Homeschooling begins again .Another year of learning , creativity and observation .
When our girl quit school, at 8, we were concerned about our ability to deliver a quality education .
Now that we are a few years into it , that concern has lifted. In retrospect , I was concerned about her education when she was inside the school system...
Anyhow ,we are happier than I imagined we would be.I thought the process would be a bit of a logistical nightmare..fitting it all in.Learning what needed to be learned.Finding that precious balance where life and learning merge.Where art and creativity co-exist.Math and science are not ignored...not pretending walks on the beach count as science class.That sort of thing.It is a challenge to educate your own child.
There is a temptation to grab onto the curriculum and not let go.Except that the existing curriculum is just not that interesting.Part of what I do is read the ministries " learning outcomes " , then boil it down to the main and hopefully interesting points.From there, we flesh it out in a way that suits our girl , and our family.Whew.
After some experimentation , we have discovered that to cover the three R's properly , we need to sit down at the table and hit the books old school.
The "un-schooly" approach does not work for us at all...For the uninitiated "un-schooling" is a dearly loved philosophy among many home-schoolers.We just don't get it over here.Looks too much like slacking to us I guess.
We are not too hard-core though.If you read "The Well Trained Mind " by Susan Wise Bauer , it would seem apparent that we are as slack-ass as a family could be.Hell , our kid is not even studying Latin yet.And she's already ten.
Somehow we want to deliver something of quality and beauty.Poetry and music figure into this picture somehow.Yet it is necessary to understand math , commerce ,and that Rapunzel was an idiot.
We are doing our best.So far she is happy , and so are we.
Wish us luck as we begin another school year.
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