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Educating at home can test patience, organization, sanity
While most students prepared for the new school year by purchasing new clothes, classroom supplies and backpacks, there are a select few students whose preparation included clearing off the dining room table -- home schoolers.
Every time I help one of my children with their spelling words or review for a test, my admiration grows for those who choose to home school their children.
I am the first to admit that there is no way I could home school my children. To put it simply, I lack the patience and the organization to teach one child at home, much less all five of mine.
My attention is too easily distracted by loads of laundry and dirty dishes to concentrate on addition and subtraction problems.
As someone who has never home schooled nor will likely ever take on that task, I can see several advantages to home schooling:
As the parent/teach-er/administrator, you get to enforce your own personal dress code. If you don't like what your child is wearing (presuming they get out of their pajamas), you can just send your child to their room to change.
If you want to take a field trip, you simply take one. No permission slips to sign. No schedules to coordinate.
And most importantly, you get to choose what you want to teach -- or don't want to teach -- and how it is presented. Personally, I'd skip that section on frog dissection and focus heavily on time in the kitchen baking peanut butter cookies, always an important skill to master.
Of course, there are my perceived disadvantages, which keep me from even thinking about home schooling:
When a family home schools, they don't have that time away from each other.
Let me state for the record that I love all my children dearly and would do just about anything for them. But both myself and my children need separation from each other. I like to believe that our time apart just makes our hearts grow fonder for each other. Or at the very least, the separation gives us time to regroup for our hours together at night.
Then, there is the limited social interaction with other children. One friend who home schools said her daughter, who attended school for one year, does miss the classroom parties, the field trips with classmates, hanging out with friends. Now, mom is in charge of the party schedule, trips to the park and arranging playdates.
Actually, my children do attend school, visit friend's houses regularly and go to the grocery store (when mom has the patience). Yet, sometimes, they act like they never get out of the house and have never been around other people before. Maybe my children have overloaded on social interaction.
While serving as the teacher, the parent can bring in a variety of learning activities. But I already know that my curriculum would have to wait until the beds were made, the clothes folded and the windows washed.
(Maybe not that last task since that hasn't been done in two years, but it's a nice thought.) I have a feeling that everyone would be getting ready for bed by the time we finished that day's curriculum.
Of all the people who home school their children, I am truly in awe. Maybe one day I'll have the patience, the organization, the mental capacity to teach all my children at home. But by then, all my children will have graduated.
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I've been asked several times recently how my garden has fared and here's an update: The weeds actually saved the blooms on the plants from burning up and everything is now flourishing.
After pulling enough weeds to make a path to a select few plants, I have found an abundance of peppers, beets and tomatoes. While this may seem like a dream come true, it leads to one final problem: Dealing with all the produce.