“Life is messy, your homeschool most likely will reflect that. “
A Homeschooling Introduction
There has been a new surge in the trad-wife movement, but that looks different for every marriage and every family. I wouldn’t claim the title, unless the definition is a woman who has chosen to stay at home to dedicate their time to their home and their family. I came home from a public school teaching career to home-school my children and manage a household. I am a homeschooling mom.
I became a stay-at-home mom in 2013 after 7.5 years of public-school teaching. I was much influenced by society, my parents and teachers to go to college, get a degree, be a working mom once family life came. That’s how I lived for those 7.5 years. My toddlers raised and influenced by many others, instead of their mother. By the time I came home, I had 6 children and my 7th on the way.
I was not quick to jump onto the homemaking, homeschooling band wagon. It was neither very popular in my area or even at large at that time. Homeschooling has gained interest and traction in the years following the pandemic, which is a huge motivator in sharing my experience and adapting in the 12-ish years we’ve been homeschooling.
There are so many tangents I can go on. In fact, this will be one among a larger homeschooling series that addresses other homeschooling content, hot-topic debates, and plethora of approaches. This, however is a short encouragement for parents on the fence about homeschooling and questioning the commitment and the know-how needed to get started and maintain a home-school. The know-how may be a bit unexpected.
As a school teacher, I was primarily assigned to the primary grades in public school, my favorite having been first grade. I taught several cohorts of 6 and 7 years olds how to read and write, add and subtract. I was fairly sufficient as a public-school teacher, had good administrative observations and evaluations; I was usually confident in my teaching abilities. I knew how to manage a classroom.
My first year homeschooling was a rude awakening. What was the issue, you might ask? My training and education focused on educating and managing a classroom and group of close in age children. I will admit that when I was moved to higher elementary grades, I had to adapt to their maturity, personalities, hormones, but still they were all in the same age range. At home, however, I had children age 9 to newborn. Newborns being extremely needy, 9-year-old’s being pre-pubescent and hormonal along with terrible twos and unmotivated learners in between. Add to that, a home to manage. School cooks and janitors are non-existent. A once empty home for a large portion of the day was now being lived in, a continuous mess of dishes, toys, potty training accidents and well-worn school books. My college education was pretty much useless. I soon had to learn how to adapt. So, to all those nervous about their qualifications to home-school, my qualifications didn’t help me much at first.
One of the obvious changes between the two environments was how quick lessons could be completed on productive days; the days when the toddlers were safely occupied and the newborn was napping. A lesson that would take 30 to 45 minutes in a public-school classroom could now take 10-15 minutes. Therefore, learning time for the core subjects might be quick-er, but learning became much more involved; it was a full day’s worth of learning. Because we began homeschooling with a large family, we had much more opportunities to learn how to manage interruptions and meltdowns and noisy home life. Chores were an added challenge throughout the day. Eventually, I learned that homeschooling was more than language arts, math, science, and history. Homeschooling almost immediately included life skills. Children learned to cook, wash a load of clothes, burp a baby, read to a sibling, handle personalities and maturity levels that are more or less than their own.
Homeschooling, my dear reader is life schooling. Much of it, is what you make of it. What do you want or need your children to learn and practice? Worried about your successes and failures? Well, the metrics are different. Your child, in being homeschooled, will be exposed to much more than school books. They are exposed to life, to relationships, discord and empathy. Life is messy, your homeschool most likely will reflect that. What better teacher to help a child encounter life in all its complexities? No better teacher than you, their parent. Your investment and love for your child can never be matched by anyone else. You CAN home-school, get started.
Stay tuned for more on homeschooling: the challenges, approaches, hacks, and benefits and all the messiness in between.
By K. Verderaime