When I was thirteen, I fell in love.
I also experienced heartbreak.
I got caught cheating on a chemistry final.
Won first place in the school talent show.
Got invited to my very first school dance.
I cried a bucket of tears as I said goodbye to a friend who left the country.
And then made friends with the new kid in school.
In retrospect,
The heartbreak taught me to reconnect with those who had been there for me throughout life.
Getting caught taught me the value of honesty.
Winning first place encouraged me to always give life my best.
The school dance helped me get over my shyness and learn to be silly.
And saying goodbye to an old friend and making new ones reminded me to always live life to the fullest.
The thing is, none of these values of honesty, compassion, determination, and growth came from any textbook. When I think back to my entire school life, what sticks in my mind isn’t the Pythagoras theorem, but the friends I made, the trips we took, and the trouble we got into.
Before I go any further, I am going to ask you to close your eyes. Go on, close your eyes, and imagine yourself at the age your children currently are. What are the first thoughts that flash through your mind?
*Awesome flashback happening here*
Okay, open your eyes. I think a lot of those memories that just replayed will most likely have had very little to do with focused learning and everything to do with how you felt and the things you experienced. The thing is, we all want intelligent children! But what does that mean?
Research shows that children with high EQs earn better grades, make healthier choices, and make better leaders in the classroom. They are also self-motivated to complete work and get along with people in progressively collaborative workspaces. This thought was the first trigger that pushed our family towards the route of homeschooling. We condition ourselves to think that everything taught in school is what we need to push into the minds of our children. Perhaps this moment of learning in a forced quarantine might be a time to rethink that paradigm. Maybe this is time to think deeply about what it means to educate your child, and what you have truly taken away from the education system yourself? Does being educated mean memorizing facts and completing worksheets that don’t hold meaning, or does it mean to inculcate a growth mindset towards being a lifelong learner? These trying times might be a brilliant opportunity to rethink how we teach our children and how they, in turn, respond to us.
Creating this shift and giving this idea deeper thought for our family even as homeschoolers has been a life-changing experience. We are in a time where we are all overworked, overstressed, and are suddenly playing multiple roles of mother, spouse, teacher, and a working professional in one space all at once. The roles being asked of us are demanding and not easy to continually uphold. I hope by sharing a few things our family have learned along the way in our homeschooling journey; it might help you to find some ease and comfort in these trying times.
Avital Schreiber Levy (aka The Parenting Junkie) is an inspiration to how we have created rhythm into our home. She describes dividing your day into seven areas – focus time, messy time, quiet time, movement time, playtime, family time, and screen time. We pick three vital anchors in our day – For example: 2 pm screen time, 4 pm movement time, and 6 pm family dinner time. We stick to these to create predictable anchor points, and the rest of the day just has a natural flow. We work towards a general idea of what we wish to learn and accomplish in the day, but we are also not too hard on ourselves if this becomes difficult to achieve.
With my six year old, our focused learning is some Math and English and does not go over an hour. With my thirteen year old she works through more subjects for slightly longer and could amount to 3-4 hours of focused learning. We incorporate a lot of our learning of subjects like Science and History through fun and play during messy play or reading a book at quiet time.
Although the current situation is not ideal and does not model a true homeschool environment at all, if however homeschooling is something a lot of you may have considered, but never felt up to it, this might be an excellent opportunity to give it a bit of a go. This is a great time to get a glimpse of both, living and learning alongside your children and get a glimpse of who they really are. Lose the structure that schools might have dictated, be curious about your child, and enjoy the process of learning together in a way that both of you find enjoyable.
Perhaps this moment of learning in a forced quarantine might be a time to rethink that paradigm. Maybe this is time to think deeply about what it means to educate your child, and what you have truly taken away from the education system yourself?
There is a lot of talk about what is being lost, what the kids are not learning and how far behind they are going to fall academically. But what if just for a second, we switch this narrative and start talking about what they are in fact learning. This is a defining moment in our children’s childhood. Our reactions will shape their future and their perspectives. Let us use Covid-19 life as a brilliant opportunity to ask older kids what is something they have always wanted to learn that is not included in their schooling curriculum and incorporate it into their day. This could include things like coding, digital art, knitting, cooking, or it could just be spending more time with you! For the primary years, it might perhaps be a good time to give them a break from subjects they do not enjoy and give them the time to just play! I truly believe that whether your child goes to a traditional school or learns at home, you are the curriculum! Maybe you’ll discover strengths you never knew you had and connect your family in a fun, new way, a way you never had the time to experience before.
A huge part of homeschooling is building a connection. The whole idea of “it takes a village to raise a child” is a strong sentiment amongst homeschoolers, and so much of what we do gets built on mentors and guides within the community that help us grow. While we are all worried about the amount of screen time the kids are getting, perhaps there needs to be a bit of a separation between sitting in front of the TV vs. trying to incorporate technology to our advantages such as socializing via Zoom or Google Hangouts! I think most homeschooling parents would agree that so much of how our kids learn comes from outside the classroom. So, while we are all still indoors, we can always remain connected, by participating in ways that can help and support us. Some of the activities my kids partake in, are fashion shows with their friends, dance parties, we have older kids reading the younger one’s stories, we watch grandma cook, we have quiz nights and play board games and have even had a picnic all via zoom. Through support groups, friends, and family, we continue to learn so much from the community around us and build meaningful connections with those closest to us. You really can get as creative as you want! We don’t need to do everything, and we certainly don’t need to do it alone!
Play is an area I feel most parents underestimate. Independent play has deeply healing properties. Children are born with a sense of natural curiosity. They ask us a million questions a day. Play, specifically independent play can nurture so much of their innate curiosity. Often when children enter school, they transition into obedience and compliance to a curriculum and so those natural drives for learning could potentially have been turned off. This is a brilliant opportunity for children’s innate creativity and curiosity to emerge once again. Go with the flow. Let your children take the lead – don’t overthink it.
There is so much information out there that continually tells us the best way to school or parent. We are so overwhelmed with what “picture-perfect school mom Sarah” is doing and so consumed by the guilt of never doing enough that it’s time to now use this time to shut the outside world. We need to drown out the noises we have been so bombarded with and start by just playing with our children. Have fun, be silly! There is no emergency in schooling, and learning is life long. Information nowadays is available to us at a click of a button, and aptitude in the real world is no longer based on test scores. Be kind to yourselves, allow yourself to match your levels of expectations with the resources and support available to you.
When this is all over, what your child is going to take away from this, is how they felt during the days of Covid-19. How their parents reacted and how they spent their days in isolation. Give them great stories to tell their children! Think of how they would complete the following in the future “When I was younger, and we went through Covid-19…” and let it finish with a memory that is joyful, meaningful, and full of connection.
Just to reassure all parents out there, that even us seasoned homeschoolers do find this situation to be a difficult one. We, too, are struggling through this as much as schooling families are. The current situation that we are being asked to school our kids in is anything but normal.
Homeschooling is so much more than just learning in front of a screen in isolation. As homeschoolers, we study in co-ops with so many others; we have poetry clubs, book clubs, science fairs, and even sports days! We enjoy nature walks, visiting museums and libraries, and cycling and playing in the neighborhood park with our friends. As homeschoolers, we choose to educate outside of the school system because it gives us the freedom in choice on how we wish to learn without any limitations. At the moment, this is confinement and learning in isolation. What we are all currently doing is really making the best of what we have while navigating through so much uncertainty in our lives. We as homeschoolers prefer to call this “Quarantine Schooling,” “Isolation Schooling,” or any name, other than “Homeschooling,” and we are really and truly all in it together!
This article is written by guest blogger Natasha Moloo is an illustrator and a homeschooling mom of two. In her spare time she enjoys drawing and playing sports. She also has an unnatural love for sparkling water and cake. She has lived in Canada, India, Tanzania and currently lives in the U.A.E. You can get in touch with her via her Instagram page @natashamoloo or visit her website www.natashamoloo.com
