Since first hearing the word…auto-didact…it has always struck as sounding vaguely obscene. As a result, I use it as often as possible. Chalk it up to my equivalent of giggling over fart jokes at four years old.
Actually I was reading an article from 12/15 in the Wall Street Journal “A Box? Or a Spaceship? What Makes Kids Creative.” Which you can find in full here. And I was right there with it until the last line…
If your child loves to parody lyrics to children’s songs, for example, “you have to let them laugh and giggle,” and then explain that “you shouldn’t do this at school,” he says.
To which I thought, EXCEPT if you homeschool!
The next thought that hit was the realization that, of all of my many blogs [ahem...eleven] I didn’t have one discussing homeschool. The horror! The horror!
I’ve got a parenting blog and a funny stories blog. I’ve got a gardening blog and a specific permaculture blog. I’ve got organizing and coaching, writing and a couple of personal blogs, but nothing…until now…on homeschooling.
So, this makes twelve…ten of which you, dear reader, have access to. I was surprised, and delighted, to discover that “The Homeschooling Advocate” was not taken. Quick! Grab it, run like hell for the hills!
[ahem]
Sorry.
I’m…not sure what came over me.
I guess I better clarify what will be discussed here and how often.
What will be discussed here:
- Homeschooling styles
- Unschooling
- To curriculum or not
- Goals – curriculum-wise, creativity-wise, child growing up happy-wise
- Learning – of all kinds, in all situations
- Adventure!
- Fun!
- General children’s education – in the news and out
- Et cetera
How often things will be discussed:
- When YOU bring up a point that is of interest. Send me an email with a topic for discussion, a rant, a question for everyone else, or whatever.
- Whenever I feel like it, have time, or have something of interest to say
And now for codicils, amendments and rules (to be changed, improved on, or deleted at any time, without notice, by me)…
- I’m the owner of this blog. Don’t like it? Start your own.
- No ‘hate’ posts will be tolerated (either against me or others)
- Non-secular – what you believe and practice is your business and your right, but I’m probably not interested, so let’s not go there.
That’s all I can think of for now, folks, as far as the rules go.
Back to creativity, because, after all, I’m still thinking of that article. That last line made me grin from ear to ear. Here it is again…
If your child loves to parody lyrics to children’s songs, for example, “you have to let them laugh and giggle,” and then explain that “you shouldn’t do this at school,” he says.
I thought then, as I do now, This is why I homeschool. So my child can laugh and giggle, and enjoy life and learning and realize there is no differentiation between the two. That life is learning, every day.
Which reminds me of a neat thing that happened yesterday. I was walking through the grocery store yesterday, half sick, focused solely on getting what I needed to get and getting home to hubby when a girl turned around in front of me, jumped in surprise and said, “Oh hi! It’s YOU!” Thank goodness it hadn’t been very long since I had seen her, because I am terrible with names and faces, but immediately her name popped into my mind and I remembered her. The last time I had seen her she had been standing in my kitchen taking a facials and scrubs class.
We visited for a moment and I learned that she had gone to the library, checked out books on the subject and made even more of the facial care products past the handful we had covered in class.
Life is learning, every day. It also is an excellent reminder to me that what we want to see in our children we must first model in ourselves. My girls see me learning, every day. Right now I’m studying permaculture, self-sustainability, composting and recycling, and I’m learning about chickens and beekeeping in the next couple of months – we will have our own chicks delivered in mid-February.
The other day, my little four-year-old came up to me with a used plastic straw and asked, “Mama, should I put this in the plastic recycle?” Just a week or two ago, I had set up the bins in the garage and begun sorting our recyclables out as we used them, instead of throwing them away in the trash. I hadn’t made a big deal of it, just mentioned a couple of times to her to “set that can on the counter so I can rinse it before I put in the recycle bin.” I had modeled the behavior, and now she too is looking at items, delineating between paper, plastic, metal and glass and setting them in their proper bins without much prompting from me.
This is how learning should be…a natural progression. Not force-fed. As a child reaches naturally for a fork or spoon instead of finding their face shoved violently into their food. This is how they learn, how they should learn.
A day or two ago I read a ‘rant’ by RB. A quite reasonable rant, I might add. There were questions and concerns about reading and one five year old boy. When I read it, I immediately felt bad for asking about his reading the day we had met at homeschool recess. I sensed at the time from her reaction it was a delicate issue and when reading her post later realized I had possibly made her feel worse. For that, I am terribly sorry, RB, I didn’t mean to elevate your stress levels in any way. I’ve read articles that have discussed some children not learning how to read well into their teens – because they were so focused on building other skills. And so again, I have to say, and remember, that learning is a natural progression. As home educators, we introduce learning opportunities of all kinds, and then step back and let our children reach for more.
We are hard-wired to learn, it is in our DNA, it is a driving force within us. We are all auto-didacts – the key is finding that magic combination of auditory, visual, manipulative, et cetera – and then running at it full-tilt.
I hope that, with this blog, we might discuss some of these concerns and also share successes and excitement. The one drawback of homeschool is, especially for those like me who have ‘onlies’ (my oldest daughter is 22 and her little sister is four), is that it can be rather isolating. One of the reasons we have a homeschool group is to help create solidarity, include other like souls, and find support and friendship. I would like to think that this blog might help towards that aim.
What do you think?
