It’s that time of year when veteran homeschool mothers feel they must throw as much encouragement out to younger mothers who have embarked on the homeschool journey. We have walked the walk and experienced the many challenges and multiple joys of home education. The process is ongoing, ever changing and rewarding. Pehaps one of the hardest lessons for homeschool mothers to learn is that you never arrive at one way or perfect schooling pattern. That instead you move through many stages, constantly adapting as your children change and grow. Just when you have something downpat, it’s time to move on to the next stage or season of life as a homeschool parent.
Beginning to Homeschool
Starting out as a new excited, enthusiastic homeschool mother, you equip yourself with the best curriculum, art supplies, dictionaries and lesson plans. You feel slightly scared but also energized at the decision you’ve made to teach your child at home. You may even feel a bit like Julie Andrews, a song in your heart and a guitar in hand, you’re reading to go swinging through the woods, like an educational Pied Piper, your children flying along behind you, receptive vehicles for the learning you are about to pour into them.
After a few weeks of that fantasy, reality sets in, and you’re sure that you’ll never get this right. The dog chewed up all the worksheets you had ready for math for the week. The kids keep losing their lesson outlines, the science experiment flopped and everyone was looking at you like you were the worst science teacher they ever saw. The entire family has hit the wall of unrealistic expectations and reality has set in. You’re tempted to chuck the whole thing and rush out the door to enroll the kids in school before the first six weeks ends.
For most homeschool mothers, the real planning begins at that point. When you are ready to quit, you’re able to admit that perhaps your expectations of being the perfect parent and teacher were unrealistic. We can’t do it all perfectly and we shouldn’t even try. What do we do then, when we don’t want to quit, but don’t know how to move forward?
First, look at where you are in life. Are you children small, babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and early elementary? Or are your children in junior high and high school? Just like there are seasons of the year, there are seasons of life as a homeschooler. We need to know what tools and activities work best for the season of homeschooling we are in at this time, this year.
A homeschool mission statement
I even suggest that you write it out, frame it and hang t over your desk. Write down why you made the decision to homeschool. Make it succinct, spell out clearly what your reasons are and what your objectives are. Do you want to have a closer family life, where you help guide and mentor your own children? Are you seeking to create an intellectual genius? Are you an independent liberatarian who doesn’t want the school to control what your child learns? Are you intent on encouraging an active, non schooling approach to learning? Ask yourself good questions about the ultimate goals for your children.
Here is a sample mission statement that we used when we first began home educating our daughter.
We are choosing to home educate (dtr’s name) because we believe that her natural intellectual curiosity and excitement about learning is being constrained by a public school setting that discourages her creativity and stifles her imagination. We want to encourage (her name) to follow her natural learning instincts, but also insure that she receives a first rate academic preparation for college and her choices for careers and life. We want her to remain excited and involved in her education, an equal co-partner with her parents as she acquires excellent reading, writing and mathematic skills. We want to expose her to the natural world and encourage a love for the environment and her planet. We want her to be familiar with the history and stories of her country and her world. We want her to be aware of other lands and other peoples, speak a foreign language of her choosing, and be adequately prepared to live a fulfilling, independent life. And most importantly we want to encourage an independent thinker who is able to ask questions, find the answers and make up her own mind about her beliefs, values and actions.
From this original mission statement, we then went on at each stage of our homeschooling journey to develop a learning plan those goals in mind. She knew what our goals where and she approved of them and accepted them as the guiding principles we, as a family, were using in her home education.
Tomorrow’s article: How to take a homeschool mission statement and plan a year’s schedule and curriculum around it.
Until then, think about what your homeschooling mission statement might look like. Sit down and try writing down one that fits your family. Tweak it till it succinctly describes your homeschooling goals and objectives as a family of life long learners.
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