All the snow has melted on the farm, but more is expected later this week. I am so happy we are getting snow this year! Last year was a very light year for snow (we had maybe one snow that was sled-able). We live in the mountains; winter isn't winter here without a couple of bigger snows that keep us marooned at home for a few days! Fortunately we've gotten several of those so far, and we've been sledding, had snowball fights, built a snow fort, and quit school early to play outside and then drink hot cocoa. For me, winter equals snowy days, so I'm really glad that we're getting some.
(I'm also glad I don't live in a place where the snow never melts and shoveling it is a daily chore. Balance!)
I'm spending a lot of time these days thinking through school next year for Finn. I cannot believe my little boy will be a high schooler. It is mind-boggling. Time, please, please, please slow down! He shadowed a kid at a hybrid academy this week (he was supposed to do it last week, but we got snowed in and all schools were cancelled!), and it was so fascinating to hear about that they did. It was also a little vindicating to me, as his rather-laid-back homeschool teacher. It made me realize that all these days when it seems like "education" is spotty or a little uneven are still all adding up to Something Good. The funniest thing was that logic class was his last class of the day. He has never been taught formal logic. When he was presented with a sentence and its two "supporting" statements, he immediately found the flaw in them and although, in his words, "I didn't know all the fancy logic words they used," he knew precisely why the statement didn't make any sense.
"The class reminded me of you," he said later. "That's just stuff we talk about all the time!"
I guess that's what happens when your mother studied philosophy and the law. You understand a fallacy because you smell a rat. ;)
Also interesting: they read from Twelfth Night. That was the second play I ever taught, and Finn now has 10 Shakespeare plays under his belt. They were doing the scene that we LOVE when Malvolio comes out in his yellow stockings. But Finn said that they were reading a modern "translation" instead of reading the original language. I was actually shocked. And disappointed: although the language can be tough, you definitely get used to it, and there's so much wonderful wordplay and poetry that would be, well, lost in translation!
But reflecting on his experience and what he told me made me realize that what we've done for these past 8 years is enough. It's more than enough.
And I think we can do high school. (Gulp.)
And all those days when I semi-regretfully let Finn practice piano, do some math, and then spend playing with his sister for hours? Or those days when we just read a few books and called it a day? And all those days when we answered the siren's call of just playing outside? Or when we followed a rabbit trail interest by seeking out library books and watching YouTube videos? Or that weird year of my kids learning more about cancer treatments and pharmaceutical names and doctors than they did about, well, anything else?
I don't regret a minute of it.
This is a huge relief because I constantly wonder if the day-to-day choices I make will lead to regret later. I would see other homeschoolers doing things that seemed a lot more rigorous with kids a lot younger than mine, and I'd get nervous about having children unprepared for higher-level learning. But my bigger fear was actually burning them out on education before they even hit adolescence!
So, here's what I'd say: if you've got little kids and you're trying to educate them, don't worry.
Read a ton
Talk a lot
Do math every day
Play!! Go outside....
Practice music every day (if you do music lessons)
That's it.
Then as they get older more structure naturally occurs, things take shape out of interests (that's why Finn is learning 2 languages, something I never, ever would have chosen for him), and expectations can increase a bit.....
A few years ago I said that time was the best gift I ever gave to Finn, and now I really do stand by that statement. Those free days of childhood and natural learning and books....they are good things. I am so glad he has had them.
Now I'm off to (joyfully!) plot out the roadmap for 9th grade. Whew!
I have one high schooler and one almost high schooler. We just finished reading Twelfth Night! 😊 This post was very encouraging. We have been homeschooling since the beginning.
ReplyDeleteTwelfth Night is such a good one. My whole family adores As You Like It (there's a great film version w/ a young Helen Mirren as Rosalind) but maybe my all-time favorite so far is The Merchant of Venice. I love that play! It has some fabulous quotes and leads to interesting discussions on stereotypes, faith, legalism, mercy....ahhh.
DeleteHomeschooling high school is quite daunting to me. I love hearing from people who are doing it or who have done it! :)
You guys can do it! When Caiden started college this fall, he entered the honors college and is studying Greek as his foreign language, which is pretty hard. I worried that he wouldn't be prepared for "normal" classes with deadlines and papers and all that stuff, because that's not what homeschooling looked like at our house. He told me later that reading and writing was really the only thing he needed to have done to be successful for his path, and that's pretty much the two things we did really well! (And math--he needed a solid math score on his SAT, which he got by taking an SAT prep course.)
ReplyDeleteAs for writing, I just had him take an IEW course his sophomore year, a class at the local college his jr. year, and then an AP history course online his senior year. Before that we did nothing besides random narrations. We didn't do spelling or vocab or any of the normal things.
He got all As the first semester and is now taking Greek with the graduate school because of scheduling issues, and is doing fine. Whew! Big breath of relief! (For me, not him--he was never worried, apparently.)
All that to say, reading and some writing and lots of flexibility works great to develop a student who still loves learning in college. A "rigorous" education often burns kids out--we tried it in his 6th grade year, and he begged me halfway through the year to stop making him read about the Greeks. This, from a kid who read constantly and adored the Greeks! That approach did not work for us; it was too much and stressed us both out.
Now I'm homeschooling high school for kids 2 and 3 (freshman and sophomore), and we're even more relaxed. It's freeing for all of us when I remember that we don't need to do it all, or even do it the way other schools/homeschools do. Colleges love kids who love learning, and college also isn't the only path. When I remind myself of that, I worry less! (Also--I try not to read homeschool blogs or look at what other people are doing, because it always makes me feel inadequate and neurotic. ;)
That was a very long comment, sorry! But you can do it! High school is the reward part of homeschooling--a little planning on your part, and then you get to relax and watch them do all the work! ;)
I am so glad you left this long comment! You know I love to hear about how you have done things/are doing things with your crew. I didn't know that Caiden had begged you to stop making him read about the Greeks--ha ha! That cracks me up! And it should be comforting to any of us who sometimes feel that we aren't rigorous enough with our younger kids. I sure have made some missteps with Finn and am just glad I had the intuition to back off and wait. Figuring out what works best for them is so important. And Annie is getting the benefit of all my wisdom. I wish I had 5 more children to raise and homeschool, honestly. Only 2 is just not enough.
DeleteThanks for mentioning IEW! I actually was looking at it last night as a possibility for 9th or 10th grades. We've never done formal writing, yet I'm consistently pleased w/ how well Finn does with writing. However, I do think a few years of focusing on composition would be beneficial sometime during high school.
I feel really excited for next year, and in some ways it's a selfish excitement: I'm deciding b/w 2 history/lit combo programs, and whichever one we end up doing, I'll be doing right alongside him. I can't wait to read all those books! ;)