Homeschooling or Schooling at Home?

Schooling at home is just like schooling in a "traditional" school setting, just in a different location. Let me extemporate: you have a more scheduled day. When schooling at home, you do every subject every day. You do a lot of written work, no matter what your age. Worksheets, grades, reports (even in lower elementary grades); math by worksheet, fractions by worksheet, writing by worksheet. It is the same routine every day. For linear thinkers, convergant thinkers, and left brained learners, this is the best way to learn.

Homeschooling is different. Chances are that you might not hit every subject every day. Watching "Discovery Kids Ultimate Awesome".... can count as homework. For instance, today we were watching the show on crocodiles. Deriving from that show, our little homeschool branched (divergent thinking) into discussions on evolution and creation, radio carbon dating, dinosaurs, each species reproducing after it's own kind, if we came from monkeys - why are there still monkeys? and such. Did we read a prescribed text? No. Was learning happening? Yes. Was it forced? No. Do you think more will be retained? For the right brained, creative, divergent thinker, the answer is a definite Yes.

As part of our homeschooling experience, my son works with money. He pays for toys or gum with is own money. He counts it out to the cashier. I ask him, before he gets to the front, to add seven cents to every dollar the item costs for the tax. We talk about what bills to give the cashier and how much he will get back. He does all of this in his head and always gets it right. Should we, instead, do the work on paper just because that's the way the traditional schools do it?

At our homeschool, we don't do a lot of worksheets. We do have a "LeapFrog" learning second grade workbook that we use when mom is feeling a bit under the weather, but it is not the norm. My son has a fabulous creative streak and loves to draw and write. As homeschoolers, we have the option to approach his learning from a different perspective. Sometimes he is intimidated by writing because he is afraid to "fail" and misspell words. So, I have on occasion taken his dictation and typed the story for him. He gets to see his story written correctly. He knows how to spell a lot of words not from forced learning on spelling tests, but simply by reading and observing.

Now, please understand that I have but one seven year old child I am homeschooling. I have the freedom to tailor the curriculum to his needs. If I had many children with both right- and left-brained learners, my day would be very different as I attempted to give the best to each child and helped them learn in the best way for them.

For now, my job as a homeschooling mom is primarily to present opportunities for learning and encourage the paths his brain takes to that learning while I weave the necessary subjects into the tapestry. It is my job as the homeschool teacher to impose a few absolute necessities and be flexible to his interests. After all, who cares if we are learning about the animals of Africa in second or fourth grade? Who declared that state history had to be learned in third grade? What is more important as a homeschooling parent, I feel, is to present learning as a lifelong journey, not something you simply do "in school." That, and to learn that subjects do not stand alone. When, after "school" will he be required to do math worksheets? He won't. He will use his math in everyday life. When will he be required to spout the facts of each state? When will he be required to list the states in alphabetical order? Chances are that he won't. Each subject weaves itself into the tapestry of learning and they compliment each other. Math can be used in biology and chemistry as well as "math." Spelling and reading do not stand alone. Reading permeates absolutely every aspect of life. Why should it stand alone while we are learning?

My philosophy of learning and therefore, homeschooling, is to learn what the child needs and seek to provide that for them. What if Edison or Einstein were made to conform to their school's methods of learning? These right brained, divergent thinkers would not have provided us with the great advances they did. Their minds would not have learned to soar with the eagles, but instead to trod along with the turkeys, just gettin' along like everyone else.

Heaven forbid.