Me Too

I'm Learning to Love Learning

One of the main goals I have in homeschooling my children is to teach them to love learning. What I'm finding, is that as I guide my children along this path, I am re-learning to love learning.

I went through a traditional schooling experience. I survived it. I succeeded at it. I came out ok. However, many of my "successes" are really just my success at coping with certain restraints or figuring out how to "work the system". I want my children's experiences to be more than just coping.

As I homeschool my kids, I find that I'm excited to learn too. I am still not interested in learning history, it's never been my favorite subject. But I am fascinated, that when I read about historical events, knowing there is no test later, I find that the information is much more interesting to me. I may forget the facts tomorrow, but the general feelings of events stay with me. I love putting different historical pieces together and seeing a larger picture. A new energy is emerging from me as I read about our world's history.

Perhaps one could argue my interest is peaking because I'm older now and history is more interesting to me at this age than when I was a teenager. But I think I'm having more fun because there's no test to measure how much information I'm retaining. No one is asking me if I can site 3 examples as to why my point of view is correct. I'm free to read in any order I want. I get to share my thoughts and interpretations with others without a grade attached to it.

I am also allowed to learn about things that interest me, like the photography business I have with my father. There is always something to learn in photography that will make my work better. I hope my children see that, while I may be scared sometimes (like shooting my first wedding event), I am attacking the learning curve around my passion. That I, willingly, spend the time to be sure I'm ready for a shoot. That "getting ready" can look like practice, information gathering, reading, and more. I hope they see how proud I am of myself after successfully completing a shoot I worked really hard one (not just on the day, but the days and weeks leading up to the event).

ABC: Always Be Comparing - Part I: Kids

I'm coming (it's hard for me to say this, I still can't say it definitively) to the conclusion that I will always be comparing my children to other children, no matter what.

When I first started thinking of homeschooling, I dreamed how nice it could feel to not compare my kids to other kids so often. As I walked the halls of the school, I would see the wonderful work of all the kids. I admit, I was looking, mostly to see what my own children were doing and how their artwork, handwriting, sentence structure, use of colors (and the list goes on) compared to that of their peers. I would take note of where my kids excelled, where they needed help and where they landed somewhere in the middle. I would delight in the ares where they excelled and think how brilliant they were. I would wonder how I could help them improve when they fell in the middle. I would panic if I saw that they were lacking in any area. I thought all of these feelings would go away. But I was wrong.

When we first began, I wondered how they were doing. Are they doing more than what is expected of a child their age? Are they falling behind because I'm not doing enough? Is it too much for me to expect them to do so much on their own? Are they too young for a project I picked and I should be more "hands-on" when helping? I felt really lost, and to be honest, I still do.

Their education is in my hands now. I can no longer say,

"Let the teacher figure it out."

Or

"Let the state determine what my child should know and how capable they are."

While I wanted to tailor their education to each individual, a big part in our decision to homeschool in the first place, it is an awesome responsibility. I realize how much I've been relying on others to figure out what my child should know, when they should know it and how they should learn it. For a long time, I haven't had to think about it. I just enrolled my child when they were supposed to, packed their lunch and sent them on their way. Now that the curriculum is up to me to decide, I realize I do not feel confident to make all the decisions.

Without other children to compare to my children, how am I supposed to know if they are ahead, in line or behind? Does it matter? Why does it matter? Should it matter? If they are where they "can be", is that good enough? Do I need to push them to where they "could be"?

Now that we've joined a few homeschooling groups, academic and extra curricular, the comparisons are there. Whether imagined or real, I still feel it. I watch the other kids and see how mine stack up. In some ways it's very comforting to have this gauge. Whether I feel better because it's a familiar place I've been before or whether it gives good feed back as to how we're progressing in our own milestones, I still don't know. For the most part, I like that these comparisons keep me from panicking too much as I see other children excelling and struggling (maybe in some of the same or different areas) just as much my kids are.