Homeschooling in the UK - 4

We’re nearing the end of a school year – just 5 weeks to go! As I look back over our first year of homeschooling in the UK I can’t help thinking how it has impacted me, as the home educator, both positively and negatively.

Blessing: Learning Alongside My Children

One of the biggest blessings of being a homeschool mum is the chance to be able to learn alongside my children. Soon I’ll be asking the kids to reflect upon the things we’ve learnt and to tell me their favourite books and subjects, and I’m going to have a long list of my own too! I’ve found studying the various history books really enlightening, especially since I don’t remember covering any of this myself when I was at school. Learning about some of the key characters in church history has also been really inspiring. Something we’ve all really enjoyed this year has been the Apologia Astronomy course. It’s been fascinating to learn all about the planets and about how amazing our own Earth is in comparison. When Hubbie asks the kids at dinnertime what they’ve been learning about that day I find myself just as eager to share the interesting facts and findings. I’ve also really enjoyed the chance to read some classic literature that I otherwise wouldn’t have, such as Swallows and Amazons and the Children of the New Forest.

Challenge: Putting My Own Interests on Hold

Sometimes when I’m out and about with the kids on a nature walk I see other mothers walking along with just one baby in a pushchair, chatting to other mothers, or enjoying a natter in a café, and I wonder how my life might have been different if I’d had all 3 kids at school and had just been left with baby Joy (now aged 14 months). I think of all the extra time I would have had to be able to run errands, go shopping, or join in various groups and classes. Perhaps I would also have had more time to work on my writing or develop other hobbies and skills. Perhaps I would have been able to do a few hours a week of some ministry or charity work. If I’m still homeschooling by the time Joy reaches school age then no doubt my 'what if' thoughts will turn to jobs and second incomes. There’s no doubt that being a home educator involves some sacrifice compared to mothers with children in mainstream education. It could be another 17 years before I finally get some substantial ‘me-time’!

As I reflect upon those two sides of the homeschooling life, I realise that I value homeschooling my kids too much to give it up just so that I could have extra time to myself. The benefits, in my mind, far outweigh the disadvantages. I realise that I’m very fortunate to be in a position where I’m able to choose; where we’re able (with some sacrifices) to live on one income, and I know that for others that’s not even a possibility. I also realise that, although I would love to spend more time developing my writing or perhaps investigating other ministry opportunities, I feel that homeschooling is where God wants me to direct most of my talents and energies at this present time and I don’t feel ‘called’ in a different direction. I will always need to evaluate what is ‘best for the kids’, but at the moment homeschooling is ‘best for me’.

Do you have any thoughts on how homeschooling has impacted you, the educator? Please leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you.


Abide in Him!





If you've enjoyed this post, check out Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 as well!

Are you new to Grace to Abide? Keep updated with each new post via email, facebook or twitter.

Preparing My Homeschooler for Mainstream School.

Last week Sophie (8) and Charis (6) had a tour around their respective new schools, which they’ll be starting in September. I think I was more nervous and apprehensive than they were! I’m a homeschooler at heart, but for various reasons it seemed the right thing to do to put the girls into mainstream school during this year of transition. However, I can’t get rid of this anxious concern of "Will they measure up OK? Have I done a good job or will they be way behind their peers? Have I been a good advert for the homeschooling cause?"

I’m sure I’ll be writing a lot on this general topic over the coming few months,

but in this post I’d like to focus in on the concern I have about their writing skills, and by that I mean their ability to formulate their thoughts into written words and write in sentences, not the way they form their letters.

You see, up to now we’ve been very happily following a homeschooling curriculum, called Ambleside Online, which is based on Charlotte Mason’s methods of education. When I think about my girls going into mainstream school, I can foresee two potential areas of where the school might have a different approach to the one my girls have been used to: 1) writing ‘creatively’ and 2) spelling.

Creative Writing

In the Ambleside Online curriculum, children start with oral narration (telling back verbally what they’ve heard or seen), and it’s not until they’re about ten years old that they begin written narration. The expectation is that this should lead quickly to ‘creative writing’. However, Charlotte Mason didn’t require the children to come up with too much ‘original’ work at an early age. It was mostly dictations or narrations from what had been read or observed. Before the age of ten children practise their writing by doing daily copywork exercises.

“They should narrate in the first place and they will compose, later, readily enough, but they should not be taught 'composition.'” Vol 1 of Home Education, pg 247

Worried that Sophie, in particular, would flounder when asked to write something original in her exercise book during a lesson at school, I decided to encourage her to keep a little diary of her exploits over the summer. We’ve already missed a few days, but I’m hoping that by practising this a few times a week she’ll gain a little more confidence in writing down her thoughts rather than just copying a text in front of her. Diary-keeping, of course, is a form of written narration since she is recounting what she did and saw.

Spelling

I don’t yet know what the school policy is in regard to spelling, but I suspect that a teacher in charge of 30 pupils won’t have time to correct each spelling mistake the moment it occurs. Charlotte Mason didn’t like the child to get used to seeing a word misspelled, and the teacher/parent was supposed to erase the word as soon as possible before bad spelling habits were lodged in the child’s mind:

“The teacher's business to prevent false spelling, and, if an error has been made, to hide it away, as it were, so that the impression may not become fixed...”

Charlotte didn’t advocate writing out a word 10 times from a spelling list. Instead, she wanted the child to focus on the written word in front of them until they thought they could ‘see’ it in their mind’s eye. Then cover up the word and get them to spell it out orally, then perhaps write it out once.

“Once the eye sees a misspelt word, that image remains; and if there is also the image of the word rightly spelt, we are perplexed as to which is which...”

Up to now, in our homeschool, when the girls have needed to write, for example, a thank you letter back to their grandparents, I’ve always dictated or written out clearly what they were going to write and then got them to copy (like doing copywork). I didn’t make my child ‘guess’. The only times I’ve turned a blind eye to misspelled letters is when the girls have written something on their own initiative outside of ‘school’ and presented it to me, for example a card or a comment on a picture. In those situations I’ve felt it more important not to quash their enthusiasm. If they’ve written something longer, for example Charis loves to write emails to people, then I might point out one or two main spelling issues just to make the letter a bit more understandable to the person who would be reading it, but I let the rest go. But generally, their habit is always to check with me first a word they’re not sure about rather than just guessing and trying to write it phonetically, which we all know doesn't work too well in English!

I don’t know if this habit will hold them back in mainstream school, and whether or not it will be a problem. I suspect they will write more slowly and be more unsure about their writing than their peers. I wonder too how the different approach to spelling will work. I hope to continue using the art of 'visualisation' when we receive those spelling lists from their class teacher.



Supporting From Home

Of course, there are many other things I can continue to do with my girls, despite no longer homeschooling ‘full-time’, and one of those is to keep on reading quality books to them that challenge and inspire them. I’ll leave you with an appropriate comment on this from Charlotte Mason herself which I really love:

"Writing, of course, comes from reading, and nobody can write well who does not read much."

Qu: Has your homeschooled child spent some time in a mainstream school? I'd love to hear your thoughts about the particular challenges you faced and how you overcame them.

Abide in Him!



Are you new to Grace to Abide? Keep updated with each new post via email, facebook or twitter.

(Apologies that I was not able to find the exact references for several of the above quotes.)

Photo credit: freedigitalphotos.net / stockimages 


Grace to Abide will be taking a few weeks off over the summer, but we'll be back soon!

Giving Up Your Dreams For A Season – Part 2

In my last post I described how our family embarked down the path of homeschooling, all with great expectations and enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, the nature of our chosen way of life meant a return to England for six months in the spring and summer of Sophie’s first year, for ‘home leave’, and I found it a struggle to finish Year 1 with all the disruptions of travel, living out of suitcases and having to leave most of my resources behind in Russia. Still, I consoled myself, Year 2 would be much more settled.

However, that was not to be. Our time here in Russia has sadly and unexpectedly come to an end, and we’re busily preparing to move back to England for the short term while we wait and see what God has in store for our family next. For various reasons it makes sense to put Sophie (8) and Charis (nearly 6) into mainstream schools for the year. I am still coming to terms with the fact that we will never properly finish Year 2, and in all likelihood will be missing out completely on Year 3. Nor will I be able to start Charis off in Year 1 with the greater confidence that comes from starting down a road you have already travelled.

And so, as I pack up the books and the craft materials and the homeschool supplies that it took me five years to build up, I not only feel overwhelmed with sadness, but I realised that I'm also feeling afraid. I’m afraid of many things:

-         I’m afraid that I’m losing my dream, a dream I've held for five years now.

-         I’m afraid that I’m losing my status; the thing that defines me. For at least a year I won’t be ‘a Homeschooler’ anymore.

-         I’m afraid I’m losing my ‘niche’, my ‘passion’.

-         I’m afraid of getting sucked into the 'normal' educational system and of not being able to pull my family out again.

-         I’m afraid my children will be assessed academically and found to be lacking.

-         To be honest, one of my biggest fears is that my children will enjoy mainstream school more than they enjoyed doing school with me and won’t want to return to the dream life that I had envisioned for so long.

As always, I want to ask myself what God is trying to teach me through this experience. What lessons can I learn? How should I use this situation to draw closer to Him and deepen my faith?

But I think it’s too early for answers at the moment. All I know is that God has good plans for us as a family, plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us a hope and future. (Jeremiah 29v11) In a previous post I talked about having to go through hardships, and this is just another aspect of the one our family is called to walk through right now.

Qu: Have you faced the situation of having to give up one of your dreams for a season? 

Abide in Him!



 

Giving Up Your Dreams for a Season – Part 1

It was a little unexpected, actually, how fast the tears began to flow once I began to tear down my schoolroom. 

I knew it would be hard to pack everything up and sort through eight years’ worth of children’s books, artwork and craft supplies, most of which would have to be sold, given away or thrown away. However, I didn’t realise that, internally, this was signifying not just a move and a change of scene, but actually the end of a dream.

Let’s back up a little. When Sophie, who’s now eight, was just two years old, I enthusiastically embarked upon a low-key pre-school curriculum. For half an hour a day we would sit at the living room table and start learning letters, numbers, motor skills and all about zoo animals. As a teacher myself, growing up in a family of teachers, a good education was critically important to me. Ensuring that my children had the best possible start in life academically was not just a duty of motherhood but something that I was excited about.

About a year later I discovered the world of Charlotte Mason and Homeschooling, and as I avidly devoured books and trailed through websites on the subject, I eased up on Sophie’s academic pursuits. I began to understand the benefits of allowing ample time for a proper childhood, and instead I redirected my time and energies into planning and preparing myself for that wonderful day when we would start ‘properly’, the September before she turned seven.

Living overseas presented its challenges in terms of gathering materials, and those were the days before I discovered the wonders of Kindles, and so each trip back to England involved stocking up the suitcase with a few more books and craft materials, manipulatives and wall posters. When our third child, Nathaniel, arrived, we kicked Daddy out of his office in the house into the spare room adjoining the garage, and turned his office into our schoolroom. I need to add that he went fairly willingly (the increased noise and interruptions in the house were affecting his productivity levels) and he did a great job of repainting the walls a colourful orange and putting up shelves ready to hold all those wonderful books and other materials.

Our first term of following Year 1 of the Ambleside Online curriculum was so positive. Of course we had our bad days, our days of interruptions, grumpy children, or, more frequently, grumpy mummies, but finally I was doing what I’d been waiting to do for so long. Finally I had a label: I was a Homeschooler. At social gatherings I could now reply to the question “And what do you do?” with the answer “Oh, I homeschool our children.”, which sounded so much better than “Oh, I’m just at home with the kids.” I was loving it! I don’t know if Sophie was learning much, but I was learning all about the Roman Invasion of Britain, the persecution of the early Church,  and the Vikings.

I was soon to discover that homeschooling is not a smooth, predictable path, because it depends so much on family circumstances. Stay tuned as I continue the story in my next post…

Abide in Him!

Curriculum Choices

In my last post I set out the weekly timetable that we are currently aspiring to (with varying degrees of success!) Now I'd like to share with you some of the specific curriculum choices I've made for each subject. Please note that the images are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to click and buy then I get a small percentage towards our homeschooling budget :-)

As you know, we follow the Ambleside Online Curriculum, which I'm really enjoying. The website is super helpful, it's free, there's an online forum for discussing all your questions and connecting with other Amblesiders all over the world, the curriculum is broken down into weekly reading suggestions for you, the book list is wonderful - so many interesting, living books - oh, and did I mention that it was free? As a Brit, I've also found it very easy to tweak the curriculum to our specific cultural needs, and make substitutions where appropriate, although Sophie, my 8 year old, and I are loving the set history book: 'Our Island Story' by H.E. Marshall, which is taking us through the history of England. One of the great things about homeschooling is that I'm learning so much, whether or not my kids are!

Ambleside Online leaves you free to make choices in certain areas, so here's what we do:

Phonics and Reading

I have to admit that I haven't tried many different approaches to teaching reading, so I can only comment on what works for us. Once the child is familiar with the letters of the alphabet and the accompanying sounds, we spend some time blending three letter words (sometimes using the Charlotte Mason approach too). Then, sometime after their 5th birthday, we start with a mixture of Peter and Jane books and Explode the Code. This has worked really well for us. Many of the Peter and Jane books were mine when I was learning to read! The children love the pictures in Explode the Code, and it's helpful having the two side by side. By the time my eldest finished level 12 of Peter and Jane she was off reading her own books happily.

Maths

At the moment I use a mixture of Singapore Maths and MEP. I love the Kindergarten books for Singapore, although it feels like a bit of a waste of money sometimes because the pages are so colourful that the child only needs to write one number on some of them! We used MEP for Year 1, and I love that it's free and all online. I just print off the next 30 or so lessons and download the teacher's guide to my Kindle and away we go. I find it very rigorous, but sometimes there are a lot of sums that the child has to do in one lesson. Just for a change I ordered the Level 2 of Singapore Maths 'My Pals Are Here'. (For the UK I order from Ichthus Resources) Immediately I realised why it's helpful just to stick to one maths curriculum if you can help it, as we weren't ready for adding 3-digit numbers yet, but once I remembered I didn't need to do everything in order, I started a bit later in the book with simple multiplying. We're now using both, as I find that one reinforces what is learned in the other, but I think ultimately I'll go back to MEP.

Foreign Language

See this post here which explains what we do with Foreign Language. Since I wrote the post, though, a friend helped us to get set up with Rosetta Stone, so I currently have Charis (5) doing Rosetta Stone Russian and Sophie (8) doing Rosetta Stone French. So far I like it, although it's frustrating when the microphone doesn't always recognise what they're saying. Sophie also has a 30-minute Russian lesson once a week with our nanny.

Extras

You may have noticed some subjects in our timetable that are not on the Ambleside curriculum. They're weekly optional extras that reflect some of our own family values. 



Mapwork - Being a globe-trotting family we want our kids to have a firm grasp of Geography right from the word 'go'. This term we're looking at Europe. We have the Geo-puzzle of Europe, and once a week we look at a different country in our Children's Atlas and try to remember the capital city. Later we'll also learn the flags.



Mission - This is close to our hearts also. Once a week we read about one of the people groups in Window on the World and pray for them. Since our focus is on Europe this term, I'm currently choosing people groups in Europe.





Astronomy - I know this is covered later in Ambleside Online, but I already bought the book and it looked so much fun. The plan is just to very slowly get started with it, so that we have a head start when the time comes.




 
Character - This book was recommended over at Simply Charlotte Mason. I choose three character qualities we'd like to work on each term, and we read one of the stories each week. If they want to, I'll photocopy the accompanying picture and they can colour it while we talk about it.



Scripture Memory - I love this approach over at Simply Charlotte Mason! It's very quick and simple, and we enjoy doing it as a family each morning. It's amazing how quickly it sinks in without too much effort. Even my 3 year old is quoting along with some of them.


Bible - In the afternoons I read the Year 2 selection from the 'actual' Bible, but in the mornings, in our family Bible time, we read from a Children's Bible, to keep all ages interested. I cannot recommend highly enough The Jesus Storybook Bible, but we also rotate a few others.

Extra-Curricular Activities

Piano - We'd love for each child to grow up knowing how to play at least one instrument, and the piano seemed a good place to start since we have one at home. We tried paying for a professional teacher to come to our home once a week, but Sophie didn't take to that very well, so for now I know just enough to help her through the John Thompson books that were mine when I was her age. She's loving it, and I don't need to nag her to practise. These books have a 'living book' feel to them because she gets to play actual tunes rather than go through lots of drills.

Dance - Other than having them run around the back yard or join in with my morning DVD workouts, I wasn't doing any proper 'physical education' with them, so we chose to send the girls to a local dance class. It's called 'sporty ballroom dancing', and it gets them moving with a bit of 'cha cha cha' thrown in! They go twice a week and enjoy it. When Nathaniel (3) is a bit older I plan to send him to gymnastics.

Art - The girls also attend an art class in town twice a week. Sophie showed a real flair for art at a young age and I wanted to find a way to encourage her and develop her talent without her having to rely soley on her creatively-challenged mother. Charis is in the same class and has also developed a love of art. Ordinarily, driving into town four times a week for extra classes would be a bit much, but we decided they were important a) for developing these special skills b) for interacting with other children in the local culture and the local language and c) for learning to be under the authority of another grown-up other than their parents in a classroom setting.

So, there you have it! I hope that was useful for some of you. 

Qu: Do you use any of these materials? 
Qu: Do you have any particular suggestions that I haven't mentioned that you love? 
Qu: How do you do extra-curricular activities in your homeschool?

Abide in Him!

How We Plan Our Days

I don't know about you but I'm forever tweaking our daily schedule. I love having set routines and predictability, but life just isn't like that. Interruptions happen, guests arrive, children get sick, classes get cancelled....However, it doesn't mean to say that we shouldn't try to establish some order and 'normality' to our days. I believe that kids thrive on routine and feel safe with predictable schedules. As homeschooling mums it also helps us to feel like we're ticking all the right boxes and being diligent in our job.

In the early days of homeschooling I spent hours on the internet reading and researching how other mothers ordered their days. I don't want to pretend that I've got it down pat and that mine is the perfect schedule by any means, but just in case it might be helpful to a few people out there then I thought it was about time I shared my daily timetable with you all.

My eldest is 8 and is in Year 2 of the Ambleside Online curriculum, which I love. My second daughter is 5. She's in a kind of kindergarten year, but listens in to a lot of what the eldest is doing. My son is 3, and mostly hangs around the schoolroom playing with his trains or his cars, although recently we've started looking at some letters together.

The times below are very loose and flexible. Usually, when we've finished one activity we just move onto the other, but it helps me to keep track of where I think we should be.

8.45am Family Bible Time (using a Children's Bible), prayer and Scripture Memory
9.00am Phonics (during this hour I also have the weekly composer music playing in the background if it's not too distracting)
9.15am Maths
9.45am Reading
10.00am Copywork
10.15am Snack time in the living room while I read the daily poetry selection and we recite one of the poems we've been learning. We also drill our weekly 'Times Table'.
10.45am Literature (one of the weekly reading selections followed by narration)
11.15am French (Tues, Thurs), Russian (Mon,), Artist Appreciation (Wed), Book of Centuries (Fri)
11.30am Reading time with my 3-year old while my girls practise piano.
11.45am Outdoor time - usually a walk around the village. This can include a 'nature walk' on one day.
12.30pm Lunch preparation time while kids play
1.00pm Lunch
2.00pm Quiet Half Hour
2.30pm Bible reading (Ambleside selection), followed by Monthly Hymn and Folk Song
2.45pm Mission (Mon), Mapwork (Tues), Astronomy (Thurs), Character (Fri)
3.00pm Literature (another of the weekly reading selections followed by narration)
3.30pm Snack
3.45pm Nature topic and nature notebook (Mon), Handicrafts (Fri)
4.30pm Free time

 On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons the girls have a dance class in town, and on Wednesdays I have a nanny come so that I can have an afternoon off. During that time Sophie (8) has a half an hour Russian lesson with the nanny. I'll also need to tweak the timetable when we work out the new schedule for art classes in town, which the girls used to go to twice a week. Unfortunately things keep changing here!

I hope that's helpful for some. Every family is different, so you need to find what works for you, and as I say, my schedule is forever changing because....well....life happens! Also, I often drop some of the 'extras' if we're having a busy period, like the Astronomy, Mission, Mapwork, Character and Book of Centuries.



In my next post I'll talk through some of my curriculum choices for the individual subjects.



Qu: I'd love to hear how you plan your days! Please feel free to give a quick outline or link to a relevant blog post in the comments below.

Abide in Him!



P.s. I just wanted to clarify again that this is my ideal schedule that we're working towards at the moment, and it doesn't always happen! In fact, the morning I posted this we had some unexpected guests and that was it - the schedule went to pot for the day. Also, this is a winter schedule, since we can't get outside much at the moment and it's nice to have something to fill the whole day. Once the weather gets better we'll be scheduling much more outdoor time. So please don't feel like I'm some superhero mom - very far from it!

Photo credit: freedigitalphotos.net/ Stuart Miles

Homeschooling Overseas Part 4

In my previous post in this series on Homeschooling Overseas, I talked about the kind of answers I would give to local people asking me why I homeschool. Those answers are often quite different, for various reasons, to the answers I might give to friends and family back home.

Again, I'd like to stress that I'm not suggesting that homeschooling is in any way superior to other ways of educating your children. I believe it's a decision each family needs to make, and this is just the decision we felt was best for our family given our current situation.

However, as I reflect upon all that I've read and experienced, I've come up with, perhaps, my top ten reasons why we think that homeschooing is such a great thing to do:

1)      Homeschooling means I can instill in my children the beliefs and values which are important to our family, rather than placing them in the hands of someone else whose beliefs, values and teaching styles may well differ significantly from mine.

2)      I have freedom to decide what we should study, and make time for subjects such as Bible and Scripture Memorisation. I can talk about my faith in God as we discuss History, Geography, Literature and so on.

3)      I love the Charlotte Mason approach of using Living Books. I know that my children are not wasting their time on meaningless activities just to keep them quiet for 40 minutes (yes, I’ve been there and done that as a mainstream schoolteacher I’m ashamed to say!) but every day they’re being fed with interesting and challenging ideas. Even though I loved school myself as a child, I wished I’d had a chance to learn some of the things my children are learning through the Ambleside Online curriculum. I’m learning so much myself from having to teach it!

4)      Homeschooling is wonderfully flexible. You can work around important family events or crises or illnesses without your child having to miss out or fall behind. You can adapt the schedule to the weather and have spontaneous field trips if that’s your kind of personality. You can turn seemingly ordinary events, like shopping at the supermarket, into learning opportunites.

5)      Homeschooling helps you to work alongside your child in a way that a teacher with a class of 36 children simply is not able to. You can review material or push ahead as needed. You can follow your child’s interests. If they have a question, they know they’re going to be heard and have the chance to have a long discussion about it if necessary (usually culminating with a quick look for a suitable video on youtube!) The length and sequence of the lessons can be designed to fit your child’s mood, learning style and attention span.

6)      Homeschooling avoids the hassle of the school run, worrying about uniforms, needing to do homework in the evenings, and the time that is wasted at school by having to walk between classrooms, take registers and wait for the teacher to deal with disruptive pupils. There’s no need for parents evenings or school board meetings.

7)      Socialisation? Yes, we get to avoid many of the negative effects of that. We don’t have to worry too much about bullying or peer pressure. Our children have less exposure to the latest fads and trends and ‘must have’ expensive items. They have less exposure to unhelpful influences, coarse language, unsuitable images on cell phones or the pressure to start showing an interest in the opposite sex before they’re ready.

8)      Socialisation? Yes, what great opportunities exist in that area for the homeschooled child! They spend their days with people who are not all exactly the same age as them. They learn from older siblings and teach younger ones, and yes they learn skills of diplomacy, teamwork, delegation, leadership, forgiveness and consideration for others by being around them all the time! There’s more time in the day to get out and enjoy different interests, either joining in extra-curricular activities with other children, or following Mum about on daily errands or on her visits to friends and neighbours.

9)      It’s a cliché that people always say: ‘Enjoy them while they’re young because they grow up so fast!’ but we all know it’s true. I don’t want to just have my child for the first 4 or 5 or 6 years of their life. I want to spend as much time with them as I can before they leave the nest. I love to be a part of their growing and learning. I love that they’re so close to their siblings because they spend so much time together.

10)  Being a homeschooling mother is never boring. Yes it’s hard work, and some days can be really difficult. It requires self-discipline, consistency and great patience. But it is so rewarding. What a great feeling when your child starts reading on their own for pleasure and you know that it’s mostly thanks to you and your patience over their stumblings in the early days of ‘cat, sat, mat’! How wonderful to witness your child’s creative works of art take shape, to see the smile on their face when they’ve finally understood something or mastered some skill they used to find difficult!

"The noblest calling in the world is that of mother. True motherhood is the most beautiful of all arts, the greatest of all professions. She who can paint a masterpiece or who can write a book that will influence millions deserves the plaudits and admiration of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters whose immortal souls will be exerting an influence throughout the ages long after paintings shall have faded, and books and statues shall have been destroyed,deserves the highest honor that man can give."                                     David O.McKay

Qu: What would you add to the list of 'top ten reasons for homeschooling'?

Abide in Him!

Homeschooling Overseas Part 3

I'm continuing my series of posts on homeschooling overseas. In the first part I looked at some of the schooling options open to ex-pats such as ourselves. In the second part I talked about our journey as a family down the road towards homeschooling. In this third part I’d like to address the question of what to say when local friends ask the question ‘why?’.

Sophie was 7 at the beginning of this academic school year, which means that here in Russia she should be going into Year 1. And so, like never before, I find myself being questioned by interested and/or concerned local friends and neighbours as to what exactly I’m doing with her and why I’m choosing to teach her at home rather than send her to local school. Homeschooling is so rare here that they just don't understand why anyone would even want to do this.

As I contemplate this, I realise of course that there are certain things I would say to some groups of people and not to others. For example, I don’t want to go into detail with local people about how I feel I can provide better teaching materials and resources for my child at home, or how I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of my child learning how some students ‘supplement their teacher’s income’ in order to ensure good grades, but I might mention those things to some ex-pat friends. With friends who are believers I would probably go into a few details about some of the spiritual advantages of homeschooling, but it's usually not appropriate with the majority of local people who tend to ask me questions.

So what would I say? Here are some things I came up with:

Friend: “Which school are you sending Sophie to?”

Me: “Actually, Sophie learns at home with me. We have ‘Home School’.”

Friend: “Oh! Why did you decide to do that?”

Me: “Well, I’m a teacher by profession (OK, I know not everybody can say that, but if you can then it helps!). We decided it was more helpful for her to learn in English so that when we go back to England it will be easier for her to go to an English university.”

Friend: “But how do you do exams? Do you have to show someone what you’re doing?”

Me: “It’s not necessary to do exams until she’s 16 or 18. And in England you don’t have to show someone what you’re doing in home school. (This may not be true for you depending on your home country situation). Exams are needed to check how the student is doing, and I can see for myself whether she’s learnt something or not.”

Friend: “How do you know what to teach?”

Me: “I bring lots of books from England, and I follow a curriculum on the internet that tells me what I should be teaching.”

Friend: “Isn’t it boring for her not to be with other children and have friends?”

Me: “Oh, she has friends and opportunities to mix with other children. She plays every day with our neighbours, she has friends at our church and she goes to an art class and dance class twice a week in town.”

Friend (running out of things to say): “Well, it must be really difficult. I couldn’t do it!”

Me: “It does take up a lot of my time, but I really enjoy it. I like to have all the children with me during the day, and they go to bed at 8pm, so I get some time to myself in the evenings.” (Russian children usually go to bed when their parents do. They make up for this by having an enforced 2 hour nap at kindergarten).

So that might be how a typical conversation might go. I tend to stress certain things (like the importance of learning in English) which aren't actually among the top ten reasons why I homeschool in the first place! In my next post on this topic I'll list those top ten reasons, but in the meantime, let me know how you deal with these kinds of situations, I'd love to hear how other people handle them:

Qu: What kind of questions do you get asked by local friends about your homeschooling? 

Qu: What answers do you give?

Abide in Him!