Suddenly homeschooling? One way to think about it

I made a little off hand commentary on Facebook the other day to my unexpected non-consensual homeschoolers out there who are looking at trying to do three months of school at home.  I saw a lot of crime scene like photos, with books and pens scattered across rooms like they were at ground zero of some explosion.

The message I posted was basically: relax, it's messy, but it'll be okay.

I have no basis to say such a thing, but I am quite familiar with not knowing what to do with my kids all day and I know that panic spreads like wildfire from parent to child. Panic is not particularly helpful in a learning environment unless you are learning what ice cream you like best to binge eat while crying on the kitchen floor.

There is a lot of scrambling this week, home education wise, and I am impressed at the glut of home based resources being tossed around the social media sites.  It would of been great to have this kind of access when I first started homeschooling my girl back in 2009.

Nope, actually, that's a lie.  It would of been overwhelming and despair inducing.

The decision for us to homeschool way back when was based on a genuine desire to spend as much as my time as possible with my children, for me to find a way to work at home, and my generalized loathing of externally set structure and loss of control that comes with following institutional schedule and demands.

And, as a strong, invisible force, it was because I have ADHD.

I didn't know that at the time; my diagnosis has been relatively recent.  But an inability and non-desire to follow schedules, easily distractible, low motivation to participate in group activities, and poor adherence to timetables are hallmarks of kindergarten drop outs.  Which, as a parent, I was.

Undiagnosed ADHD has many mental and physical burdens that are beyond the scope of this particular afternoon to talk about but it was instrumental to the way I set up my homeschool.  Or, as I usually refer to it, my life.

Initially, the how to do homeschool/life correctly was anxiety producing.  We tried curriculums.  Workbooks.  I bought flashcards.   I made flashcards.   I read all sorts of educational philosophies and methods, Charlotte Mason, Classical, Waldorf, online, blended and all that. I know many homeschooling families that served as models for all types of structured methods and they all seemed good.  I couldn't really find fault in the various ways, it appeared what mattered more was rightness of fit for the family involved.

If you circle back to undiagnosed ADHD running amok in my brainy parts, though, you'll see how attempting to adopt an external structure and enforce it on myself leads down spirals of non-adherence and guilt, feelings of just not being good enough and what is wrong with me?

Fortunately, though, I was born with ADHD and also managed to make it all the way to adulthood, through school, through a messy young adulthood, through college, meaning that through pressure and fire I have developed all sorts of novel, maybe bizarre, strategies to make things happen that need to happen.  I am also nearly buried under a landslide of creative ideas everyday, ADHD being this situation where all the walls are down in your brain and the thoughts that others may categorize and prioritize are instead smashing into one another like surly teenagers in a bouncy house, and I am utterly unafraid to act on any strange idea.  Actually, this whole blog is a study of what undiagnosed ADHD looks like in an adult woman with small children.  Sometimes it's ugly.  But it does keep us entertained.

So I decide to homeschool and I ask myself, me with two small children I've charged myself with the heavy responsibility of educating while under the judgemental stare of family, society and an unknown invisible neurological disorder, 'What are we going to do here? We can't just keep eating ice cream while crying on the floor.'

And me says back, 'Hey us, we're probably going to mess this up, but fuck it.  Remember back when we were a kid?  How about if we just sort of make a space and schedule that we would of thrived in as a child.'

We're so smart.

I took the pressure off myself to find a system that fit us. I gave myself permission and time to explore and experiment and fail and create our own private world that we could not only live with but actually love.

The actual method we use, turns out to be mostly non-method.  Consistently non-consistent.  Or a ragtag bunch of ideas that come under the heading of Unschooling.

My own need for quiet safe spaces interspersed with excitement, and particular aesthetics, rhythms that flowed with my personal energy over the day,  freedom to indulge my interest of the week and then putting it aside when the sparkle dulled.  I made a home that I would of loved to grow up in.  Lots of books, creative raw materials and kitchen dance parties.  Blanket forts, twinkle lights, and painting the walls.  Joining short run activities on interesting things.  Plenty of unscheduled time to explore whatever, to move or be still, depending on the moment.  Naps.  Contact sports.  Prioritizing interest and engagement over what we are told is important.  Project based learning, with a multi-disciplinary approach.  Or, you know, doing what we want to do.

I have been very lucky that I could do this, and turns out, so has my girl.  When I set up something that would of worked for me as a child to learn and be engaged with and generally satisfied with life, I coincidently created the environmental conditions for my particular child with undiagnosed ADHD to thrive in.  Turns out this shit is super inheritable.

Our home is a good fit for us.  Which means we didn't know some of us aren't not entirely neurotypical until grade nine, where girl child decided to enter public school.  That's we realized that something was different in the way the girl processed the world.  Much more than labelling her a homeschool weirdo could explain. Like how she actually needs to full send run in the hallways all lunch hour.  How she is physically incapable of keeping her feet below her butt when sitting.  How much of a jackass she is.

The girl has the ADHD so bad that we were only a month in before we went from being utterly unaware of this particular neurology to positively identifying the need for medication and targeted strategies.  We had no idea up until she went into an environment that wasn't actually made for her personally.  Samesies here.

I think if the girl had been in classrooms in her youngest years, maybe we would of known earlier.  But maybe not.  She might have just been labelled as a discipline problem, she would of been confused and angry at herself for not fitting in, not being able to just do what seems so easy to other kids.  Everyday I learn more about what this means to the girl and myself.  Increasingly I am aware that my instinctual acceptance, even indulgence, of individual quirks comes from my own genetic set up and having grown up out with parents being unaware of their own neuro difference.  We all make strategies and model ways of being in a world when your brain is not set up to work well in standardized environment.

I taught myself How to Weirdo. And then I taught my children as well.

For the record, the girl tells me that she's glad that she wasn't diagnosed earlier, because being free to just be herself without thinking that there was something different about her allowed her to get to know herself quite well without judgement.  She could focus on what worked, rather than if it was good or bad.  She is tremendously self aware and articulate about what she needs.  It's a rare and precious thing she has, and nobody here is sorry for how we've done things, as non-conventional as it was.  And is.

And despite never having taken formal classes in English or Science, her grades we sitting in the 90% for everything, except math where her dyscalculia and unfamiliarity with the subject kept her at a 70%.  High grades are not something I really care about, but it demonstrates to us that she knows how to take in information and apply it as demanded by a situation.  The unschooler is doing well at public school, socially and academically.  But more than that, she is very familiar with her own way of learning the information and easily cuts past methods she knows won't work for her.  She talks to her teachers and works with them to build strategies.  When there a background of information she doesn't have from her past schooling, she just finds out the information in the way that works best for her and moves on without getting upset that she's 'behind'.

But for us, way back when, I just decided to roll with it.  Whatever it is.  We can read classic literature and we can read graphic novels.  Watch cartoons while we eat lunch.  It is most definitely not for every family, but amongst ourselves, it is perfectly acceptable to drop your math book to grab somebody and pretend to bite them to get them to fight you.  Works for a needed dopamine boost so you can focus again.  Or just up in the middle of something, run outside and trampoline like a squirrel on fire.  Or become hyperfixated on a special interest and monologue for hours.   Or to not listen to somebody's monologue and continue typing your poems of sadness.  Or spend the whole night awake drawing with one eye on Netflix.  We make messes and mistakes and we laugh our asses off all the time.  We seek information and excitement and hate scratchy clothes.  We stim.  We allow each other to get into things, even if we don't like it for ourselves.  It's not perfect, but it's cool man.

Here is the thing.  Because I stopped and asked myself what I wanted, I stumbled on what could work for us.  When it fits, the successes come easier and the motivation develops to push through the discomfort of not knowing what was going to happen next. My confidence grew over time that my way may not be everyone's way, but it works for us, most of the time, and I love our homeschool life.

So as an unprecedented number of parents suddenly find themselves in that What Do We Do Now? phase of homeschool exploration, even if it's just for a few months, as an old hand at the least travelled path, I wish to encourage parents to ask themselves what they would of wanted as a child?  What would your best case learning scenario be?  Maybe that will give some direction to fit you, one that you can't get from online resources or bedtime stories read by celebrities.  Or if you have a changeling, like my son - sometimes I wonder how this stranger found his way into my home - locate another human that does seem a lot like your child in temperament and personality (probably a relative, your brother sister maybe?) and ask them what they would of liked as a child?

This is a plea to you to work with the child you have there, in front of you, and don't worry about what other people tell you is the right way.  Don't get your head turned by flashy online resources.  Don't force it.  Just slow down, be thoughtful, look for what feels right.

Homeschool is just as much about learning how to learn as what subjects you actually engage in.  If they are interested and motivated, it's nearly impossible for them not learn about it.  And if they don't care, well, all the ice cream in the world is not going to get the information into that child's head.  Explore, have fun, discover where passions are.

And then make lunch and get on with it.

making plans to not make plans :: homeschool version

It's homeschool planning time.  Our official plan that we submit to our homeschool authority is going to be a bit different this year.  Last year, two months into the school year, we were forced to change what school authority we work with due to bizarre workings of the government and while it turned out to be unnecessary, it's probably best overall that we did. 

The new place, though, has a wee bit different accountability protocols and requires a plan that is less, 'yeah, we'll go to the library and find some books to read' and more 'we will read this many books in this many days and here are the titles of all the books'.

It's really hard for me to wrap my mind around all this alien 'structure' and 'organized' stuff.  I am being kind of facetious, but kind of not.  Our homeschool plan will be a living document that we can alter to fit what works as we go, but right now it feels like throwing the dart at the board while blind and drunk.  Lots of optimistic ideas and probably totally off target.

Thinking about it, I have to go back to why we do this crazy homeschool thing anyway and what it is that we are trying to achieve.  Funny enough, it's not about the education.  I mean it is, in the sense that I have ideas about what constitutes a good enough, even excellent, education for my children and try to implement that, but it's more about utilizing the greatest resource that we will ever have: 

Time.

We homeschool because we want to spend time together and have time to do what we like.  We want to get the stuff we have to do over with quickly, preferably in less than six hours. I can't even imagine trying to have the kids learn schoolwork from nine am to three pm.  They'd run away and join a circus after day two. We want to use our precious time doing what makes us human and complete.  

I remember when I first started entertaining the idea of homeschooling as a new parent.  Girl child was wee and watching her learn and grow while considering what sort of school she'll need to attend and I started to feel very... jealous.  Selfish.  Weirdly mama primal.  Watching and being involved in her growth was so satisfying, I knew I didn't want to turn it over to virtual strangers who would barely notice. 

Basically I just wanted to grab my toddler and scream, 'MINE! MINE! MINE!' at the rest of the world.

 

Girl child, summer 2007, seriously engaged in her blue period

Of course, that feeling like I want to keep my children isolated all to myself passed quickly.  In fact, I try to send them away often, because it's good for me and for them.  (Take my children... please.  But have them home by dark so I can read to them before bed.  Also, they have chores to do.)

Another dimension to this is that the childs are getting opinionated about what their education looks like.  With all the meta-learning stuff and knowledge hacks freely available - learning on how to learn - they figure they can learn their skills fast.  Thanks to strategies put forth by people like Timothy Ferriss, they can learn incredibly quickly.  And they know that if they aren't interested they will forget it by the next day.  In other words, they are hyper aware of their own learning processes and capable to being deeply involved in this homeschool plan.

But they just want to say, 'yeah, we'll go to the library and find some books to read.'   So maybe they're not so much help right now. 

We all need to come up with clever way of measuring things that can not be measured.  Making plans to not make plans. 

I am thankful for this bit of hoop jumping for the homeschool, though, because it does allow me to evaluate, on a broad scale, just what it is that I think I'm doing and appreciate the amazing years we've had together. 

Also, so I can officially plan to say to the school authority and government:

 

MINE! MINE! MINE!

Girl child, summer 2017, seriously involved with her hipster phase
(That's kombuca, not beer, for anybody who's eyes are failing them.  And girl child would like everybody to know that she's wearing her What We Do in the Shadows "Werewolves not swearwolves" fan t-shirt, ordered from Etsy shop UnicornEmpirePrints, a mockumentry that is brilliant and trending on Netflix.)

 




School Boxes

Tiny Cat gets a scalp massage.  It's funny how it doesn't actually help him relax.

We are asked sometimes about our homeschool and what we do to 'cover' subjects.  Sometime the person asking is a teacher who is assigned to our family to oversee us and, ultimately, keeps us in the legal zone of homeschool education.  Which is this whole artificial dividing of learning and mastery into ersatz categories that make no sense and frustrates me to no end.  Like you can chop life up into little boxes, stick a label on it, and study it at the appointed time.  Well, maybe other people can, but we've got a lot of stuff to cover around here and all our boxes are open and spread out across the floor, covered in cat hair.  So we don't do boxes well.

The worst about making 'subjects' of learning is when the childs buy into it and start to panic because they just go about doing stuff and then their conventionally schooled friends are all, 'Hey, what grade are in?  What unit are you doing in math?  What's your reading level?  What kind of science you studying?

 

Burning Stuff is a subject at conventional school too, right?



Every once in awhile I need to remind a child who has suffered a 'what level are you at?' inquisition from their school friends that learning can be measured in many ways and taking a test and getting a score is only one way.  Rolling around to September and being assigned a new grade number is another.  Or you can make stuff see how you have improved skills or build communities with other people creating things together.  Other ways of measuring learning is communicating your ideas with other through reports or stories or drawings, or keeping records, or just waking up and knowing a little bit more than you did yesterday and, even more important, getting excited about what you are going to do today. 

Stretching rabbit pelts.  You can never really wash away the smell of rabbits, unfortunately.

My favorite way of keeping score is by how many times I have to wash my hands in a day.  In our home, we are hands on.  No, we are Hands On.  I tell the kids that our learning is 'project based' which is totally legit (Google it) but, even better, is a good shorthand for all the stuff we do and how we learn while doing it. Generally, we do not shy away from the messy stuff. 

But, to make a homeschool plan in our province that is approved by government types, we do need to play the boxes game a bit.  So I need to figure out how the things we do because we want to do them and (sometimes) they just need done fits into scheduled learning objectives relating to subjects.  To be fair, they give the objectives generally and then allow us to label our own boxes without preset categories.

Still.  Now I have to make the categories that I am categorically against?  Sneaky work, people.

This is more art than anything.  Today, for instance, the childs did Math while helping put up the insulation for a room we are building for girl child in our basement.  (Right now the childs share a room, thus, there is high motivation for both of them to get involved in the construction and speed things up.)  They had to measure up the walls and cut the insulation to size.  That means Math, yes? 

Or was it Science, because they were learning how to insulate against concrete, to keep the heat in the room and the damp out. Or maybe that's Engineering?  Is Engineering a topic in grade school?  It could be Health because preventing dampness in the room is preventing poor lung health and also they had to wash up afterwards.  No, wait, it was Physical Education, because it was a lot of physical work carrying, prepping, measuring, lifting, holding and more holding as the glue set.  Or it was Communications because there was a whole lot of instructions given by their father.  Also, they listened to the radio, so Music Appreciation!   

Girl child painted the basement stairs.  With her face, it appears.

So where I put the priority?  Also today, girl child did her first taxidermy.  I was vastly impressed at her maturity and deftness with a scalpel.  Plus, it's hilarious to listen to the muttering monologue of a twelve year old girl trying to figure out how to deal with a mouse's oversized scrotum and to incorporate it into her plan of making her mouse into a tiny rodent Greek philosopher, complete with toga and laurels.

(Do the balls tuck under?  Do exposed genitalia add or detract from the general authority of the speech posture?  Why are mouse balls so damn big?  This is why he has to wear a dress.)

(Additionally, it helps to know that one of girl child's favorite memoirists is Jenny Lawson, which explains much yet also manages to raise even more questions.)

So, taxidermy. That is Biology.  And Art?  Anthropomorphic taxidermy is also a vocabulary exercise.  Could be Sewing. Definitely Health education.  Even Sex Ed. 

Boy child tries a little light dentistry on a swine jaw we used to make headcheese with.

Whatever it is, I have a meeting coming up with my homeschool authority to try to explain what it is we are doing and whether or not we meeting the learning objectives I said that we would meet.  Luckily, my homeschool people are totally onboard with the unschooling and work to help me articulate what it is we are doing and how to translate into the language that the educational authorities can understand. 

Also good for us is they allow me to use my Instagram account as part of our portfolio to show examples of our projects.  I use a specific hashtag I can search and bring up our portfolio at our teacher meetings.  My account is here, if you are interested.

I leave you now with our current favorite super Hands On STEM Youtube Channel, The Brain Scoop, which is fascinating for so many reasons and so good for my science-y girl to watch.  Also, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) is a great way to make a big box to throw a bunch of stuff in and not have to sort it out.  Sort of like how I always label all my moving boxes with 'miscellaneous'.     

 

 

deer skull

 

I really like it when my home school resources doubles as my home décor.  It helps to enjoy natural  objects and biology aesthetically as well as intellectually.  Then resources and décor can be found inexpensively and just sort of, you know, lying around. 

Around here we love our skulls.  Sometimes we are given a beautifully prepared clean skull, such as the deer in these pictures, and sometimes are given a freshly decapitated head and must do the preparation itself.  (The later situation is why ants are bros.)  Some types of learning is messier than others.

In our home, our formal instruction time is quite minimal (each child has one subject that they absolutely must learn and absolutely hate to do, so a half hour of each day is dedicated to progress, no matter how small, in that subject) and the rest of the time the childs get to pursue what they are interested in.  So it's good to have some stuff about the house for the childs to get interested in.

In a perfect universe my home would be a large industrial space that could be temporarily partitioned into smaller human size work spaces, with insane amounts of tool/materials storage, ample heat and a fully stocked kitchen.  With bean bag chairs, cozy reading corners and ample electrical plug ins.  Basically it looks like an interactive science center, but with fewer toddlers.

In reality, I have a home about the size of the bathroom off of a large industrial space and if I put in a cozy little reading corner here, we'd have to move out the dining room table.  The storage is nearly non-existent.  If we have it, it's out in the open.  Everything must serve double duty.

Thus, having the interesting things about that the childs can get interested in is a tricky bit of curating and use of outside home resources.  But we are in luck there because between the woods and the library, we can get an amazing array of materials to work with.  And when we are done with it, it can go back to continue its natural lifecycle elsewhere.

Some items are keepers, though.  This deer skull came from friends, one had the head, one cleaned it, and it's beautiful.  I try not to over interpret our natural objects until the childs have developed a good amount of familiarity with it.  Labelling something with a value like interesting or ugly or morbid is limiting, whether that be for good or not, and I want them to explore it first before the label get slopped around on things.  My kids tend to be interested in anatomy and view dead animals as fascinating but I know that some visitors to our home have different views.  Like the friend of boy child's who plays a game called 'count the creepy heads' in our living room.

Anybody interested in cleaning and studying animals bones with their children may find Jakes's Bones website interesting and informative.  I know that if you wish to have more skulls in your life, you only need to let people know and they will shower you with boney gifts.  Skulls are one of those things that people find intriguing and beautiful yet somewhat disturbing.  They are hesitate to trash something lovely but do not necessarily want to keep it themselves.  Gifting it to a novice collector and science enthusiast uncomplicates the situation. So, go ahead, just ask about.  You will most likely become rich in bone.

Girl child in particular is a bit of a bone nerd, expanding her love of skulls to beyond the ones in our home out to studies of ossuaries (mostly European ones we've read about in books and on the Internet) and to human evolution and the changes in skull shape.  In fact, last week we were in a shop when she ran across a wooden carving of a homo erectus skull and she did a little fan girl squee.  You never know where the childs are going to take their passions.  So I'm just here, quietly curating our home, bringing as much of the world in as I can fit in these close quarters without bursting.