A Year to Be Proud Of

For me, one of the scariest things about a homeschool environment is the abundance of opportunities. Doing school independently, you have about a thousand open doors facing you: cooking lessons, first jobs, sports camps, family vacations, phenomenal book lists; the opportunities are endless…and that might scare you. “Which ones should we pick? What if our child doesn’t like it once he starts? What will we have given up in choosing this one path at the expense of others? Will I look back on this year and wish we’d done it differently?”

When faced with making a decision and you really can’t discern which one to choose, weigh the options but then just pick one and stick with it. Even if it’s the wrong one, you’ll have had the experience of it, the lesson learned, and the character-building instance of getting back on the right track. Keep in mind, though, that sometimes the best action is to not change anything.

But if change is called for, take opportunities as they come along, as long as they’re feasible. Just do something, anything. I know the vicious circle of wanting to do everything and winding up doing nothing because of the mentality that goes: “I’m not sure which is the perfect thing to do right now, so I’m going to hold off on committing to anything that would impede that better thing that might be around the corner.” But the truth is, those things only happen rarely. In the meantime, we have to live our lives and school our children the best we can. Which means using our time in the present. What happens in the future will be its own decision. What we can do is set up a system now–maybe with a plan for adapting to change later, but a system nonetheless.

Ask yourself, “At the end of the year, what will I want to have accomplished?” If your goal is to set your child up with an extracurricular survival course, look around for places that offer that and choose one. It doesn’t have to fit all your ideal specifications…just try it out and take what good you can from it for as long as it serves your family. What if your goal is more creative? For example, some parents may have the goal of trying new things and getting their children to try new things. This one is easy because success is based on the attempt, not the outcome. Whether the outcome is positive or negative, it doesn’t have to be permanent unless it’s better to stay with it than leave it.

So my suggestion to you is this: sit down with your spouse and write goals for this school year. Your toughest goal may simply be to stay caught up each week. Hey, if you can do that, you’ll have accomplished more than I ever did for any long period of time. You and your spouse may want to take turns proposing a creative writing assignment for each student, guiding them through it, and leading them on to improve. Below I’ve listed some great objectives that our family tackled. While some were extremely successful and others not so much, I appreciate all of them as part of my homeschooling experience. They each offered an opportunity to be exposed to new things, acquire new skills, try out those skills, or display individual talent.

1. Have each student brief one or both parents on the basic lesson they learned that day in each subject and the grades they got. This will not only keep you in the loop (e.g. if you're the father, working all day) but also set an objective which requires all subjects to be completed and graded by the end of each day.

2. Have your student choose one or more electives of his choice. Let him learn what he's interested in and you'll be amazed at the progress.

3. Make a point to talk to other homeschooling parents about what works for them or interesting projects/co-ops they're part of. In some areas there is a very large and active homeschool community to share information on extracurriculars. However, because of online groups, these resources are essentially everywhere, even if the physical community is sparse in your area.

4. Create a unit study (teaching different subjects around a theme). This was one we never tried, but one of our homeschooling friends did and she said it was a neat experience. I’ve been fascinated by the idea since I was introduced to it so I would recommend giving it a shot!

5. Be content with where you’re at. Give what you can but be grateful for all that you’ve already accomplished. It’s more than you think.

Simply offering the homeschool opportunity to your kids is impacting them more than is readily noticeable. Everyday experiences are shaping their lives and perspectives without you needing to identify them all. Just live out your life with the education style that’s working, and believe me, you’ll look back one day and be proud of these years.