Dear Molly,
I have not written a blog post in quite a long time. There are many reasons for this...lack of priority, not adding it to my to-do list, a trip out of town for a funeral, but the biggest reason is that I lost my desire to break down our time together into educational jargon. I have been fighting my desire to give you all of what I know you need, such as lots of time to play, explore, and be read to, with what I have been indoctrinated to believe you need. I know in my heart, and have read countless books from child development experts who back me up, that children learn through play, yet our society is forcing formal learning on children younger and younger all the time. Babies sit in front of videos and get flash cards held in front of them, toddlers and preschoolers are bombarded with "educational" tv shows, classes... Toys, books, outings, tv, all are intended to "teach" children. There are very few idle moments in the life of American children. Children are not allowed to be bored. When we look to homeschooling families, we may see less tv, more time to play, etc. but we also see many parents turn everything into a "teachable moment." Many kids have curriculum brought into the home and that works to a point, but at what cost? I read blog after blog from moms who talk about what a fight it is to get their children to sit down and do school. Children have different learning styles. If a homeschooling mom ignores the learning style of her child there will be an issue. You and I have experienced that ourselves! You are a kinesthetic learner. If I were to sit you down and force you to work it is the ultimate torture for you. It is actually the ultimate torture for most kids regardless of his or her learning style. There are few kids who would rather sit still and be taught than be able to learn by living life. Need to work on fractions? Make some pizza or bake something. Adding and subtracting? Play a game. Do math problems in the car while you're driving. You would tell them to do marshmallow math;) We do adding, subtracting, grouping, dividing all while playing with a big pile of mini marshmallows. Anything can be learned without formal teaching. I have to remember this because I was brought up in the system that tells us otherwise. It is a system that says we have to have an outside person (a professional) teach our children or else they will end up horribly lacking. When all of the evidence indicates otherwise we get the "socialization" argument. I have yet to have anyone give me a compelling reason why a child spending 6 or 7 hours with a group of other children all the same age in a setting that keeps children out of the community and away from family is a legitimate way to socialize. It is a manufactured community. You, on the other hand, spend your days in actual community living and socializing with children of all ages, adults, elderly, and extended family. Socialization is the only argument that educators have to threaten us with...well that and chemistry. I get that one a lot:) I do not want to be your teacher. I do not believe that you need a teacher. I want to be your learning partner, your facilitator, but not your teacher. You have, as all kids have, an amazing capacity to learn. You ask amazing questions, you have a wide variety of interests, and you have a passion for life, and for learning all it has to teach you. My role is to carve out the space for you to play and explore. My role is to make sure that I take you places like museums, nature centers, libraries, and let you see how places like grocery stores work ( I will get you into the "secret room" at Costco, I promise!). My role is to search to find answers to your questions, and when the time comes, to guide you to find the answers for yourself. My role is to help you learn life skills. You have already mastered so many and are becoming such a help in the kitchen and around the house. I see how posessing these skills has given you such confidence. If I could tell other moms one thing that we have discovered while homeschooling I would tell them to start as early as possible introducing life skills. Sweeping the floor, mopping, helping with food prep, making a bed, folding socks...builds confidence, self esteem, and gives children a firm sense of being a part of a family. My role is to make sure that you have the skills you need to function in society. My role is to make sure that you have access to books at all times. You just learned how to read last week. I am so proud of your accomplishment and am so excited for what doors this will now open up for you. I do not take any credit for you accomplishing this feat. I did not "teach" you how to read. There is no program that would have taught you this. There are only a couple of things a child needs to know in order to read. The first one is that he or she needs to know every sound/sounds a letter makes. The second is how the sounds work together. After that it becomes all about exposure to books and practicing sounding things out until the light goes on. For some kids it can be 10 years old. For others it can be 3 or 4. I did not push you to read nor do I wear a t-shirt that announces that "I have, in fact, "taught" my 4-year-old to read so in your face traditional schoolers." I do not believe in the schools timeline. I do not believe that if a second grader still isn't reading that he or she should be labeled. I know that there are many homeschooled children who are allowed to develop at the pace that is natural to them and they learn to read at an older age, but they jump far ahead of their peers because they haven't been shamed for not learning it when everyone else did. I have known many children who developed a deep hatred for reading because of the shame they felt in the hands of a "teacher." Homeschooling parents do not have to follow traditional school guidelines. We need to allow our children to develop at their own pace and not feel pressured from outside sources. We need to step back. We need to let their learning pace, accomplishments, and in some cases even their failures to be theirs. We are facilitators. We should not be teachers. I know that I have confused that in the 1 1/2 years that we have homeschooled. I have bought into the pressure. I have allowed people who are a part of the system to freak me out. I have seen enough now, prayed enough, and I have certainly read enough to know that the system doesn't work for you, my child and I want it far away from you. I don't want to bring curriculum in our home that doesn't have anything to do with you. I know now that anything that is needed to be learned for college can be learned in a very short time with no curriculum involved. I know that curriculum is often very much like bringing school into our home. I don't want school in our home. I want a passion for learning. I want you to wake up when you are ten and when you are sixteen like you do now. I want you jumping out of bed with twenty questions and a slew of ideas and things that you must accomplish or you'll burst. I don't want that light to go out because I am sitting you down at the table forcing a curriculum on you that has nothing to do with you or your interests and has no context in which to connect it to your life. Curriculum is for parents who don't want their kids in the system, but are afraid to leave it. I was one of those parents once. I'm not anymore. I trust you because I see what you are capable of. I will not be responsible for being the one to put that light out. I will start to blog about our experiences again, but it will now be under this context. We are both learning every day. There is no "school" day. There is no "day off." There is only a house that is full of cooking, baking, reading, playing, imagination, story-telling, art, science, math, language, music, and whatever else grabs us. It is a great life and you are a great kid. I love every minute of my time with you and I am so grateful to not be spending it on lesson plans and fighting you to learn things that you don't want to learn. It is a waste of time and damaging. This childhood belongs to you and I am so grateful to be able to come along for the ride:)
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