-one. Maybe you've already answered a similar question in a previous post, or maybe this one will have to wait until you write your next book :-).
I don't mind you asking if you don't mind waiting for me to get around to your questions! OK - one thing at a time.
How do I manage to fit everything into 3 hours with several children and multi-levels?
First off, I do my planning once a month and I write out each of the older children's plans which they keep in a folder in their school crates. This has step by step instructions on it which they are capable of following - so Mummy ceases to spend her time assigning work verbally every day - it's all there on paper (which also provides the children with something to refer to, aiding independence).
Secondly - we have 45 minutes for Math max during school hours. 30 minutes max for spelling and cursive italic. Religion is often covered outside of school time in story/discussion/coversation time (but not always - sometimes they have reading, or it is tied into history, etc). English is usually incorporated into their other subjects as they write response papers (but not always as this changes every month). Music and art are free time activities. Phys Ed is something we do as a family a few mornings a week - but this is not 'school'. And so that leaves their history/geography/science work - whereupon, they read their saint biographies at bedtime. But that leaves still 1 3/4 hours to complete this work daily.
Thirdly, we do not do all subjects every day , but instead study things in chunks... as they are permitted to pick and choose what they do first. So, in a months work, while they do indeed have both science and history,say, they will spend the first 3 weeks working on the history, and the last week working on the science - in concentrated pockets. This works really well for us as you don't get bogged down with too much to focus on every day.
Also - keep in mind - that sometimes, if they need to , the children themselves spend more than 3 hours a day - they might add an extra 30 minutes as they prepare to finish up a project - and they learn to gear their school time by what still needs to be accomplished. But we go over relative time-frames as we initially plan the unit - and I make suggestions about how much time they spend per subject every month.
Question 2: Re 4 school age children K-5 while caring for preschooler and toddler. Well, no one said your job isn't challenging! :-)
Simplicity and group work are your answers here.
For me - when they get to grade 2 and can read basic instructions, I begin to teach independence by providing written instructions they can follow without being dependant on me to know what to do next. THIS is important. There is no reason why Mummy can't write out plans as opposed to tell them each day. It just takes a little planning - and relieves the children of their unnecessary 'dependance' upon verbal instruction. I also teach them how to 1) move on to the next subject, 2) read the book's instructions, or 3) come up with ways to help themselves until I can get to them - like how to refer back in a book to see how to do something, or to think, or to ask an older sibling if Mummy is busy, etc.
Secondly - basics, basics, basics here. Simple assignments - like Grade 2, for example - might look simply like this for core subjects
Math 2 pages
Phonics 2 page
Reader 1 story
Italic - 1 page
Spelling - 10 minutes
This is what I do with my second grader and he sits on my right and if he needs help, he asks. If he needs a math tutoring and I can't get to him yet, I have him do the page he CAN do first while he waits, or I have him do his spelling or whatever until I CAN get there. I also don't consider it a problem if he sits and dawdles or runs to play for 10 minutes while I am busy.
For my kindergartener - I have simple goals - her ABCs, coutning to 10, etc... and given a whole year, we can accomplish them. She sits on my left! And She is taught to wait until I get to her.
Whereupon I teach her her things, and then let her work on her stuff. Then I switch over to my Grade 2 child on my right and teach him his stuff! And then, for the older children - if they have a question, I have them bring their books to me and stand beside me. If I have nothing to do cuz the two littlest ones are busy and occupied, I might get up and walk around the school table and look over the other's work. (Or I might sit and read something for me while I have a moment).
Thirdly, and this would apply really well to your children's ages - for science, religion, and geography - do group projects in cycles. This keeps Mummy's head on one subject at a time, which means you can do group lessons to all of them at the same time -
So,religion - you could teach about sin & confession - and do a group teaching - and then assign individualized work - the littlest ones up to Gr 2 could then color a sheet of Jesus & Zaccheus, and the older ones could do a reading from a text at their level and illustrate or answer age-specific questions. But meanwhile - Mummy plans one TOPIC with one group session and then splits them for divided lessons @ age-level. This also allows you to plan for videos and stories that relate to your themes and you can do as a group.
I am presently finalizing my own cycles/group topics in spelling/grammar/English lessons, religion, science, geography, art (as I am just finishing up withmy first child in Grade 9). History I maintain as an independant course due to the maturity issues necessary in certan periods of history,and because I have intensive bographies included in the program.
And as for little ones while you school - I always supplied them with specifically 'school toys' that I only brought out at school time - and those special activities I had listed. Also, there is theme coloring too or ABC work - but all informally!
At our home - we school no longer than 1 1/2 hours at a time and then there is a break - this always allowed me to spend time with the little ones too.
I have a similar situation and thank you for the great ideas. This is only the 3rd year homeschooling. Every year we try different ways of schooling and some work and some fail miserably. I think the longer you homeschool, the more sure you get in your teaching. Or at least you figure, if they don't catch on this time, they will get it when their sibling does!!!
Holly -
Do you think that it would be possible for you to put on the website, somewhere, a list of resources that you find very helpful. I noticed that you mentioned several in this topic alone! I know that I would find them invaluable.
Thanks!
Hi Chmir2
I can ... eventually... I'm swamped right now. Perhaps over the summer - email me to remind me if you don't see it by July. :-)
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