Over the years, we have been through a half a dozen incarnations of 'homeschooling'. I started off with Jake at 5, doing shapes and colors and letters and number 30 minutes a day while Ben and Chan napped. We read stories about mail carriers and pilots and bears and earthworms. We cut up fruit and planted beans in clear cups filled with cotton wool. We spent most of our day outside.
Ben and Chan came into this experience easily, they joined in with art and nature study, they listened as I read, they scribbled while Jake tried to stay in the lines, they banged away on the keyboard and glued sticks to pieces of paper.
By the time Jake was 6, we were full-on Charlotte Masonites. I followed the curriculum day after day and watched as his eyes glazed over, as he struggled to understand some of the vocabulary, as he plodded through his worksheets with only the end in mind. We called ourselves Castle Academy.
Ben and Chan came into this experience easily, they joined in with art and nature study, they listened as I read, they scribbled while Jake tried to stay in the lines, they banged away on the keyboard and glued sticks to pieces of paper.
By the time Jake was 6, we were full-on Charlotte Masonites. I followed the curriculum day after day and watched as his eyes glazed over, as he struggled to understand some of the vocabulary, as he plodded through his worksheets with only the end in mind. We called ourselves Castle Academy.
At 7, I was into unit studies. I decided my way of viewing school was wrong, it should be part of life, not a separate activity. We would go to the library and he would name a topic and I would fill our basket with books, which we would read over the next 2-3 weeks, fitting in field trips and such when I could find something relevant. We called ourselves Spring Hill Elementary.
At 8, we spent nearly every week in this way: Greenway biking 3-4 times a week, Nashville's Ben West library once a week, hiking 2-3 mile trails twice a week, Wednesdays were Wilderness mornings at a local park that did wonderful nature programs year-round. Afterward, if the weather was good, we would hike the whole afternoon, eating picnics from our daypacks and having an ice cream on the way home. Tuesday we went to storytime at the library, which was a busy affair with stories, dancing, art, puppet shows, ballet dancers, food tasting and loads of books. We would meet the librarian at the park for lunch more often than not and she would clap and cheer as the kids swung high or jumped off something. After lunch, we swam.
We lived within an hour of 4 huge lakes, 5 state parks and 2 major Greenway systems. There were parks, sandy beaches, nature programs, night hikes, Owl Prowls, turtle talks, rocks to climb.
On Thursday was our homeschool co-op. Jake dictated articles for the paper, they all took Spanish and art and did math and P.E. We had field trips, hikes, playdays. We went camping and swimming and would sometimes drive all the way to Cade's Cove to catch a mountain band or spend the day in Chattanooga at the Aquarium and ride the carousel over and over.
In January of '05, I went to my first skate day and met Heather, my first friend in Alabama. By May, I had started roamschool and we had our first official group outing where I met Karen, my second friend. The three of us did everything together for a long time before adding in "Crazy" Karen (as I thought of her when we first met, though now I worry she's the most sane of us all), Cathy, Suzette and Gina along the way. Katy and Amanda, Eva, Pam, Regina, Michelle...and so many other moms who have come into our orbit and helped me find my footing, keep my footing.
When Jake was 10, 11, 12, 13, 14-we unschooled. Ben's whole life has had little 'schooled' influence. He reads, writes, does math, builds from a plan or from his own brain. No one taught him. Our idea of 'doing school' largely revolved around a couple of math sheets now and then to make sure they understood a concept or a marathon of history or science shows that I found to be inspiring. Mostly, we played outside, did art, read books, played with friends and lived together.
This past fall, Jake decided he wanted me to get his GED. We started slowly covering 3 subjects a week-math, history and science-until he was at 'grade level' of 9th grade according to placement testing. I started Ben and Chan at the same point, so they all are doing the same subjects the same way. In 5 months, they have gone from somewhere around 4th-5th grade in math to Algebra I. They can write essays and formal letters. They have a good grasp of US History from the Native Americans through the 1960's. They know all the states and capitals and can label them. They can diagram the human body in detail, they can start from an egg and sperm and tell the steps through birth of the development of a baby.
They have a good grasp on physics, biology and can work first aid magic. They can plan a nutritious meal, do the shopping, cook, serve, clean. They can check the oil, brake fluid, power steering fluid, tire pressure, can add wiper fluid, they can hook up the camper and unhook it, can balance it and set it up and take it down. Jake can change the oil and change a tire and a battery.
I had worried the unstructured time, the whole years where they played and explored and gamed away the days one at a time, would leave them flopping like fish out of water, desperate to grasp what they needed to survive, but unable. This delve into 'formal studies' has bashed that fear. Instead of spending months drilling the multiplication tables, we started in with Pre-Algebra and they picked up on multiplication and division in a matter of days.
I stare at the page with the problem that looks like a product code filled with letters, numbers and symbols. Ben comes along and corrects me. "It's not 22, it's negative 22. You take 28 from 6 at the end, not 6 from 28."
Their total unconcern for what should be hard or what I think leaves me trying a new way of thinking. All this time, I homeschooled mainly to allow them to live their lives as unencumbered as possible, they don't concern themselves about possessions or clothing, they listen to NPR and have only seen commercials when we were visiting somewhere with a TV. Hairstyles means they brushed it...probably today.
We are now Northfield Academy, named for the pasture that is on the north side of the house. We have been homeschooling for 10.5 years now. I still don't have it all figured out. I don't think I ever will. But, I no longer think that's the point.
