Homeschooling ’styles’
I've been thinking a lot about styles of homeschooling and education in general, and why there are so darn many of them, and why people sometimes become so passionate about their choice that they can be overbearing or judgmental toward those who follow another path.
I have been drawn to various unschooling forums and lists over the years because of the relationships and parenting ideals that I really jived with, but the actual education part of it just didn't work for me. On the other hand, people who use the materials/methods I like do not typically have the same mentality as I do with regard to being extremely flexible and open-ended with the things, and keeping the child first and foremost over the curriculum or standard or whatever.
Needless to say I never have found a comfortable group to feel that I belonged to with regard to homeschooling. I think homeschooling is such an intensely personal part of a family that it is nearly impossible to find a theory/model/ideal that fits more than one family exactly.
I really believe in collaborative education as Willa has been talking about at Every Waking Hour and Stephanie at Throwing Marshmallows. We go through periods of being perfectly unstructured and periods of being perfectly structured. Sometimes I over-structure things, and sometimes I under-structure. As Sarah describes discovering in The Teacher's Heart at Wickentree Homeschool, to flourish the homeschool has to be a fit for both the mother and the child.
It is absolutely like a one-of-a-kind dance between each parent-child pair, with an enormous variety of styles and steps with little repetition but with a bit more sureness of step and familiarity with each turn around the dance floor.
It is our responsibility and privilege as homeschooling parents to remain in-tune emotionally and intellectually with our children to determine the appropriate next step together, and not to simply let it happen as it will.
Filed under Education, Homeschooling |2 Responses to “Homeschooling ’styles’”
Leave a Reply
Thank you for this post. I really needed to read that. I’ve been worrying about my homeschooling style for the last few weeks, as you can see from my last post. I guess other Moms struggle with these worries also.
Yup. It kind of ebbs and flows for us too. The key is realizing when something is out of balance and needs to be adjusted.
I have also found that as I get more relaxed about doing what works for us as a family, I am much comfortable with others who follow different approaches. As long as it is working for them, more power to them! It has really helped me become much more accepting of other approaches and I find that I wind up pulling little bits from this approach and little bits from that rather then rejecting it because it was not “xyz”.