Mom Is Teaching

Our last family featured was Tammy’s, now we move right along to our next family…..here they are….

Stephanie & Scott D.

Brynn age 10, Joy age 2

California

We are not “unschoolers,” but we do not have the “school at home” model either. I take a lot of advice from several sources, particularly the Well Trained Mind (Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise). We started with pre-k with a packaged, literature based curriculum. I HATE worksheets! I love real life learning through literature, and have since I first started teaching in a public school before Brynn was born. I have grown enough to trust my own judgement in choosing curriculum and am able to find what I want at used curriculum fairs for far less than $100 a year. Joy gets workbooks (she’s 2, I think I can handle it!) and we are using a great resource - Slow and Steady Get Me Ready, as well as fabulous ideas I find from various blogs I subscribe to.

What is your plan for “helping” your child learn? - Last year for the first time we did standardized tests. We were not surprised at all to see that math was the lowest subject; what was a pleasant surprise was that even though it is her lowest subject, she was still 1 year ahead of grade level for the concepts. Yay! We are obviously getting something right, somewhere. We are also moving more into independent learning and at times, explaining how to prepare for typical classroom education. (When you go to school - whether it is public or private, in middle or high school, or even at university, this is what will be expected of you. Therefore, let’s do it now). And allowing some “unschooling” to creep in - this month’s language arts is NaNoWriMo (young writers’ version!). So the 10 year old is on her way to loving learning on her own, willing to try new things and take risks. The 2 year old is getting weekly age-appropriate lessons and activities, and we are reading many of the classic children’s books (such as those listed in Five in a Row) to build fabulous memories and vocabularies.

If you homeschool, how do you meet state requirements? California has 4 options that might fall under “homeschooling”:

1) Private school satellite programs

2) Public school independent study or charter (I work for one, from home, as a credentialed teacher)

3) Hire a private, credentialed tutor

4) File a private school affidavit - thus becoming our own tiny private school. This is the option we have chosen for the past 3 years. We have a principal, a teacher, and 1 student currently (we are not required to add our other daughter until she is in 1st grade, per state law). I have all the paperwork required for a private school student; immunization records, attendance log, p.e. logs.

Regardless of how you educate, where and when do your children get involved in social activities and how often? We have a LOT of social options. Sundays we have church and Sunday school. Mondays are pretty much stay at home days. Tuesdays are karate class (at the moment - we have also signed Brynn up for softball, basketball, swimming, tennis and soccer, at various times). Wednesdays are choir and scouts. Thursdays are sports again. Fridays are the days we meet other home schoolers - alternating weeks between meeting at the library, followed by a picnic lunch in the park, and “Build your own world club” - a group of maybe 15 or 20 kids who are all being very creative and building their own worlds. Lots of fantasy and a little bit of strategic play going on, as each world’s imagineer is working together with other club members to build alliances, share characters, draw maps and more. 

When I meet with my own assigned students and parents from the charter school, Brynn comes along (I take Joy to daycare 2-3 days a week so she gets social interaction with other kids her age, and I can do the work without worrying what she is into or falling off of). We will often meet families at the park or in a library, and Brynn does a great job hanging out and playing with those kids. This is about 6 days every other month or so, plus more days when we decide to go on field trips or outings with other friends or teachers from the charter school. October included an Art in the Park day, a trip to the pumpkin patch, a Halloween party at the park; November has already had a Thanksgiving potluck and a trip to Los Angeles to explore Chinatown and Olvera Street.

Regardless of the type of education you use, which parent does the majority of the teaching and who is the accessory?  Or is the other parent even an accessory? Stephanie does the majority of teaching and choosing curriculum. Scott is the “principal” of the school but he is fine with pretty much whatever I decide. (We are both credentialed teachers in California. His speciality is secondary English; mine is elementary education, so he has left it up to me to this point). At this point he is a great-looking but little-used accessory in the schooling department.

Does your faith have anything to do with your choice of type of education you chose for your children? Somewhat. We first discussed the option of homeschooling when we were both teaching at high risk schools in the inner city, before we had children. Before Brynn was old enough to go to school, we moved overseas to do some humanitarian work. While we were learning the language, she went to a preschool (non english speaking) nearby. Once we moved out into the countryside we ordered a packaged Christian curriculum in English because we wanted to teach her about our faith in a country that has a different majority belief. We continued with the packaged curriculum when she went to the local (non english speaking) school, to make sure she was learning about our faith, learning to read and write English, and learning about history and customs of the US. We returned to the US for a few months, and she attended 3 months of private school while here. The following year we returned for good, and had her in the same private school while we got settled with the move, and having a new baby. By the end of that year we were settled and knew we wanted her to be home while I was home with Joy.

What are the advantages/disadvantages of your choice of education? I love the flexibility of the schedule. If/when we put Brynn (and Joy) in school, and I am teaching in a school again, we will most likely not all have the same school vacations, as Scott teaches in another school district, and I may teach somewhere else, too. So it has been very nice to be able to follow his calendar for Spring Break, Winter Break, etc. It is also wonderful day to day to allow for sleeping in if there were late nights or when Brynn has an episode of insomnia the night before (somewhat common; she gets it from her dad!). I love that I have been able to tie daily chores in to the regular routine. Brynn is a very slow and deliberate child, so when she was going to school we never had enough time for her to participate much in the regular household  chores.  During 2nd grade at the private school, she was always VERY slow at finishing her timed math sheets, and pretty much all year she sat out of recess to finish the work. I love that when she is at home, I can give her all the time she needs and not have to time her if that is an issue she has. 

Disadvantages include a lack of “me”/ free time during the week. I sometimes think longingly of the moms group at my church, or the weekly Bible study. I don’t feel like I can give up those mornings of teaching, because I consider Brynn’s schooling a full time job, on top of the job I am being paid to do for the charter school I work for. I know she is getting a good education, but I also know there will be gaps if/when she goes to a traditional school - just as there are when any student moves into a new school or district - but I know I can expect jibes about it being “because she is homeschooled.” I come from a family of educators and while they all complain about the students they have and the negative aspects of public school, they have not been supportive of this choice (for the most part, they have not been too negatively anti, but there have been comments. Now we just don’t discuss it and I assume that Brynn’s continued academic and social development speak for themselves.)