I remember when I was a new homeschooler, another homeschool mom was at a field trip with her three kids and their notebooks.

My daughter didn’t have a notebook.

I kinda panicked. Should my daughter have a notebook? Was I a bad homeschool teacher?

We just came to enjoy the outing.

I’m over those thoughts now. I have developed confidence in my parenting and homeschooling over the years.

Why does everything have to be so educational?

Many of us are still so indoctrinated by the idea of school that we recreate it at home.

Everyone is so enraptured by STEAM activities, but it’s a st-r-e-t-ch to have a toddler or preschool STEAM unit study for kids who just want to play with blocks and magnets.

Trust me, they’re learning.

Psychologists and others have raised alarms about children’s high levels of stress and dependence on their parents, and the need to develop independence, self-reliance and grit…Children with hyper-involved parents have more anxiety and less satisfaction with life, and that when children play unsupervised, they build social skills, emotional maturity and executive function. ~Claire Cain Miller

Why must we have scripts and plans and printables for everything?

Stop Making Everything So Educational

Earlier Academics?

I’m concerned about the push for younger and younger kids to begin learning academics.

When I was in Kindergarten, I mostly played and had storytime. There wasn’t a chalkboard in the room. It was only a half-day program and we left before lunch.

My least favorite part was table time with teacher-led crafts and instructions on coloring within the lines and cutting out flower patterns cleanly.

I excelled with rule-following. I learned to be obedient and invisible.

I remember winning a coloring contest, which was just a printed page that I very lightly and neatly shaded inside the lines with colored pencils.

Free playtime was monitored and timed. It was very gender norm, with girls playing house and dolls and boys playing with building materials like blocks and Legos.

I’m not concerned about my toddler reading or doing math.

I want my kids to play and learn about themselves and the world.

Make Learning Fun?

Learning is fun!

Only unnatural learning has to be made fun.

Learning should take place naturally rather than with constant printables, YouTube videos, teacher-made crafts, box curriculum, scripts for teachers, tests.

I’m not interested in lessons on standing in line or raising hands. I’m not going to take my kids on a library field trip to learn how to use the library. My kids don’t want an etiquette course unless it involves dining with someone famous and somewhere in the UK.

Learning is fun when we’re interested in the subject.

It’s amazing to me how my children find subjects to learn about all the time – whether it’s an extension of our history and science reading, a video or song, exploring the creek and woods behind our house, or looking up trivia.

Coercive Learning?

Our school system is based on shame-based learning.

Children learn quickly to avoid punishment or humiliation. Then they learn how to take standardized tests, like little lab rats in a maze.

This is not real learning.

This isn’t passion for an interest to explore.

Teacher intimidation is encouraged in teacher education programs, coined “classroom management” and principals will mark a teacher down during evaluation for a student throwing away paper or sharpening a pencil since it cuts down “time-on-task.”

Coercion is the practice of compelling a person to behave in an involuntary way (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation, or some other form of pressure or force.

Arguments are that society is coercive for success.

But we choose to follow speed limits, go to appointments on time, submit to work deadlines, eat healthier, exercise, etc.

By choosing not to do good things, there are typically natural consequences.

By speeding while driving, I could endanger myself or others. I am discourteous to others when I am late. My body will get sick or injured if I don’t eat well or exercise.

Grades, shame, and humiliation are not natural consequences. 

Many kids are encouraged to work harder at school than ever before in our history.

But for what?

Children now often spend more time at school and at homework than their parents spend at their full-time jobs, and the work of schooling is often more burdensome and stress-inducing than that of a typical adult job. ~Peter Gray

Intensive parents monitor children so closely that there is no wiggle room for unorganized play.

We live in a punitive society, still based on Puritan ideals.

Zero-tolerance policies create a school to prison pipeline. Students are taught to combat authority instead of learning. They just learn from fear. They’re conditioned in avoidance. The ones who rebel or think outside the box are punished for nonconformity.

When is Playtime?

A child’s job is to play.

Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. ~Mr. Rogers

Exploration boosts creativity.

Pretend play boosts social skills.

Unorganized, unsupervised, undirected play is vital to children.

Loose parts and multi-tasking simple toys are best for healthy child development. They invite creativity more than single-use electronic teaching toys.

I wonder why so many children in the last few decades are developing issues with self-regulation and are on meds to help them with executive functioning and self-control?

We’re drugging our children so they can “succeed” in failing school models.

They’re cutting recess, music, and art from schools and replacing it with more and earlier academics and testing. This isn’t right or healthy.

These are the most important aspects of being human.

When I feel out of sorts, it’s because I need more outside time in nature, more music, more art.

I see parents at the park, directing their children how to play on the playground equipment.

I hear parents warning their kids: be careful, don’t play with the rocks, don’t go near the creek, don’t get dirty.

Kids are bombarded with warnings and aren’t allowed to be children, to explore, to take any risks.

Signs are posted in public spaces to stay off the grass, away from the water. No this, No that.

We live in a fearful society and kids are suffering from Nature-Deficit Disorder.

Having taught many children of all ages for over ten years – public and private, elementary, middle school, high school, and college – I have homeschooled my four children these past fifteen years.

We need to just let children be children.

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Education is supposed to influence us.

And it does.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. ~Mark Twain

Don’t confuse education with intelligence.

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. ~John Dewey

Looking back, I realize that I was so isolated as a middle-class suburban white girl. When I went to college in downtown Atlanta, it was eye-opening. So many different people from different backgrounds. It helped me to grow and learn about the world. 

When I became a teacher, I grew some more as I learned along with and about my students and fellow teachers. 

When I became a mother, I wanted more than public and private schools could offer my children.

When we travel, we learn even more, expanding and shaping our views.

My Educational Influences

Past Teachers

Most of what I learned in school is negative.

Of course, I learned to write and multiply,  but mostly to bend the rules.

I learned to avoid punishment. I was scared of my teachers. I was scared of bad grades.

I had teachers who yelled, tied students to their seats, gave detention for silly things, shamed and ridiculed, refused to allow bathroom passes, threw chalk and erasers and koosh balls, flirted with students…and lots more.

I was a good student. I learned to be invisible. I made good grades.

I had few positive teacher influences. Mostly, I learned what not to do as a teacher.

University Teacher Training

I got a bachelor’s degree in English literature. Yeah, pretty useless in any job market. If I had it to do over, I would at least have gone with journalism. It’s like having a degree in reading.

I earned a master’s degree in education with a 14-month urban education program to get quick teacher certification. And a job.

The program was kinda a joke. Pedagogy and methodology classes. The professors were out of touch with real schools and classrooms. The assignments were irrelevant. Most of what I was taught wasn’t feasible in an actual classroom when I got teaching jobs.

The other dozen students or so in the program were idealists who thought they were going to change the world. Most went to get teaching jobs in wealthy suburban white schools and districts.

Teachers don’t have a lot of autonomy in their classrooms.

We were taught how to manage students with punitive coercion such as humiliation and threats.

Administrators cater to parents and the school board. It’s very political. There’s lots of standardized tests that don’t really mean much.

Students are just seen as numbers and not as living, breathing, changing, growing human beings.

A poignant quip:

Someone asks: “What do you teach?”

Teachers respond: “English.” or “Science.” or “Math.”

A wise teacher responds: “Students.”

Homeschooling opened up a lot of doors for me as I did my own research into the world of educational philosophy.

I had to slowly unlearn everything I had experienced and been taught as a student and teacher.

My Favorite Educational Philosophies

The Well-Trained Mind and Classical Education

The Well-Trained Mind was the first homeschooling book I ever bought. I don’t remember how I found it, probably in an online forum as a great place to begin.

And it was.

Part of the school dilemma results from an over-focus on testing results; home educators are free from that pressure, so you won’t have to decide between test prep and expository writing. ~Susan Wise Bauer

I began homeschooling in 2005. My eldest was almost 5 and I was pregnant with my second. Number three followed a year after number two.

I liked the classics outline and resource lists for each year. It appealed to the intellectual in me as I set about developing a classical education for my daughter.

I loved the foundation on literature and history and still do. We all learn Latin together.

We never focused so much on a lot of memorization and writing early. I don’t like all the rules and scripts in CC.

The Well-Trained Mind was a perfect jumping off point for me as a new homeschool mom and offered us a good transition from school ideas to homeschooling freedom.

Charlotte Mason

I soon learned about Charlotte Mason after our first year of homeschooling.

It seems a softer side of classical education.

I love the idea of living books and nature study, art and music appreciation and history.

I’ve always felt these subjects are so important.

Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life. ~Charlotte Mason

Ambleside Online is a great resource but I needed more structure for our growing family.

We love notebooking.

We began to acquire an extensive home library.

Maria Montessori

When my son was born, I encouraged him with self-directed activity, hands-on learning, and collaborative play – from birth.

Montessori has five key areas of learning:

1. practical life
2. sensorial
3. mathematics
4. language
5. culture

Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed. ~Maria Montessori

I included my middle girls and son in all aspects of our lives and schooling. It’s amazing how autonomous kids can be if we let them.

Rearranging our school room and providing many opportunities for practical play with small real tools helped our household dynamics.

Rudolf Steiner and Waldorf Education

Waldorf education is independent and inclusive. It upholds the principles of freedom in education.

Waldorf or Rudolf Steiner education is based on an anthroposophical view and understanding of the human being of body, soul, and spirit.

I love the holistic ideals of Waldorf.

Art and music are so important to me and I love all the fun, natural materials in the Waldorf community that encourage learning this.

I love the focus on imagination.

We love nature and the outdoors.

It helped me become a gentler parent. We flow.

Summary:

I learned how to incorporate ideas and lessons that worked for us.

I believe in playtime and lots of informal, natural learning – especially outside – until the child is about 7 or 8 years old.

We work in a nice flow with the seasons, taking breaks frequently to enjoy the weather or rest when we need it.

I think there are lots of benefits to many different educational philosophies.

I love that, as a homeschooler, I have the freedom to pick and choose this and that for my children to learn best as individuals and different stages – practical Montessori, imaginative Waldorf, nature-y artsy Charlotte Mason, Latin and history classical.

It takes courage to do things differently.

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