A post I wrote in 2007...that is still true.

Way back in 2007 a member of our church's Homeschool Fellowship posted to our group asking about burnout and goals and the journey...and I responded in my usual wordy way. But I find that my answer to that posting that many years ago rings true. I wanted to pull that one out of mothballs for those who might never have seen it. Hope this rings true for some of you. I've only updated a few parts of it for 2011. Enjoy.

"I’ve thought and prayed over your question for the last couple days…not wanting to post until I had something formulated that I thought made sense or until I had given it a good prayerful turn-around in my head and heart. I haven’t succeeded in formulating  what I want to say well, because I don’t think the answer is a simple one…but I’ve prayed over it anyway.  :)  ---I’ve read everything everyone has posted and there is a wealth of good stuff that has been offered. I have a couple other thoughts that may agree with others in some ways, but may look at the question a bit differently. While I say a “couple” …you all know me well enough to know that I tend to tell the long story…so bear with my length.

We’ve been doing this “homeschooling thing” for 16 years now. In that time, because of what I do now, what I did before and the places I’ve been, I’ve had a chance to spend time with  several hundred  homeschooling families from across the country.---- What has always been obvious is that no two homeschooling pictures are the same anywhere. No one can tell you that their way to make homeschooling and “real life” work well is “THE way to do it right” or that the way that works for them now has always worked for them at 100% or will continue to work for them tomorrow. Our kids grow and change daily…not just in 1 year increments. The things they find easy today may be horrendously difficult tomorrow…and vice versa.

There is no magic bullet that will pierce your (or any of our) homeschooling targets on a daily basis and  always score a bull’s-eye. It’s the nature of the beast.

My feeling about this is that it comes down to the answers (your answers) to some questions.  Individual results will depend on individual answers…and then be the result of the application of the best responses to those answers.

So we need to ask ourselves, especially as the year begins...

What’s the goal in this? Why are we doing this? –

• Is it to draw our children closer to one another and us and build family?
• Is it because we want to teach our Faith to our kids and avoid what the brick and mortar schools  are teaching?
• Is it to provide a better academic background or move at a faster or slower pace?
• Is it to provide a more open, broad setting for learning…using the world and experiences?
• Is it because our kids aren’t getting the individual attention they need based on special issues, or gifts?
• Is it because we tried everything else and none of it provided what we wanted for our kids?
• Is it because our own education wasn’t what we want for our kids?
• Is it because with regard to philosophy of education, ours isn’t matched closely enough in any other school setting?
• Is there something other reason?

Likely, it’s some combination of all of those things…but there may be one or two that were your initial, strong, compelling reasons.

What do we want for our children as a result of homeschooling?

• To go to college and get a job?
• To find a skill that they enjoy that will support them?
• To become self-starters and self-teachers?
• To enjoy learning?
• To become skilled athletes?
• To become skilled musicians?
• To become faithful, devoted Christians?
• To become productive, involved members of society?
• To become lifelong academicians?
• To be Servants of Christ in the bigger world?
• Is there something else?

Likely, again, it’s some combination of those things, but we probably have a couple that mean the most to us.

Now, looking at those two things, it might be worth looking at the method we choose to get there.

How do we homeschool and what do we do with our “homeschool” time?

• Do we do just bookwork all day?
• Do we do lots of trips and museums and some bookwork?
• Do we do bookwork and private lessons in things?
• Do we have every day the same?
• Do we make every day different?
• Do we not do anything formal, but hit the topics we feel are needed in some way?
• Are we structured, unstructured, classical, eclectic, Christian Curriculum users, Secular Curriculum users, unschoolers,  virtual schoolers,  informal schoolers…traditional homeschoolers…
• Are we teaching what our kids need, what our kids want, what we think they need, what we think they want…or just what we were taught, because that’s what we feel safe with?
• Are we doing what we do by modeling something else…our public or private school experience of what school should look like…or other homeschoolers we think are doing well?

Now bear with me from here ….

The more I think about it, even after all these years, the more I view homeschooling as a roadmap.

We want to get on the road for a reason, and go somewhere with our kids as a destination. That destination is our goal. 

Our vehicle is homeschooling, and each and every vehicle is unique. The hitch is that there are infinite roads to take to get to that destination.  Some long, some short, some round-about, some scenic, some pretty straightforward highway type driving.  The point though, is to get there…remembering of course, to stop and enjoy the sights (and sites) along the way and to remember certainly, that sometimes, for a each child we school, that the destination we had in mind might not be the right one for the child.

Ultimately though, our goal, our destination is to drop our kids off at the end…in adulthood or whatever you want to call it…and have them be self reliant.

(I know that some say it’s not a destination, it’s a journey…and that may be true, but only if you say that you get to a point where your journey and the journey of your child splits and you continue on separate roads.

When they don’t, you have that 35 year old guy living in his parents’ basement. :) Which may be a goal for some! Who knows! :) )

Now... taking my convoluted road analogy a little further…

If you know where you are going…or perhaps you have an idea of it when you start and the destination changes along the way (you think college and the child decides, “nope…I’m going to become a stone mason!”)... and you replot your trip…you can choose long, short, scenic…something else, BUT you are not likely to turn around and head in the other direction. We do, after all, have a limited quantity of time to be on the road with our kids.---

 We don’t want to get side tracked for too long in things that are counter-productive to the journey. Too much time spent running in the wrong direction won’t get you where you want to go. Can you, for a short period of time, chuck the goal? You could unschool for years and not get sidetracked.  

 Sure….but if you lose sight of WHY you are doing this and  of your and your child’s desired outcome, you get lost on the road. You get frustrated, lost and burned out and then, it happens! You stop your car and put the kids on the bus and send them on someone else’s idea of what the journey should be…with different reasons, goals and outcomes. You might not even know what the destination is and lose your kid in the process.

(---but I digress.)

All this to say… if ANYTHING you’re doing, regardless of how “good it is” or “how much fun it is” or “that learning/doing it as a child is best” or whatever…if ANYTHING drives you from your main goal, your reason for doing this, and you get turned in the wrong direction for too lo, you need to rethink things.  That map doesn’t work. Unless you’re ready to change your goal or destination, you need to fix the way you get there.

I reassess and revamp…often….

Reassessing the goal (why do we CONTINUE to do this?), and validate or invalidate our roadmap.

If there is a deterrent from what we’re after, we have to pretty aggressively re-route our plan.---

Being sidetracked is a #1 cause of burnout; too many things that are good on their own, but that detract from our goal. Trust me, if it doesn’t add to the goal, then it isn’t plunked in your life to be dormant…it’s sucking the life out of what you really want to be doing. You only have 100% to give, in terms of time…and you have only a limited number of years to impact your child on the journey. What do you want them impacted BY?

OK…I’ve said too much for too long and you’re rolling your eyes at me. Just stew on it. What's your goal? How are you getting there? And what are you going to do to keep on track?


Just some thoughts...from a fellow traveler.


Best,
Lori

Wordless Wednesday (because I lost track of Monday)

Homeschooling through High School-Tolerance

     I saw this article,  "Why Homeschool Teens?" by Elizabeth Smith, and it spoke volumes to me. Many of the reasons she states  are reasons why we (our family) continued to school at home through High School.  The rationale bears up under the strain of the “commentary from experts” (read: brick and mortar school parents who know better than you) that one hears about why one should send teens to “Christian school” or “Private School” or “Schools good enough to get your kid into Harvard.” (Hmmm.)

     Now,  I remember the commentary when the kids were little about what we were “doing” to our kids…and how “socialization” was important (Never a concern about academics, right? But hey we’re only talking about school, why be concerned about learning?).  After a while, folks leave you alone, assuming that you’ll “get it out of your system” and eventually the kids will go to school (perhaps after 4th or 6^th or 8^th grade, right?) and they will turn out more normal, God willing, with not too much damage done.

      Eventually, you get the questions like, “So, what are you doing for High School?”--- Meaning “What school are you sending your child to?”…because after all, you can’t POSSIBLY school them for high school at home! 

I mean, REALLY? How are you EVER going to manage to teach Calculus! And the local Christian school is SO much better! AND they’ll be able to do more –(be more?)-  NORMAL high school things! (Gasp! What about the PROM!)---

Then, frankly, you just do it. It raises eyebrows. It elicits head-shakes. 

(They KNOW you’ll quit, because you CAN’T possibly DO High School at home, right?)

And then your kids do weirder things. 

They learn. They write and do math and history. They engage in intelligent conversation.

They start college classes while doing High School at the same time.

They enjoy Shakespeare. 

They get taller and can carry on conversations with other “normal” teens (though there are still some conversations they don’t know how to take part in…because, well, there are some things that are only learned in brick and mortar schools).  

They volunteer more and help more and are happy to do so.

People rely on your weird homeschooled High School students when help is needed, because, hey, the kids are reliable.

They graduate from High School…at whatever time is right for them…be it early, on time or a little later. And they have graduation ceremonies. (Personal ones.)

Almost just like their brick and mortar school peers.

OH, and if it’s necessary for their future, they’ve even learned Calculus.

Whodathunkit?

     In a world of acceptance for those who do things "differently," we chose to do things differently and we don’t find a whole lot of acceptance. But perhaps we find some tolerance. After all, what are they going to do about our choices? They are too busy with their kids running from sports to tutors to college tours to have time to pay too much attention to us. That's a good thing.

      I will admit that I still come short of rolling my eyes at people who look at us funny. Because I know that I too need to strive to accept those who do things differently than we do. When will they ever learn? And when will I?

Common Sense Media: Worth a Look and More

There is a great article on Common Sense Media about "What's Hot for Back to School (And How to Handle It)" with some great information that parents ought to know about things like streaming video, Google+, YouTube Poop, e-Readers and more.

It's one thing to market to adults who at least have the ability to look beyond the ruse (if they choose to), but marketing to kids, be it cereal, toys, technology or websites is sneaky work on the part of companies vying for dollars and loyalty at this time of year and especially in this economy. When this happens, any site that helps us see beyond the ploy and into what things really are is a good thing. Common Sense Media does a great job at helping us do that with regard to technology and media.
If you haven't checked out Common Sense Media, don't miss it. It's an easy, free read...you can subscribe to it or like it or just check it out on occasion, but one thing I know...you'll learn something new every time.

Look, Link and Learn: Cozi--- What a GREAT free app!

"Free"
Wonderful word, isn't it?
How about pairing "Free" with the words "Very, very useful?"
Better, no?
How about "Free; very, very useful; and superbly easy to use!"
Got it for you with Cozi!

Cozi is my new favorite free app that is more than an app. It's a tool to keep the whole family in the know about what's going on. We don't all need Outlook or some complex site to get it all  shared!
Bliss!
The homepage is www.cozi.com and looks like this: 




Cozi allows our family to share a calendar, shopping lists, journal space and more from our computers, our phones and our tablets. I am an Android user and it works perfectly for me, so there's no need to have one of the ubiquitous "i" things to make it work. (Though it works great for y'all too!)


Our family accesses our family Cozi site using individual usernames, but with a shared password.  Each person can input his or her schedules or see what I'm doing to know whether I can or can't "take them," "drop them" or pick them up. They also are reminded of appointments that effect them by the color coding...with one unique color per person. There are enough colors for even my dear Guru with 11 kids to use!







This is our family's Cozi page. Note the tool bar on the left that allows even closer access to each part of our Cozi account than the homepage holds. Note the journal where we can all add notes, pictures or anything as often as we'd like, and we even have the ability to share/email it to family or friends who are not part of your account as well.




The Shopping List feature allows us to add things from any of our accounts, print, send to phones, and more. The nice thing is, from my phone I can check things off and add other things very easily.  (From my Smartphone, I have access to all the tools on Cozi as well.)   No more phone calls while I'm in the market to add one more thing. It's an easy add from any device to update the list.
The shared calendar tool is probably the best part of Cozi because it allows everyone to add what they are doing and check on the schedule in the larger or smaller sense.

Every piece of the schedule is easy to manipulate and customize. Easier (by far) than Outlook or Google Calendar. The kids can do it and so can we!

 There are far more tools and ways to customize and use Cozi than you can shake a stick at! For a homeschooling parent/family, this tool can make life much easier and more streamlined. This would be a great tool to keep a daily log in for those with littles and a great tool for those with teens, because everyone can input activities and keep track. To do lists, recipes and tips are easily at hand. I just love this thing!
I had checked it out when it first came out and it's vastly improved and they are updating it all the time. Great!

Check it out. You can't beat free, now can you?