How Homeschooling Teaches Me: Learning to Trust Myself and God
You know how you thought that you would raise your kids, but in many ways they are raising you? Yes, you are the parent - but they are the teachers, pushing you to be more than you thought you could ever be. Becoming a mother was like a shamanic death, releasing the old self and struggling to figure out what being a mother actually means.
Homeschooling is like that, too. Here I thought I'd get to use my stellar teaching skills to be at the helm of my children's education. That we would fall into this comfy rhythm of my teaching and their loving to learn. Crafts, science experiments, writing projects, math problems - all would flow joyfully along here at the old kitchen table.
These days, my kitchen table isn't even the same as it was. Literally - we bought a new one to fit better into our house. I keep rearranging rooms, trying to make a family of four who spends a lot of time at home, and all our stuff, fit into our smallish house. The dining nook we bought almost fits, but a little awkwardly. Sort of like homeschooling. It's all a journey of figuring out how the pieces fit together.
We gravitate towards unschooling, but I do keep my finger on the pulse of where my kids are in their academic discoveries. If there is something I feel they "should" learn, I teach it in a way that meets their learning styles and is mostly play-based (even for my seven-year-old). One day a week, we attend an enrichment program for homeschoolers sponsored by the public school district. While it isn't terribly academic, it gives the kids a sense of belonging to a school and having teachers that aren't Mom. And they get to pack a backpack and a lunch, and have recess.
The kids want to go to this "school" for the same reason I looked forward to putting them in school. No, not just for a break from each other, but to be a part of a community. I and my younger brother were part of fabulous family-centered school communities, and I looked forward to being the mom in that scene. But the schools here are very different from where I grew up, especially in my neighborhood. My kids are different, too, and our family system is different. So we ended up homeschooling - and while I love my homeschooling community, a part of me longs for a more structured, accountability-based milieu. Not for the kids, but for me.
So my brilliant idea was that I would get licensed to teach, and could teach language arts at this enrichment program. I got so excited about the idea, figuring with my masters degree and a test I took years ago when applying to grad school for a master's in teaching (k-12 art in this case, a program I didn't attend for various reasons), I could fill out some forms, pay some fees, and voila, be licensed. I would be even more of a a member of this school that values and understands education the way I do: as a family-centered flow, that also benefits from having a home-away-from-home base.
Well, in doing some research I found that it wasn't so easy to procure said license. In order to get licensed, even with my degree, I have to do a year-long teaching training program teaching in my area of endorsement (in this case, English). So I would have to put my kids in school. I considered the idea- it would be a year of living differently, for contrast. It might not be easy, but would benefit everyone in the long run. But it's a way I chose not to live, for all sorts of reason, not the least of which is that my gut tells me that putting my kids in school would take something deeply important from them. Do I really want to jump through mainstream hoops just to work at most two days a week in an alternative environment? I don't need a license to teach co-ops or private school or homeschool - just public school, and therefore this program that I love.
I've been analyzing WHY I want this so much. If it were an easy hop skip and jump, I wouldn't question, I would just do it. But it would mean major upheaval for the whole family. So if I can understand my deeper motivations, maybe I can meet that need some other way. Long story short, I want to feel a little bit normal. I homeschool, but don't use a curriculum. I write eco-spiritual books that don't fit in any one religious category and don't really make sense to a lot of people. My own spiritual path is also an integration of Paganism and wisdom Christianity. So I just don't fit anywhere and am not normal in any way, and I'm tired. I want to fit. I want to get rewarded for what I do. And this program that I would teach in is just enough normal and just enough different. And who knows - maybe some day after my kids go off into the world, I would even teach in a normal public school.
So here I come to the whole point of this long blog. My big realization: Just as I support my children learning through a variety of channels not being graded or tested, and exploring all their interests in however it fires them up, I need to support myself living the same way. Just as I fiercely defend balanced unschooling (i.e., not radical), I need to defend to myself my own flowing in life. That whatever I am doing, writing, learning, and following is just right for where I am now and I don't need someone to approve of whatever that is to make it valid. This is a realization I am still sitting with and trying on for comfort. My inner devil's advocate says there's nothing wrong with being accepted and understood and rewarded. And I agree with her - but I also realize I need to let go of some of the egotistic need for that. I'm doing what I'm doing, and as long as I am in integrity with myself, following the compass in my gut, I am doing the path God has set out for me.
I don't know where this will lead me, or what will come of my ideas and plans, but for this moment I am trying to center in my heart and trust God and myself. Which is really, when it comes down to it, what homeschooling is all about, too.
These days, my kitchen table isn't even the same as it was. Literally - we bought a new one to fit better into our house. I keep rearranging rooms, trying to make a family of four who spends a lot of time at home, and all our stuff, fit into our smallish house. The dining nook we bought almost fits, but a little awkwardly. Sort of like homeschooling. It's all a journey of figuring out how the pieces fit together.
We gravitate towards unschooling, but I do keep my finger on the pulse of where my kids are in their academic discoveries. If there is something I feel they "should" learn, I teach it in a way that meets their learning styles and is mostly play-based (even for my seven-year-old). One day a week, we attend an enrichment program for homeschoolers sponsored by the public school district. While it isn't terribly academic, it gives the kids a sense of belonging to a school and having teachers that aren't Mom. And they get to pack a backpack and a lunch, and have recess.
The kids want to go to this "school" for the same reason I looked forward to putting them in school. No, not just for a break from each other, but to be a part of a community. I and my younger brother were part of fabulous family-centered school communities, and I looked forward to being the mom in that scene. But the schools here are very different from where I grew up, especially in my neighborhood. My kids are different, too, and our family system is different. So we ended up homeschooling - and while I love my homeschooling community, a part of me longs for a more structured, accountability-based milieu. Not for the kids, but for me.
Well, in doing some research I found that it wasn't so easy to procure said license. In order to get licensed, even with my degree, I have to do a year-long teaching training program teaching in my area of endorsement (in this case, English). So I would have to put my kids in school. I considered the idea- it would be a year of living differently, for contrast. It might not be easy, but would benefit everyone in the long run. But it's a way I chose not to live, for all sorts of reason, not the least of which is that my gut tells me that putting my kids in school would take something deeply important from them. Do I really want to jump through mainstream hoops just to work at most two days a week in an alternative environment? I don't need a license to teach co-ops or private school or homeschool - just public school, and therefore this program that I love.
I've been analyzing WHY I want this so much. If it were an easy hop skip and jump, I wouldn't question, I would just do it. But it would mean major upheaval for the whole family. So if I can understand my deeper motivations, maybe I can meet that need some other way. Long story short, I want to feel a little bit normal. I homeschool, but don't use a curriculum. I write eco-spiritual books that don't fit in any one religious category and don't really make sense to a lot of people. My own spiritual path is also an integration of Paganism and wisdom Christianity. So I just don't fit anywhere and am not normal in any way, and I'm tired. I want to fit. I want to get rewarded for what I do. And this program that I would teach in is just enough normal and just enough different. And who knows - maybe some day after my kids go off into the world, I would even teach in a normal public school.
I don't know where this will lead me, or what will come of my ideas and plans, but for this moment I am trying to center in my heart and trust God and myself. Which is really, when it comes down to it, what homeschooling is all about, too.
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