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LLMom
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| Posted: April 29 2014 at 1:54pm | IP Logged
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Martha,
I hope you don't think my message was directed to you. I meant it for Kathryn and the OP if she needed to hear the possibility for school again. I didn't mean to take over and make it a pro-schooling only post. I know I have found that homeschool moms have little support and moms who are homeschooling and then decide to send children to school have little support and really doubt their worth as a mother if they do so. All options, including the one you suggested about not schooling for a year are good ones. I still homeschool one child, but school is a better choice for the other right now. I think everyone here is pro homeschooling if it works for their family. I just want to encourage moms that if they have to utilize school, it is ok and they still are good moms.
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Lisa
For veteran & former homeschool moms
homeschooling ideas
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SeaStar
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| Posted: April 29 2014 at 2:25pm | IP Logged
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Ladies-
You are all so wonderful for caring so much about your families- what is best for them- and for offering support to others. 
This whole mom/parenting/school thing is just hard- what works now may not work down the road. Challenges pop up all the time. Only change seems to be constant.
I had a good laugh at myself the other day when reading "The Year of Schooling Dangerously". At the very end the author makes the point that we don't know what the future will hold.... our kids may have jobs in technology or travel that haven't even been invented yet. So true!
Ten years ago... Pinterest? Twitter? YouTube? And people work for these companies today and earn a living.
So while I struggle (and have much angst) over the job I am doing educating my kids... well, Jesus could come again tomorrow. If my dc can read and write and do math, it's all good. I will have to trust God to fill in all the details while I just do the best I can right now.
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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Kathryn
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My point to the OP is that if her life was in such a severe state of anxiety and panic when the kids were home, keeping them in public school is not necessarily a BAD THING for her family at this time. Martha, because you had such an extreme negative experience with public school doesn't mean that is everyones experience with public school. Obviously the OP had the exact extreme negative experience WHILE HER KIDS WERE HOME ALL DAY. My viewpoint was that you have to weigh the pros and cons of any decision based on the entire family dynamics. Her post didn't lead into the fact that she wanted 100% confirmation that she should now bring them back home to homeschool. It appeared to ME that she was conflicted but that she possibly wanted confirmation that it's OK to keep them in public for the sake of them having a more peaceful mom/home life. I wanted to validate that for her. I'm not sure why that is coming across as a bad thing.
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Kathryn in TX
(dd 16, ds 15, dd 8, dd 5)
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Kathryn
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| Posted: April 29 2014 at 4:50pm | IP Logged
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LLMom wrote:
Kathryn,
You might want to stop by my blog where I discuss this very topic with others. See my signature if you want to participate. |
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Thanks...I will check that out!
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Kathryn in TX
(dd 16, ds 15, dd 8, dd 5)
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guitarnan
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Kathryn, I don't think anyone here would ever say that sending children to traditional school is a bad thing, if the parents of those children have discerned together that doing so is best for their family.
Martha wasn't being critical of parents who choose to send their children back to traditional school. She gave her own example, offered a suggestion to Krista (a "gap year" of sorts - wish I'd thought of that a few years ago - with one year of high school to go, it's a bit late for us now!) and stated that "different things work for different people."
Lisa said it well when she stated that homeschooling moms have "little support" - somehow the world at large sees our choice to homeschool as license to criticize - forever! It can be very demoralizing, especially when you, as wife, mother, educator and all those other roles we mothers play, are struggling personally. I'm willing to bet that each of us has, at one time or another, doubted our abilities and wondered whether making a change would be better for our family. But, in real life, it's hard to find people to talk to who really understand where we are as home educators. In our world of prescriptions and instant info, it's very easy for outsiders to say, "Just send them to school." That solution works for some families, but not for others, and we know that very well here.
We are, here at 4Real, a community of Catholic home educators - even those of us with children in traditional school or college are here because we want to support each other in that undertaking. There's plenty of criticism and misunderstanding out in the world; we have a safe place here to share our homeschooling experiences and offer encouragement.
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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Kathryn
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| Posted: April 29 2014 at 7:46pm | IP Logged
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Nancy,
I understand what you're saying but I disagree that the tone was not meant to be critical. The "sigh" and the "this is so frustrating" certainly lent itself to being understand that simply saying public school MIGHT be a viable option was clearly frowned upon. Then when Martha said "I find it immensely frustrating to have it pushed on a home education board of all places" was clearly an address that she obviously felt either I or some of the other posters were "pushing" to have the OP enroll (or keep) her children in school. She offered her position (as well as I and several others) and it's up to the OP to discern what is best for her and her family. It's not up to another poster to attempt to shut off conversation just b/c this is a homeschool board when there is a very real possibility that traditional school MIGHT be a better fit in certain situations for certain families or certain children.
When someone comes to this board and is a homeschool mom, obviously values homeschooling and yet is struggling as intensely as Krista said in her OP, are we looking to truly help them through with various ideas or are we too one-sided in viewing homeschool as the be all, end all for everyone? In my opinion, that is putting a greater emphasis on the institution of homeschooling at a greater value to the dignity of the mom and family and what her current state is.
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Kathryn in TX
(dd 16, ds 15, dd 8, dd 5)
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kristacecilia
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I just wanted to pop back in and say that I am thankful for all the perspectives here. I came here looking for validation and a homeschooler's perspective, and I have gotten lots of them. They have all been valuable and comforting. Right now my kids are still in public school and will stay that way for the foreseeable future because I feel my chest tighten and my blood pressure rise whenever I entertain the ideas of keeping them home again. I have many days I daydream about homeschooling and long to yank them out, but the reality is that I am a much more sensitive person than even I realized and I need a certain amount of quiet, space, and self-care to stay functioning. I never would have guessed when I started out on my mothering career so idealistic and hell bent on homeschooling that I would end up here. I battle a whole host of emotions- guilt, sadness, elation, and a million others- from deciding not to homeschool.
Sorry...rambling.
Martha, I love your third option idea, and I am so glad you put it out there. I hope that anyone who reads this and is facing the same decision I had to make knows that they do have three options. I was not in a place I would have considered it in September, but I wish I had. Now I feel like I have opened a whole can of worms I would have rather kept shut sometimes. Maybe if I had just done what you suggested as the third option I could have mellowed out and kept the kids home. Maybe not. I'm not sure.
Kathryn, I appreciate your perspective, too. It wasn't just a matter of schooling for me. The very fact that I had to wake up and deal with my kids all day, every day without adequate sleep, exercise, downtime, or socialization for myself was too much. It really was more than just not schooling. The time away from my kids has been beneficial in so many ways.
I feel very grateful to have so many women of all perspectives to offer me support and advice. I see all of your points, and I appreciate all of the time that has been given to post on this thread and offer me support. I hope it's helping other people as much as it is helping me. I come here routinely to re-read this thread.
Thanks again, everyone.
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God bless,
Krista
Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)
I blog at http://kristacecilia.wordpress.com/
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Martha
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Kathryn wrote:
Nancy,
I understand what you're saying but I disagree that the tone was not meant to be critical. The "sigh" and the "this is so frustrating" certainly lent itself to being understand that simply saying public school MIGHT be a viable option was clearly frowned upon. Then when Martha said "I find it immensely frustrating to have it pushed on a home education board of all places" was clearly an address that she obviously felt either I or some of the other posters were "pushing" to have the OP enroll (or keep) her children in school. She offered her position (as well as I and several others) and it's up to the OP to discern what is best for her and her family. It's not up to another poster to attempt to shut off conversation just b/c this is a homeschool board when there is a very real possibility that traditional school MIGHT be a better fit in certain situations for certain families or certain children.
When someone comes to this board and is a homeschool mom, obviously values homeschooling and yet is struggling as intensely as Krista said in her OP, are we looking to truly help them through with various ideas or are we too one-sided in viewing homeschool as the be all, end all for everyone? In my opinion, that is putting a greater emphasis on the institution of homeschooling at a greater value to the dignity of the mom and family and what her current state is. |
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Kathryn - All I did was directly respond to Krista with suggestions and sympathy. I never once wrote anything about other people's suggestions until you responded to me by basicly saying I was wrong to make my suggestions. That you don't think my suggestions were appropriate for her and you know better because you put your kids in school too. Fine I guess. You are welcome to your opinion same as the rest of us.
And then you toss this post in. Not one person who has posted in this thread has had anything other than sympathy, well wishes, prayers, and suggestions to HELP Krista. It's insulting and flat out wrong to suggest that any of us are putting home schooling above her value as a person. If anything, myself in particular suggested not to put educating choices *at all* above her person! So how you managed to twist that into what you wrote in this post is mind boggling to me. But yes, it was and is frustrating, most especially on a homeschooling board. 
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Martha
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Mackfam
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| Posted: April 29 2014 at 8:32pm | IP Logged
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Krista,
Thanks for popping back in and clarifying what you were looking for on this thread:
kristacecilia wrote:
| I came here looking for validation and a homeschooler's perspective, |
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I'm so glad you felt you received the support you were looking for.
There have been a few very different perspectives offered here. This board has always been a place where we assume the best of others and while we can be hard on a topic (to include different perspectives re. public school as an option -- those that include affirming it as an option as well as those that express serious concern and objective realities with regard to the option - both should be welcome), we strive to be gentle with the person.
In reading this thread, no one here has put emphasis on the institution of homeschooling over and above Krista's unique situation. In fact, I am grateful for the opposite - complete consideration of a situation that might benefit from a variety of perspectives, some of which affirm and support home education as a solution that, while not always (ever?) easy, can still be workable and worthy of consideration. This is right and appropriate on a board that exists to support home educators.
Further posts should seek to fulfill Krista's request for a homeschooler's perspective (remaining on topic), and may provide different viewpoints on the topic (public school/home education/special needs of children and mom) as well as respect and kindness toward other members that have taken the time to share their own individual perspective.
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19 , ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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Martha
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| Posted: April 29 2014 at 8:44pm | IP Logged
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guitarnan wrote:
Martha
...
offered a suggestion to Krista (a "gap year" of sorts - wish I'd thought of that a few years ago - with one year of high school to go, it's a bit late for us now!)
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Ha. Guess what made me think to return to make the suggestion? Yep. Wishing I'd taken that advice myself. Or better yet, had someone who had given it to me at a time when I would have listened. Truth is, for a long time I would have spazzed over the idea of doing NOTHING for a year. Now? I've committed than I won't go more than 7 years without a sabbatical for us. Ideally, I would like one every 5. Either way, that's at least one and no more than two times myself and the kids would get a school sabbatical. I read all the things about dealing with burnout. I revamped and retooled. I kept thing fresh and all that jazz. But a purposeful, planned, accepted without apology sabbatical? Yeah. None of that other stuff did near the same trick for me and my brood. I wish I hadn't waited over a decade. But hey. Plus of a large family is I can take my mess ups with my older guineas and hopefully do better with the younger ones. It's a theory anyways, 
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Martha
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Mackfam
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| Posted: April 29 2014 at 9:01pm | IP Logged
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Martha wrote:
| But hey. Plus of a large family is I can take my mess ups with my older guineas and hopefully do better with the younger ones. It's a theory anyways, |
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 I hear ya!!!!
I was wondering - what do you think are some benefits from an at-home "home education sabbatical"? I really liked how you characterized it in your first post:
Martha wrote:
| taking a much needed sabbatical is not only considered okay, but a necessary good to rekindling our imaginations and enthusiasm. |
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Can you bullet some basic benefits as you see them? I think it could be really helpful - especially if someone is considering bringing kids home, or is looking into this option. What are some of the specific benefits you see that have convinced you to make this a priority in your home education?
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19, ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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Martha
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| Posted: April 29 2014 at 9:49pm | IP Logged
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Oh my.
1. Healing. And I'm not even talking about burnout. I mean literally healing bodies from a decade plus of exhaustion, stress, hard physical work, poor diets and more. And that's mom. Kids: more chances to see MOM not teacher. More time to sleep (the age old healer of many ailments and necessity for mental, emotional and physical growth), less stress (no school deadlines and ideally even a break from most extracurriculiars) better diets ...
2. Marriage reconnection. You know what you can do when you don't have to take the kids to Latin class at 9am and your dh is self employed? And for the first time in 18 years you feel you can leave your kids home alone? Chickachickabowbow at a nice hotel. Previewed with a meal that does not have children's menus. And you know what happens when you get a call at 6:30am to say the upstairs toilet has flooded the downstairs? You don't really seem to care as much as you used to. You bring donuts home, fix the damage and watch a movie. And your dh marvels that his very type A wife didn't sweat it at all when a year before he remembers her flipping out bc the dishwasher broke.
3. Finance. This is mixed bag to be completely honest, but it worked for us. Home schooling well is not cheap. Yeah yeah I've read the sites too. But in *my* experience! I've usually gotten what I paid for. A year without buying more school books and extracurriculars saved us several grand. That's not to say we didn't spend money. We did. But very carefully on experiences. We landscaped the front yard into a garden the whole family loves and enjoys every day. We installed an above ground pool that we love. We did some long weekend getaways. We saw stuff on tv or read about it and instead of thinking someday, we made a call and went and did it. So. Like I said mixed bag. But over all, everything we spent money on, we are still enjoying over a year later or have fond memories of.
4. House maintenance. No we still have dirty laundry and dishes pile up. But we also painted some kids rooms, reorganized, and donated a ton of stuff. And we did it without rushing or in a panic or because we HAD to do it.
5. Planned boredom isn't necessary. Have you ever wanted to just go sit down and read a book but didn't have time? Know what ya got on sabbatical? Yep. Go read your book. Ma, can we go play in the creek even tho we'll be a muddy mess and it will take many hours out of the day? Yep. Sure. I'll bring my book.
Was every moment of every day carefree without responsibilities? No of course not. But we had a lot more days that were like that. And that sure made the days that weren't tremendously easier too.
And despite my worries that my kids would get "behind" or act like delinquents, instead they found new interests and started opening their school books on their own. And when the break was over and I asked what I've asked every year for over decade, "If you could do or study anything this year, what things might it be?" And got some new answers and more excited answers vs the previous year's shrug and typical "meh. I don't know."
For us, it was nothing but positive. None of us have any desire to do it every year. But we all agree it was a much needed sabbatical. I might think of more things, but it's been a long day and my brain is tapped out at this point. 
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Martha
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SallyT
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| Posted: April 29 2014 at 10:20pm | IP Logged
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Well, I'm not Martha, but this is an interesting idea, sort of aligned with the notion of taking "de-schooling" time when a child is coming out of school to homeschool. I had to learn the hard way, i.e. the not-believing-it-until-my-whole-life-had-melted-down way, that to one degree or another, children and families *need* serious down time as part of a transition like that.
At least, we sure did. We did take the better part of a year totally off,and eleven years later, I'm still convinced that it was necessary. At the very least, it was completely non-harmful in the long run. I'm even tempted to say that it was one of our best years, even though things were kind of fraught at the time. The kid who really "lost" a year of school wound up graduating early and is thriving in college. And at the time, I was astounded by what people seemed to learn even when I wasn't actively trying to educate them.
So, that's how that conventional wisdom played out in our household, and though I didn't want to trust it at first, I came to see that it was *conventional* wisdom for a reason.
Taking a homeschooling sabbatical in the same light isn't conventional wisdom in the same way; that is, it's not a convention. That doesn't mean it's not wisdom! One can muse on the reasons why people might shy away from the idea:
*real non-progress or backsliding in necessary learning?
*loss of structure, and resulting malaise?
*fear of looking like we're not doing anything, even if the idea of actually not doing anything doesn't bother us?
There could be lots of reasons why, even if this idea occurred to us as homeschoolers, we might be likely to dismiss it, in a way that we might not dismiss the conventional "de-schooling" thing. Or we might just think, "We're homeschoolers! We're the ones doing our own thing, in our real lives. Who needs a break from that?"
But sometimes I think we do. Most of us need *some* kind of break, whether it's a year off, or something else. Motherhood is hard work in and of itself, and when you add "educator" to that job description -- let's just say that when I was a classroom teacher, I used to come home in the afternoons and lie on the floor of my apartment living room. Being "on" for seven hours straight, teaching classes, having lunchroom duty, having kids in my classroom at lunch even when I didn't have lunchroom duty, being with people even in my planning period, was exhausting -- and then I could go home and be by myself, and leave all those people there.
A homeschooling mother so often doesn't get, or take, any break like that. I know that I tend to let self-care slide, if I'm not careful, and that if I let it go too long, that's not good for my kids, any more than it's good for me. So a break, when I get to be *just* their mother and connect with them,without feeling that I have to make life all educational for them all the time, seems like a good deal for everyone. And from the kids' perspective, hitting the refresh button every so often is not only fun -- yay, school's out! -- but gives the mind a chance to stretch and walk around and shake off its lethargy a little.
I'm one of those people who fantasize about road-tripping across America for a year, for example. All of us in the car together, for a year. Sounds great right now, at my kitchen table, with everyone else upstairs . . . Or I fantasize about my husband's somehow having a sabbatical (and that IS a total fantasy, sadly) and all of us going somewhere interesting with him for six months. As that's not in the offing, I have been planning a shorter academic year next year for my pre-teens, so that we have weeks built in throughout the year when we theoretically can get caught up if we need to, but knowing us, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that they will be weeks for doing nothing.
And I think I feel pretty good about that. I feel good about it right now because I'm tired at the end of what was mostly a good year, but has felt like a total slog for the last few months. I need to attend to myself. I need to attend to my husband and marriage. I need some refreshment. And my kids do, too.
Also, though, it's interesting to think about this gap idea through the lens of Masterly Inactivity. Obviously Charlotte Mason views Masterly Inactivity as part of a varied and balanced day, during some of which the "master," or magistra, is definitely not inactive! But for a family, maybe there's something healthy and productive in looking at Masterly Inactivity as part of the fabric not only of a day, but of life itself, as one very long varied and balanced day.
Would I do a gap year now? Well, my oldest child at home is a junior, so . . . not in the next two years! And I've been feeling that my younger kids are just starting to settle into a good structure, which at this point I'm not willing to ditch.
But what if we hit the wall? What if *I* hit the wall? It's entirely possible that this could happen. We could find ourselves needing to transition out of a burnout mode in precisely the same way we needed to transition out of school all those years ago. And while I'd like to try to avoid reaching that point, having that "third way" in my pocket, in the same way that I often tell my friends whose kids go to school that it's nice to have homeschooling in your pocket if you ever need it, is a good and empowering thing. And I'm grateful to Martha for bringing it to the forefront, and to this conversation in general, in which we acknowledge that we do get tired, overwhelmed, burned out, and faced with difficult choices in an imperfect world.
So, uh, not bullet points. But when have I ever done bullet points?
(and wow, as I was finishing this tome, I read Martha's response. OK, so I was thinking we needed to do math over the summer for once, but now I'm thinking: sabbatical! yeah! sold!)
Sally
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Martha
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| Posted: April 29 2014 at 11:08pm | IP Logged
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Yes. We took a deschooling year too though it wasn't a break. Just a mentality of expectation if that makes any sense.
Oddly enough I have done the opposite of most comments so far. I think junior year is a great time to take a sabbatical. Get rejuvenated before the insanity of senior year and college kick in. Oh yeah. Just in case anyone thinks high school graduation means everything gets easier. Lolololol no. :)
Not to freak people out. But seriously. Take sophomore or junior year off if it feels right for your family. Weigh the pros and cons and talk to your teens and dh. There is NEVER going to be a convenient time to take a break. That's usually why we are so desperate for one every decade of so. ;p
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Martha
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CrunchyMom
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Hmm, so this begs the question, do you take off a pregnancy year or a baby year....
And would it still count if you took that year to do the extra things hard to have time for. Composer andicture Study, art, museums, concerts. Or would a plan at all not feel like a real break?
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
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[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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Martha
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| Posted: April 30 2014 at 5:55am | IP Logged
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CrunchyMom wrote:
| Hmm, so this begs the question, do you take off a pregnancy year or a baby year.... |
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For me, no. *I* could not in good conscious have taken off 6+ YEARS of the last 12-13 academic years for the pregnancy and or new baby years. I think I mentioned that in a previous post. I used to get rather frustrated when I would be stressing over how to work out pregnancy and or a new baby and people would brush it off as no big deal to just take a break that year. It was a big deal because it ignored my reality of having a baby every 18-24 months. I didn't want my kids education to suffer because I kept getting pregnant. I don't think I ever took off more than a few months total. Usually I'd "work" with a trash can next to me on the sofa and the kids around me the first 4-5 months of a pregnancy when the hypermesis was its worst until I couldn't even do that anymore, then my husband would have to pitch in after work as best he could. For most I recovered fairly quickly from delivery and by the time I was a month pp, I pulled out the school books just to keep the kids occupied if nothing else. With my last two, the deliveries were especially difficult and it took several months each for me to recover enough to return to any kind of normalcy, regardless of homeschooling. There was no way I could have made sure they were all ready for school and handled school issues 5 days a week either. Oddly enough, those recoveries were far more stressful because of that aspect than the years where we *had* to jump back in within a month of the birth. 8-9 children with nothing to do AND a mother recovering medically and emotionally is NOT a helpful combo to any of them. My husband and friends had to help a LOT and I don't think they remember it pleasantly either. I'm not talking about something forced upon us by circumstances, which while I know first hand that has it's own rewards and growth value. I'm talking CHOOSING to PURPOSELY make the decision. That difference is no minor thing in my experience. In fact, in many ways it completely changes everything. If nothing else, it's very empowering to feel one can make that choice. Even if they choose not to.
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| And would it still count if you took that year to do the extra things hard to have time for. Composer andicture Study, art, museums, concerts. Or would a plan at all not feel like a real break? |
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Idk. Only your family would know that. I would hazard that if you are just trading one schedule for another in the same atmosphere of educating, then it rather defeats the purpose of a sabbatical. So if mom is exhausted and depleted from lesson planning and teaching and running the kids to sports games and only changes the subject content and venues? Idk how helpful that will be to her family getting a full respite. It might be. I would guess it depends on the family.
And it depends on her and her kids as well. If she has a child who is insanely in love with the idea of spending all their time painting and seeing paintings or she personally has a deep interest in it and has finally decided that SHE is going to learn to paint instead of waiting for that all illusive "someday I might do that..." Then that could be great. If not? No matter how fun she spins it, none of the kids are going to be fooled into thinking they are on break just because it's a museum field trip instead of a math tutor, kwim?
I have been crazy busy into knitting and gardening, but I haven't made any of the kids do it with me. And though I use terms like, "I have to get this cardigan done by May 1!" I'm not stressed or upset by the deadline. So I do think some aspect of the sabbatical is to do things you otherwise never have time for, I think the key is that it also be things you find fascinating or great fun and enjoyable or exciting.
For many professors for example, a sabbatical would be their chance to get out of the classroom and do some field work or go gather research they otherwise can't devote themselves to gathering or a long retreat of some sort. But the key is they are usually excited about it and have more freedom than usual for an extended period of time and it is not just a brief vacation. So I do think that sabbatical should not be a synonym for doing nothing or being entirely aimless.
Not sure I'm making sense ... It's either extremely late or extremely early pending perspective, but either way I'm functioning on about 2 hours of sleep in the last 3 days and I think I can feel my last brain cell dying. So I'm going to do what moms for generations have done. Lament it to other moms (all y'all ) drink more coffee, and knit some socks.
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Martha
mama to 7 boys & 4 girls
Yes, they're all ours!
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CrunchyMom
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That makes sense, Martha, and in discussing it with dh, I was thinking it would be a lot more fun for me if I was able to participate I really didn't mean taking off for every baby, just dreaming of which of those times I would best love not having to do anything else.
Thank you so much for giving this food for thought. I did use a 30 week, 4 days a week plan last year, which has offered margins for a new baby and time off. We are squeezing in the last of the year by doing 5 days a week, but all in all, we have loved our extra wide margins. I plan doing it again this Fall, too. My oldest has still covered a lot of material, and I feel he learns just as much on his own in the time he has for his personal interests, which include birding and history. But planning for a sabbatical year sounds so very exciting! Dh and I enjoyed brainstorming the possibilities over coffee this morning. Just imagining a brief light like that makes it feel a bit less overwhelming than imagining the next 18 years (at least) spent in non-stop schooling! 
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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Martha
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| Posted: April 30 2014 at 7:02am | IP Logged
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CrunchyMom wrote:
That makes sense, Martha, and in discussing it with dh, I was thinking it would be a lot more fun for me if I was able to participate I really didn't mean taking off for every baby, just dreaming of which of those times I would best love not having to do anything else.
Thank you so much for giving this food for thought. I did use a 30 week, 4 days a week plan last year, which has offered margins for a new baby and time off. We are squeezing in the last of the year by doing 5 days a week, but all in all, we have loved our extra wide margins. I plan doing it again this Fall, too. My oldest has still covered a lot of material, and I feel he learns just as much on his own in the time he has for his personal interests, which include birding and history. But planning for a sabbatical year sounds so very exciting! Dh and I enjoyed brainstorming the possibilities over coffee this morning. Just imagining a brief light like that makes it feel a bit less overwhelming than imagining the next 18 years (at least) spent in non-stop schooling! |
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Yeah. I once had a mom say home schooling was an 18 year marathon and I quipped back, that it felt more like climbing Mt Everest without way stations.
I don't usually do a margins with a reduced weeks academic year. My margins are to just school year around, so a week of flu or an extended weekend minitrip as a family or whatever all comes out the same amount of time in the end. I also tend towards 4 day weeks instead of 5.
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Martha
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SallyT
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Hm, I don't think my current almost-junior would *want* to take a break. He's on a fairly ambitious trajectory and chafing to move forward, so we're going with that. But that's not to say that I absolutely wouldn't do things differently the next time around.
And I agree, life does not get easier after high-school graduation. Different, but funnily enough, here I am still Mom . . . yesterday's challenge was to sort out why the Wal-Mart in Texas wouldn't accept our Blue Cross/Blue Shield for my daughter's new glasses, when the Wal-Mart here at home has no problem with that (and yes, we now have an answer, but that was yesterday's long-distance parenting challenge, which was easier than some!).
I really like that phrase, "mentality of expectation." I'm not sure I've had enough coffee yet this morning to pick at the idea of my own expectations, and how changing what they were, or how I thought about them, would re-create our home atmosphere and our learning (planned or unplanned). I do know that there's some delicate balance between having no long-range vision, so that everything we do happens because of some impulse or other, and having the kind of plan that's too threatened by the idea of derailment to be healthy and freeing. This is the kind of conversation I've been having with the college daughter lately, now that I think of it. She gets all worked up because here she is, twenty years old, a junior in college, and she doesn't know what she's going to DO. And I keep saying, "You know, you do have time . . . and you can do NOTHING for a while . . . "
The difference between "break" and "sabbatical" is interesting, too. My husband is a college professor, and the idea behind a sabbatical is that you need a large chunk of time periodically not so much to recharge your batteries as to pursue some research project that you might not have time or energy for under the burden of your current teaching load. So really, it's about professional development more than anything else, because to be an effective teacher at that level you ideally would also be an active scholar. (I say "ideally," because it sure ain't happening at our college now. And everyone does soldier on, and for the most part the faculty are *amazing* teachers. But everyone's always in a state of exhaustion that over time can't be a good thing, for professors or students. I sometimes wonder what's going to happen when everyone finally has a complete mental and physical breakdown, all at the same time. But we're not quite to that stage yet!).
So I'm interested in how this idea translates into home education. Maybe what happens in a sabbatical is that everyone is able to reconnect with his/her own innate learner -- that part of the self that just wants to know and find out, just because. That is, I think, really what happens in a de-schooling period: the child has to make the transition from being taught, in the structured environment of school, to being an active learner, who knows how to learn and wants to.
That's not to say that a kid in school can't be an active learner, but there's a lot in the school environment that mitigates against that, in the same way that having a life where all free time is consumed by structured activities (sports, lessons, camps, etc) mitigates against developing your own resources against boredom and loneliness.
But I also think that the same syndrome can happen in homeschooling. It doesn't always, but there's no real reason why it *couldn't.* I think we may tend to tell ourselves that homeschooling, per se, is an inoculation against the passive-learner/I-just-do-this-because-I-have-to mode in children, but I'm not sure that that's actually true.
Structured learning can be, and generally is, a very good thing -- my own family continues to move more and more in that direction, and it's a positive thing overall. BUT I can see how a deliberate, long period of Masterly Inactivity (ie NO adult-directed, adult-intervening learning going on) could re-ignite the family as a family of learners, precisely because it would honor the idea that what goes on in children's minds, in what we might think of as leisure time, or even "wasted" time, is as valid and worthy as what's on a scope and sequence.
Meanwhile, no matter what you do, there's always something else you're not doing. If you have kids in school, you're missing what you loved about home education, plus trading one kind of schedule for another. If your kids come home full-time, you're missing time and space and, sometimes, sanity that you used to feel you had, plus trading one kind of schedule for another. If you're homeschooling in a structured way, you might feel you're not looking up from your books enough. If you take time off, maybe you worry about what's going to happen with math . . .
One of the most freeing things, I think, about being a homeschooler is that once you step out of the institutional-school paradigm, you do have a far more panoramic vision of what might be possible. I think it's easier to think of your life in terms of seasons and real human needs, rather than the lock-step of the school calendar. What this seems to mean for lots of families is that there's a flow in the way education happens, and an openness of boundaries -- I know families with some kids at home and some in school, families who take children out of school for a judicious couple of years and send them back when the time is ripe, families who send children to school for a judicious couple of years and then bring them home again when that time is ripe. We ourselves go through seasons of serious outsourcing -- the way we've thought about high school, for example, has been to imagine our ideal school happening under a number of roofs and in a number of contexts.
The overall difference, I think, that the homeschooling paradigm makes, is that the locus of authority over children's education, wherever it's happening on a daily basis, is at home. *Parents* make the decisions. *Parents* decide what is best for a given child, or for their whole family, at a given season. That's precisely why we do have room for these kinds of discussions in a place like this: because, in the light of our faith, we have stepped into, and remain in, that paradigm.
(eta: The analogy that occurs to me here is that idea of curriculum as merely a tool, not a master. You can expand that to include brick-and-mortar school as a curriculum *tool* that you might opt to use, for the short or long term, without viewing it as the force that runs your life)
I can pretty much guarantee that these kinds of conversations don't happen among "school parents," ie parents whose community with each other is predicated on the fact that their kids go to the same school. Then, the conversation is all about the school as an entity in everyone's life and how to live with that. Nobody says, "Hey, OR we could just not do any of this."
Except to themselves, when they've more or less already decided to punt school . . .
Anyway, this is why I think this whole conversation is rich *and* appropriate and supportive in a homeschooling community. I don't want to be all complacent and self-congratulatory about our greater vision, or our living life on a beautiful organic continuum, or anything like that. But I do think that we're in a place where the boundaries are pretty open, and pretty permeable, when it comes to decisions about how best to educate our children, care for our own lives and souls, and serve the God who put us here to do these things.
Sally
PS: Sorry, I've been on a really philosophical bent lately, and keep writing these essays as part of a thought process. Thank you all for putting up with that.
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Castle in the Sea
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CrunchyMom
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Wonderful thoughts, Sally! I am so glad you shared them!
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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4Real Forums : Mothering and Family Life
Topic: Taking kids back out of public school?
