One of the most commonly asked questions by home schoolers after learning that I educate all my children at home is --- "how do you do it? I struggle with just two and you have four!" There are many answers to this question, but that would have to wait for another posting in the meantime one answer that I would like to talk about today would be *organization*.
Part of discovering ones comfort level with home schooling is learning not only what works for each student, but what works for the primary teacher. Each family's situation is totally different so what works for one family may not work for another, but in my experience one skill that is essential to having a successful lifestyle of learning is 'organization'. Now with that being said, one family's system of organization may differ from another's, but the success comes from having a consistent routine or rhythm in place.
In this first posting I will talk about my journey and what resources came to greatly influence 'how I do it..' In follow up postings to this series I will provide other resources that I have come to utilize. I will also post some visuals aids to show some of these organizational tools and along with copies of different schedules that my family has used over the years to bring balance to both our academics and our home life. Please keep in mind much of the lingo I use in these forms will make more sense if you're familiar with the resources I will be mentioning later in this post.
Since I am the primary teacher, and I have to keep up with all the other household functions, I needed to find a system that worked for both my children and me. During my learning curve I quickly came to the realization that trying to bring the institutional school system into our home was not working. Those first couple of years were a real struggle as I kept trying different ways to implement systems like time specific schedules, textbooks, redundant workbooks, and standardized tests that were created for institutionalized school settings not homes. The harder I tried, the more I failed, and my family felt the brunt of it all.
Then I learned of a wonderful educator who lived over 150 years ago in Britain. Her name was Charlotte Mason. I quickly found myself resonating with her philosophies and methods of educating children both from a teachers perspective and from a mother's. However, CM had established PNEU schools and her methods were set up to be taught primarily in classrooms, so once again I found myself struggling with how to make her methods fit into my daily home life.
Over the years as I came across experienced home educators that had learned how to implement CM's methods in their home schools, I noticed right away that their schedules were not necessarily time oriented in strict 30-45 minute slots but rather task oriented in blocks of time throughout the day. This really struck a chord with me because there were many home schoolers out their thriving on a time oriented system much like the schools used, but I did not feel like that was a system I could successfully implement in my home. Actually, many friends suggested I try the MOTH program. I looked into it and gleaned some good ideas from it, but all in all it just was not a fit for my family.
Elizabeth Foss, was one those experienced home educators. She is now a wonderful mentor and wrote a fabulous book called Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home. Her book spoke to my very heart and soul. Elizabeth's book really helped to give me another perspective on how I could home school successfully and for the first time I felt a light at the end of this tunnel.
It was through her book that I learned of a Catholic CM group. Here I could go for support on implementing CM's methods in my school and still teach 'religion' in a way which differed from Charlotte Mason's. I also learned of another home educator and author who wrote a book titled Educating the Wholehearted Child
I think my final burst of confidence, to break away from using a system that had been ingrained in me for 16+ years and to fully implement my desired lifestyle of learning, came after reading two very powerful books by Marilyn Howshall called ‘Come Home’ from Homeschool and Develop a Lifestyle Routine. Since then I have never looked back. Praise God!!!
In the next couple postings I will address academic resources.
