Training Your Child Part 4 - The Interview with Vicki Tillman, Part 2

Continuing my series on career exploration, here is the second part of the interview with Vicki Tillman.

Be sure to pop over to 7 Sisters Homeschooling's "Homeschool High School podcast" for my interview with Vicki about teaching Shakespeare. It's scheduled to air on 3rd April 2018 as episode 104.

It's never too early - nor too late - to think about teen careers.

Your website asks the question on your Career Bundles page about what to do with a child who loves everything: this describes me perfectly and I still feel adrift sometimes, so what advice would you have given “younger me”?

I know, right?! Some teens DO love everything, and what’s “worse”…they are good at just about everything. It is so much harder for those teens to feel settled in one career. That’s why providing lots of role models, experiences, service and prayer is important. AND a good Career Exploration course. AND maybe a mentor or coach. AND they may end up having several college majors/degrees and careers over the years (not so unusual with millennials- careers for them are a journey, not a destination!). I wouldn’t be surprised by the multi-career experience- God gave them much to do!

What part does faith play in career exploration?

A LOT! It is so good for teens and parents to know that they can roll their work on the Lord and he’ll direct them. Teens who are familiar with God’s character and leading through their experiences with prayer, Scripture knowledge and watching Godly role models and mentors generally are much more at peace with the Career Exploration process.

Follow up to that: How can you follow a faith-based exploration with a teen who’s not a believer?

For teens who are not believers, it’s not too useful to preach at them. On the other hand, allowing them to have the experience of learning from mentors and role models can take them a long way.

Is it easier to coach someone else (ie, other students) on their vocational goals than it is to guide your own children?

Well, to be honest, I might have enjoyed watching the process than a couple of my kids liked going through the process. I just LOVE the process of self-discovery…when you see the lightbulb turn on in a teen’s brain: “I UNDERSTAND the way God made me!”
But for a lot of kids, it’s a scary process. It is hard for them to believe that they are unique and loved and created on purpose for purpose by God. They might know it theologically, but it is hard to believe it for themselves. I’ve just been around long enough to know that, whether it is my teen or someone else’s teen, God’s got things in mind for them!

Should students go to college even if their vocational goal doesn’t require a degree?
The answer to that question is a conditional “no”. (Does that sound like equivocation?)

There are teens who are absolutely not called to go to college, whether this is due to ability or attitude or interest. For those teens, vocational training is perfect! Vocational training can occur through trade schools, community colleges, apprenticeships, military or other options.

However, there are more and more jobs that require certification or college degree of some kind in order to be able to advance. It is good to go to CareerOneStop.org and read the job descriptions to find out more about careers of interest and the training required.

Somewhat related to the previous question: How much do you think vocational goals need to dictate what one studies or even majors in for their college degree, if they’re going to college?
That’s an interesting question! There are a number of careers that require a bachelors degree but it can be in just about any field. What some career fields are finding out is that young professionals who have a strong Liberal Arts background have better thinking skills, communication skills and other soft skills that help create an atmosphere for success. (Liberal Arts schools require courses in literature, philosophy, mathematics, and social and physical sciences.) I’ve heard this most often from the corporate and technology world.

Thinking about it that way, a good degree with good internships from a Liberal Arts college may be a great open door for being hired or climbing the career ladder. So the answer to the question: Sometimes it is not the major that is important, it’s the Liberal Arts training that’s important.

Is there any mileage at all in advising girls differently from boys - I know on the one hand that I should think “no way - everyone should have equal chance”, but if we believe and hope that our daughters will become wives and mothers some day, and stay home with the kids (and homeschool them!), then do we really want them to spend ten years and $$$$$$ to become a doctor, only to leave it all for nurturing the next generation?

That’s a difficult question! Is education ever wasted? Is networking ever wasted? Is enriched life experience ever wasted?

To look at it another way: I personally know a couple of families that did not allow their college-capable girls to go to college because they wanted the girls to stay home, settle down and become wives and mothers. The only difficulty was that to be a wife and mother required a marriage, which required a healthy, willing and Godly young man. These families lived in small towns with small churches and no available males. Hard to achieve the goal if one of the necessities is missing.

On the other hand, I’ve known families whose daughters did not want to go to college but instead spend some years in missions, service or the military. All of these daughters had a few years of service and adventure, got “education” by living life- and met their future husbands as they were serving.

Many thanks to Vicki for taking the time to answer all my probing questions. If you want to avail yourself of Vicki's wisdom for your own child, then why not look at her careers curriculum that's available as an ebook on 7 Sisters Homeschooling: https://7sistershomeschool.com/products-page/career-exploration-for-high-school/

Training Your Child Part 3 - The Interview with Vicki Tillman, Part 1

As promised a few weeks ago, I am publishing the results of a long-distance interview with Vicki Tillman, one of the "7 Sisters" at http://7sistershomeschool.com/ and a professional life coach.

"Our Vicki" at Seven Sisters and Homeschool High School Helps

She was kind enough to agree to help me in my term-long exploration of my children's own career paths, something originally sparked by our reading Chris Hadfield's An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth.

So here is the first part of that interview, basically copied and pasted from our notes. They make excellent reading and Vicki is full of great advice.

Kat, this was fun! Thanks for the opportunity!- Vicki

1. Judging from the timeline on your website profile, I’m assuming you explored your own mid-life career change before helping your homeschooled children work through theirs - what advantages do you think homeschooling parents would gain from re-visiting their own career goals before nurturing their teens’ goals? How should they do this? Good question, Kat! I did actually go back to work after being a stay-at-home homeschooling mom. I homeschooled and worked. In order to do that sanely, I needed to work in a career that would be life-giving to me so that I wasn’t too drained to enjoy my time with my family. It took prayer and an honest look at what God had created me to do. At that time, I wasn’t trained in Career Exploration but that’s what I did for myself: I evaluated my God-given strengths (people have always come to me with their problems, I’m a good listener, I’m intuitive). I evaluated my weaknesses (I can’t count, I’m not great at details). I evaluated my family’s needs (homeschool schedule, support systems/activities involvement, budget). I evaluated my values (time with family/flexible schedule, time to homeschool and go to church). All these put together pointed to one career for me: Counseling (which eventually naturally added Life and Career Coaching).

2. I’m rather assuming in question 1 that career goals are first explored during the high school years, but are there things one can do with one’s children prior to that?

Oh my, yes. When children are young:

• We read biographies of great role models 
• We introduce them to leaders and good people and diverse kinds of people 
• We teach them life skills, manners, service and good character
• We teach them awareness of God, themselves, the world God made
• We give them many different experiences (like field trips and choirs and science experiments and history projects and writing assignments…)

All of these are early Career Exploration because the basis of Career Exploration is self-knowledge and experiences!

3. I’ve been watching my own children for a long time - a bit like Jesus’s mother, Mary, who treasured up things in her heart when Jesus was a boy - however, most of what I’m seeing is children with weird, whacky, and impractical career goals. One of them wants to be a frog! How do you discern the dross from the gold?

Ha! One of my kids wanted to grow up and be a lizard. He’s now working on his PhD in Comparative Literature. My advice is to hold the idea of careers lightly until they enter high school. Let them enjoy learning about themselves, God, people and the world around them. If you see a strength, give them opportunities to develop that strength without taking the joy out of it. 

In high school, I definitely suggest teens do a Career Exploration course. Every teen is different:

• Some of my kids have done this in 9th grade just to get the ideas flowing (but not making a career decision). Then they repeat the course in 11th grade. 
• Some of my kids only needed Career Exploration in 11th grade because they had some sense of direction early on (at 11th grade they simply needed to clarify and solidify their decisions).

4. You advocate a wide swathe of experiences for teens as part of their career exploration, but what about the teen who knows exactly what he or she wants to be at a young age?

Yes, every teen is different. I had one teen who wanted to be a photographer from the time she entered high school. I still had her do a Career Exploration course to help her solidify her decision (so that she would not feel regrets 1/2 way through college). I also gave her a few non-photography electives in high school that could broaden her experiences. However, the bulk of her Fine Arts and elective credits were Art and Photography related. (BTW- she is a college graduate now and a successful full-time photographer.)

5. Is there a clear step-wise approach to career exploration, or is it a more organic experience?

There’s not one right way to do Career Exploration. However, the steps I’ve done with my teens have been based on: 

• Self-knowledge (What are their God-given strengths, weaknesses and personality?)
• Knowledge of God’s leading (What are their experiences, role models, understanding of God’s working in them- through understanding God’s workings, listening to others’ input, knowing self?)
• Clarification of values (What is important to them in career/lifestyle: time, leisure, community/church involvement, family, finances?)
• Knowing what’s out there (What can they learn from career interest tests and exploration of career descriptions/outlook/education/salary?)
• Trying on hats (Can they shadow, interview or apprentice?)
• Development of job search skills (Help them create mission statements, resumes, cover letters and learn interview skills.) 

(BTW- This is exactly what I’ve done with my kids and hundreds of local homeschool high schoolers… and what is available in 7SistersHomeschool.com’s Career Exploration Bundle.

6. What happens when your child is desperate to be, say, a rock star and … ahem … they really can’t sing or play an instrument?

Yeah…I’ve run into that a few times over the years. Failure is a good learning experience. If you can allow them to have some experiences during high school in their “want-to” field, the lack of giftedness usually becomes clear to them. Then, you can lovingly help them explore something more realistic. 

However, if you give them the opportunity to fail and they still want to pursue, you can talk to them, tell them what you’re willing to help fund or not and then see how hard they are willing to pursue that dream on their own. I know one mediocre guitarist who scraped through a music major in college thinking he would be a rock star…and he did end up in the music industry in a totally different job. He planned his way but God directed his path.

7. Along the same lines, what about a child who wants to be a receptionist when they grow up, which I think of as the kind of job that teens have part-time in the summer because they’re not really careers?

That’s when you go to CareerOneStop.org (US Department of Labor) and explore that career’s training requirements and income. Then do a good Financial Literacy course with them… On the other hand, Office Managers (upscaled receptionist/admin) make some pretty decent money.

This is the end of Part 1 of Vicki's interview. Be sure to subscribe to the blog so you can get Part 2 of the interview sent straight to your inbox.

NB: Vicki and her colleagues invited me onto their Homeschool High School podcast back in June. You can still hear our discussion about the US vs the UK homeschooling scene at this link here.

Training Your Child Part 2 - The Coffeeshop

While I'm waiting for Vicki to complete the questionnaire from the viewpoint of a careers' advisor, I decided to take my 9th grader to coffee and talk about his future as Part 2 of my exploration of careers for my teens.

You may recall in Part 1, my eldest who's in 11th grade was inspired by a book to decide her career with no further discussion.

The last time I had a chat with "Killer", my number 2, he said he was thinking of going into animation for NASA. That was in 2015 as we hiked for 10 miles for my Moon Walk training.

London Moon Walk: with Kim and Jenny

I thought it was time - now that he's 14 - to re-visit the topic, and it's interesting how differently the discussion went this time around.

Killer has done a lot of growing up in the past two years. He has been accepted onto the youth group's leadership training course and completed its first year of it; he volunteers weekly for the library, trains in our swim club's highest squad, and recently was promoted to First Officer in his Trail Life troop.

The highest "boy" office in a TL group

We had some time to kill after his dermatology appointment today, so I took him to the local cafe for a chat.

I did not order a large latte - it was a mistake by the waiter!

We first brainstormed about things that interested him: guitar, animation, computer programming, building computers, careers associated with his lovely voice and English accent such as radio DJ, event announcer, director of films, lighting specialist. Some of these, he thought, were hobbies and not careers. Some of these might be his job. Which ones for a career? He wasn't yet sure.

Then I wanted to establish some ground rules. Given his academic strengths, I wanted him to consider a degree in something "solid" like English, math, science, history, etc. It's best, I said, to be sure to make good grades and to finish, not necessarily to worry about which subject you do it in as long as, at least at this stage when you're not really sure what to do, it's a broad and traditional one.

Next we talked about the God-oriented view: God has made us with certain strengths. He knit us in our mother's wombs to do something. There are seven mountains of influence, one of which we are probably gifted to work in.

And then we had a revelation together: Killer feels called to the mountain of arts and entertainment. This is a complete shock to me: a child who just loves electronics, who can hug a computer to make it work, who knows which buttons of a thousand to press to get the right responses from a machine, an introvert of introverts, and he wants to produce things that make people happy and bring them joy.

For an introvert, he can be quite the comedian!

So with this in mind, I have suggested to him that he has a great opportunity as a 9th grader to spend the next four years in exploration, but not just random exploration: intentional exploration; otherwise, there's a likelihood of frittering away these opportunities by time-consuming use of electronics.

He's a checklist kind of guy, so we'll be looking into creating a checklist of careers to look into this year, and in the meantime, keeping our spiritual ears attuned to what circumstantial opportunities that God might put in our path.

When was the last time you had a "date" with your high schooler to talk about their future? Why not put one on your calendar right now?

In the meantime, put your best guess in the comment box about what you THINK your child wants to do, then update with what he or she ended up surprising you with! We will all enjoy the broad opportunities available to our children.

Planning for 2017 - Step One

I'm cutting it really, really fine. We're less than a month before we're going to start school, and I haven't really made my plans for the year.

Looking for inspiration in the stars

I thought it might be fun - perhaps instructional - for other homeschoolers to watch me fumble through my plan for 2017-2018.

As you may have gathered if you've followed me for any time, I have four children aged between 10 and 17, and I teach them all together using the Charlotte Mason method.

aka Killer, Rocky, Phoenix, and Timmy

There are shades of interpretation for the CM method, and while there are a lot of purists out there, I'm not one of them. To my mind, Charlotte Mason - genius as she was - was still a classroom teacher and planned, implemented, and managed her philosophy via the lens of being a classroom teacher.

I know ... sacrilege, right?

Well, I'm a former classroom teacher, too, and know for a fact that what one does in a classroom is not what one necessarily needs to do in their living room with their own children.

So, I have taken to heart CM's short lessons, living books, narration/copywork/dictation, while devising my own plan of subjects and scope/sequence.

We always study the Bible, memorize Bible verses, use a math curriculum for each child such as Life of Fred or Shillermath, and then have a stack of books for English literature, philosophy, science, biography, spiritual lives, history, economics, and geography. We work through our stack a little each day, reading in 15-20 minute intervals, and by this step-wise approach, we will usually complete many of the books we start out with in September. (If we don't, we just let them carry over till the next year).

Here's a book that took us over 2 years: celebration!

Added to this, we have a weekly co-op in my house. Last year, we studied Texas History and Biology. Tomorrow, I'm going to discuss with my colleague about this year's plan, but it looks like it will be US Government and Chemistry.

My high schoolers have also been attending outsourced online courses for five years now: both have completed four years of English, and now are working their way through Ancient History and Spanish. All these are undertaken with Dreaming Spires Home Learning, my own international tutorial company where I'm in charge of the English.

Online doesn't have to mean isolated

But what will be our book list for our morning time together? And how am I going to implement my new planning approach with simple spiral notebooks?

These are the questions I'm seeking to answer over the next two weeks, and you're invited to join me on my journey.

Even homeschoolers with more than a decade of experience will have their confusions, uncertainties, and conundrums. What we probably also have is an overall vision for our kids, and an underlying routine.

New Interview of Kat on National Podcast

In 2016, my family was featured in a national UK newspaper about our homeschooling journey (see this link here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/family/hating-the-new-sats-meet-the-mums-who-chose-home-education-over/)

Today, I appear on a national podcast in the US, focusing on the differences and changes when homeschooling in the UK and now US.

Please share the link to it - Vicki Tillman and the gang at 7sistershomeschool.com offer a wonderful support group for homeschoolers at all stages, being veterans with many years of experience under their belts.

You can even subscribe to their podcasts, and their recent series about reading and writing for high schoolers was very interesting.

http://ultimateradioshow.com/hshsp-ep-65-homeschooling-in-uk-and-us/

#100WaystoHomeEd: What to do About Teens

Thank you all for joining me and home educated families like us in the #100WaystoHomeEd challenge started by Jax Blunt at the Making It Up blog.

Previous to this blog post here was Kelly Allen's about lifestyle education: pop on over to later to see what she has to say here: 

https://kellyallenwriter.com/2017/03/02/100-ways-to-home-educate-learning-through-life/

I've been allowed to blog about my favorite topic -

homeschooling teens 

(forgive my American spelling and terminology: I moved from the UK to Texas last year and am trying to "go native").

A lot of people seem to hit those secondary years with their children and just lose the plot. It's all "exams, exams, exams," or, in the US, collect those dual-credit hours (for getting the jump on university), and SATs (to nab some scholarship money), but the atmosphere is the same -- time to knuckle down and work, work, work.

All work and no play can give
teens a very dull life!

I think it's sad when I look back at all the fun we used to have: co-ops and playdates, salt-dough maps, nature walks, and Lego.

Remember when you spent
the whole day outside?

It's been one of my desires to keep some of that fun in our studies despite ramping things up for secondary school, because there's more way to learn than simply hitting the books.

We've kept this "living learning" running throughout our entire homeschooling career, making use of co-ops year-on-year. This is when you get together with others to study a subject. History seems to make a good focus, and we've been part of history co-ops since 2005. It was one of the first things we organized when we moved to Texas, and a great way to make local friends.

Co-op 2013

Co-op 2014

Co-op 2017

I also like to incorporate a variety of tools for thinking through the information, and for displaying it in a lasting way. Lapbooking has been one of my favorites in this aspect (see the menu to the right for other lapbooking blog posts). We've also taken the opportunity to act things out, assign independent projects, and even build Lego models!

Lapbooking and Lego!
Who says teens learn only through readin' and writin'?

We still take the odd field trip, too. It's important to contextualize your history if possible. When we lived in England, there were amazing opportunities within a relatively short drive (compared to Texas, anyway), but we continue to grab our chances when we can. Coming back from a recent dog show, we took a detour to visit one of Texas's most important battle sites.

San Jacinto Monument
The battle lasted only 18 minutes
and secured Texas' independence from Mexico.

Thank you for visiting us here at Boyschooling, and seeing how we continue to keep some of the magic from our early years in our secondary-level of homeschooling. This mixes amongst our Charlotte Mason-style learning, outsourcing some subjects via online courses (the English ones of which I am the tutor), dual-enrollment courses at the local community college, and preparing for the national, standardized test called the SAT.

Please browse through the blog posts I've been writing about our journey since 2011, many of the early ones of which were about how boys learn.

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list...

Bicycling with Teens -- Why is Homeschooling Them so Hard?

When it comes to homeschooling teens, I’ve come to think it’s the same as riding a bicycle. However, I don’t mean that in terms of never forgetting how to do it. 

Instead, it’s like those pivotal moments in a child’s life at 6 or 7 or 8 when the training wheels come off but the rider is still unsteady.  Do you hold on? Do you let go?

Sometimes, I just don’t know.

What should I do???

I’ve been homeschooling four children for nearly thirteen years, but it’s just now that I realize that homeschooling teenagers is hard.

I don’t mean hard because the level of work is hard. After all, I’m an experienced secondary teacher, so I’ve educated teenagers before. I’ve run more than four different youth groups in the past twenty years, so I’ve mentored teens before.

I mean, for goodness’ sake, I even WAS a teenager, once upon a time! I know they can be hormonal and fickle, over-tired and grumpy.

So why am I finding it so hard as my own daughter creeps toward 16 1/2 years old? Because it has just hit me: 

SHE … IS … NEARLY … GROWN … UP.

Arghghgh! 

Blooming before my eyes!

Yes, yes, yes … I know that we never stop learning, we never stop growing, and that even when she leaves home for college or work or whatever, we’ll still be connected. My own mom and I are closer than we’ve ever been, so I’m not afraid of losing her once she packs that bag and heads out the door.

But it is hard. The time frame, for example.  In just a few years, she will be DONE with homeschool. My chance to guide her and share her studies and explore what she explores is nearly over.

It is hard. The choices — OH, the choices!!! Whether SATs, or AP classes, CLEP or honors courses, online MOOCs or dual-enrollment, or bog-standard curriculum and our beloved Charlotte Mason approach to our studies. I’m sure I haven’t even touched on all the options, so I’m trying to stay true to our family mission: love to learn and learn to love.

Our Motto: Love to Learn and Learn to Love

But you know what makes it hardest? She is starting down the path of being dogged and determined about the vision she has for her own life. She is wanting to put her stamp on things - create her own narrative - and it’s causing friction between us that’s never been there before.

It’s not altogether a bad place to be. Standing back and watching her, I know that it’s the start of a really good phase. Like riding a bike, she has told me to take off the training wheels and give her a push. But if I let go and she falls, then I’ll be blamed for letting go, even if she asked me to do so.

So homeschooling teens is like riding a bike. I provided her with the best one I can afford in terms of time and money, and now I have to let her ride away on it under her own power, on her own path, steering her own course.

A Path of Her Choosing

And I’ll watch her from the side lines, with tears of pride in my eyes.

When You're On "The Struggle"

This October, I had the great privilege of meeting up with about thirty home-educating mums in the UK who use the Charlotte Mason method. We rented rooms in the youth hostel at Ambleside, and stayed up late in the conference room, sharing ideas, swapping stories, and sipping wine.

A sub-set on the great CM retreat

Our final day, we took a lovely ramble around Rydal Water and topped off the adventure with a pub meal at the Kirkstone Pass Inn.

The Grotto at Rydal Hall

The only problem is that the way to the inn was up a narrow, steep lane called “The Struggle”. It’s in honour of this little lane that I’m writing this blog post.

A Wikimedia Image, capturing the drama that lies ahead

You see, I have been having my own “struggle” over the past six months or so. While it’s true that I’ve been homeschooling for over thirteen years, have appeared in the UK newspaper and on the radio as a “with it” and “together’ home-educator, have my vision and my approach really sorted out, things haven’t been quite going to plan this year.

It all started when I decided to move back to my home state of Texas after living in the UK for 25 years. 

Suffice to say, a huge upset like an intercontinental move is indeed monumental, and takes months of research, applications, arrangements, etc, until one finally makes the physical re-location, and then having to do it all over again in the new locale. Insurance, car purchase, mobile phone plan, supermarket preferences, kitting out a home all over again, and then navigating the crazy health-care system, are all time-consuming activities, some of which seem never ending.

Add to this that my hubby has stayed behind in the UK for the time being, making me in effect a single mum, and that I lost not only my puppy in the first few weeks of arrival, but my grandmother, too, and felt bombarded by both the Brexit and the US Presidential election votes to the point of feeling as though I’d been bludgeoned by a topsy-turvy world …

Face-Palm Summer

I am struggling.

I’m sure I’m not the only one. We all have our challenges, our distractions, our obstacles, so I thought I’d try to create a step-by-step plan for encouraging any of you who are struggling, too.

The first thing we need to do is appreciate our surroundings. What are the good things that you are thankful for? At the bottom of that hill in Ambleside, it would be the quaint little buildings, the amazing Highland Cattle in the fields of heather, the soaring hills and broad lakes, and the advantage of such clean air.

Magical Landscapes

Appreciating my surroundings here in Texas, I see these things: I am only five miles from my mother and my brother. We have found a fantastic church nearby, and a terrific swim club. Petrol prices are really cheap, and my car is a Prius, so gets about 60 miles to the US gallon. We are slowly making friends, and we are juggling about the right number of activities, though I have to keep a very close eye on my calendar.

Supermoon in November

The next thing we need to do is consider the route ahead. The Struggle is a 3 mile road that often is one lane with passing places. It rises up nearly 500 metres or 1500 feet. Some of the gradients are 20%. This thing can get pretty hairy at times.

Ready for Adventure!

In Texas, my biggest struggle is about supporting my kids in their homeschooling while I continue to teach my online classes in English. I anticipated the conflict of timing by telescoping my business onto Mondays and Tuesdays only, but that means the children need to be independent in their studies on those two days. I feel as though these two days are the narrow lane where we’re looking for the passing places ahead.

Independence ... sometimes ...

A second section of the narrow lane is concerned with use of electronics. My business is based on the internet, and I feel keenly aware that I need to be on the computer a lot. So my kids are modeled a computer-based life, and they are quite happy to follow suit. This goes against my whole belief system of broad brain development. If I’m vigilant, I’ll park their ipods on the kitchen counter at bedtime … and check they’re still there before I close down the house for the night. If I’m not … well … it’s not like they’re driving off the edge of a cliff or anything. They tend to be involved in fairly innocuous activities (usually jokes, magic tricks, and politics), but anticipating the dangers ahead is part of my anxiety when traveling down this road.

A third concern is where this road is actually headed. It’s easy when you’re driving on The Struggle: you can see the pub waiting for you at the top, and you can breathe easy to know that there’s plenty of parking, a cold pint of beer, and a lovely hot dinner of roast beef waiting for you.

Good Things Waiting Ahead!

It’s not that easy when you’re homeschooling, is it? You have a vague idea of where you’re headed, but your children are unique and will be carving out pathways that you might never dream were possible. The worry is that you’ll miss the turn, or you’ll aim for the wrong destination, or you’ll skip some important step.

So, that brings me to the final point. We’ve looked at the good things around us, the obstacles in front of us, and now it’s time to look at trusting our equipment. 

Vrroooommmm

When driving The Struggle, a car in good condition is really important. You absolutely want to avoid breaking down partway up a 20% gradient, or having your brakes malfunction, or — as did happen once to me in the past — your turbo give out on your van so it drove only in “go slow” mode.

For me, keeping my equipment tuned up relates to my faith life. I find that ensuring I re-charge each morning, and park up safely at night, the more equanimity I have in the daytime. My devotional of choice is the Celtic Daily Prayer books, available in two volumes and covering four years of daily meditations.

Finding Encouragement in Faith

Even if you’re not religious, you should build some quiet time into your day. A time when you just sit and let your brain rest, your heart get still, your breathing, deepen. A time when the kids respect that you want to be on your own, and unless little Jimmy’s head is bleeding profusely and 911 needs to be called, you are not to be disturbed.

Not everyone can zoom down a four-lane highway without any traffic, and especially not homeschooling families. There will be bumps and diversions, road works and re-surfacings, traffic snarls and near-misses. It’s the way we take these challenges as part of life that will teach our children something, even when the books are being ignored.

We may struggle, but we will overcome.

Victory!

The Best Job in the World

Back, back, w-a-y back in about 2001, I was researching the idea of home-educating my daughter who was then only a year old. I was a teacher, and she was going to a child-minder three days a week. Out of the blue one day, it dawned on me: why was I leaving my own child with somebody, while I went out to teach other people's children?!!

Teaching your own has intrinsic rewards.

Sometimes, we parents get into home-education because we fundamentally disagree with the education system; or because we are torn to pieces about what a certain school or even a certain collection of children are doing to our own precious one; or because we don't find traditional schooling a good fit. All of these are perfectly good reasons, but they're kind of negative ones -- we reject the norm to embrace the unusual.

But what if the unusual were the RIGHT way, and that we embrace it because it's been the best way all along?

Learning in the "field" with the whole body

This became clear to me one summer’s day, right after I’d left that paying job. It was such a luxury to just sit on a bench and observe my toddler. She was pottering around in the grass, shaking my soda bottle and watching the bubbles, and I was amazed how I wasn't feeling the usual urge to put her on the swing for five minutes, then help her down the slide for five minutes more, wobble the wiggly bridge for five, then take her back home for a nap so I could get back to my "real" job.

The very moment it dawned on me

Instead, I could just sit there. I could just be. And let my daughter just be. 

Just let her stand in the field
and ponder the world ... that's fine.

This was when my perspective completely changed. My job now was to watch her. What made her tick? What excited her? What was difficult for her, what was easy?

The moral of this tale is this: home-education is often seen as a "running away from" or "opting out" of traditional schooling, but I want to encourage everyone who's involved in it to see it with new eyes. Not running away, but leaping into, soaring through, bounding ... or, if you're a quiet and methodical sort ... ambling/walking/tip-toeing along the path that you were made to follow. 

Clearly, we don't all learn the same way!

It's a path that you travel WITH your children, not a direction you point them in!

Life and learning are journeys ... together!

And that's why, of all the jobs I've had, homeschooling my kids is the best job in the world!

(This article first appeared in the Home Ed Gazette, an email newsletter available by contacting the editor at homeedgazettegmailcom)

Schedules, Schedules, Schedules

It’s that time of year. Facebook and blogs and Yahoo groups and forums are full of people’s schedules. I used to write mine up in great detail on Excel — talk about Throwback Thursday (even though it’s Saturday!)

Here two of my schedules from the past:

Best laid plans of yesteryear

And what about now? How do I home-educate four children between the ages of 8 and 15? Well, now my schedule looks like this:

My plan for this year

How have I gone from ticky-boxy to book-stacky? Basically, three things have changed in the past two years:

• I have fully embraced the idea that homeschooling is as much as about a relationship among the family as it is about a relationship with our studies, and therefore, I’m committed to teaching the kids together as much as possible.

Homeschooling is so much more than just studies

• I have fully embraced the idea that recording what we’ve done is as successful an approach as planning what we will do: more so, in fact, because the stresses of “falling behind” are gone entirely, and the joys of “capturing the moment” are here to stay.

Recording what you've done is less
stressful than planning what you might do

• I have fully embraced the stage of the children’s lives that they can both work together, and work independently; this means that we study together in the morning, and the afternoons are free for play/handicrafts/Spanish/music lessons/hobbies, or further studies for the older two.

Afternoons are free for hobbies

Sometimes, my friends accuse me of being very off-hand with my approach, as though it’s as easy as falling off a log. I think I give this impression because I’ve been homeschooling for twelve years now. With time (and children’s maturity), one tends to grow into their individual rhythm.

However, if you want to embrace an all-together policy of home-education as I have, then it's possible for you to start now. Here are some suggestions.

First, following a flexible educational philosophy like the Charlotte Mason method. Sometimes, her method is made to seem overly complicated if you look at various websites. The hoops to jump through are made to seem overwhelming, as though each child has to have his or her own complete curriculum, and therefore, you have to spend your entire day in leaping from one child to another to support their studies.

To me, that’s the way to madness.

This is what madness looks like

Look — what they tell you is that their way is a CM curriculum, and I say to you that my way is a CM curriculum.  In fact, both ways — all ways of homeschooling — are curricula, because the definition of curricula is those subjects which you study. If you happen to study the lyrics of Janis Joplin songs 24/7, then that’s your curriculum. It doesn't have to be someone else's pre-set way of educating your children.

It’s a bit like saying you’re on a diet. Everyone is on a diet. Diet is what you eat. Some people are on a low-fat diet, or a low-protein diet, or a low-Starbucks’-vanilla-latte diet, but a diet is just describing that which you eat. Period.

That's the English Cream Tea diet

So my curriculum is the collection of subjects that we’ve chosen to study, and we do so by using the Charlotte Mason method.

Charlotte Mason, by the way, was a Victorian teacher whose forward-thinking ideas about education continue to be ground-breaking when it comes to churning out thinkers instead of hoop-jumpers. (She would have abhorred today’s focus on teaching to an exam rather than igniting interest in a subject)

In short, the CM method is characterised by:

• short lessons
• use of living books as opposed to dry textbooks
• employing narration, dictation, and copywork for Language Arts skills
• nature study
• art- and music-appreciation
• free afternoons to work on handicrafts, outdoor pursuits, or other personal interests

Our CM-inspired timetable consists of reading really good books for about 20 minutes each, sometimes getting to six or seven of them in a morning. We rotate through about twenty books at a time, and generally they have a similar theme. 

This autumn, we’re focusing on North America at the time of the early explorers, including the indigenous peoples who already lived there. Our science is botany with a focus on trees. We use Life of Fred for secondary school, and a mixture of Singapore and Shillermath for primary. We’ll also dabble in artist study, composer study, quantum theory, Shakespeare, US politics and economics, character study, and of course, biblical history and Christian faith.

We’ll work our way through this whole stack of books in the year, supplementing with great documentaries like Crash Course, local workshops, trips to museums, concerts, plays, and even creating a lapbook or two.

Most of these supplemental activities are reserved for Fridays, because we only “school” four days a week (see my blog post about the importance of Free-Day Fridays for us).

Free-day Fridays are just plain fun!

I realise this has been a really long blog post — probably the longest I have ever written — but I wanted you to know that it’s possible to combine your kids for a great learning experience. If you have babies or toddlers, you will be a few years away from this luxury (I used to employ a lot of Montessori-type activities to keep the toddlers busy: Tot Trays is a great website for ideas), but start getting everyone into a routine of learning together in the mornings, and it won’t be long before your youngsters are right in the thick of it, discussing which Canterbury Tales is their favorite, or arguing whether light is a particle or a wave, or saying they're sad because we'll only be in the penumbra and not the umbra of the solar eclipse. 

Honestly, with a diet of great books and great thoughts, stuff like this really happens!