Homeschooling on the Homestead

Homeschooling.

It has been a journey, and continues to be one as we adapt with each child and their strengths and challenges, and my own struggles at home within the homesteading setting.

I have no background in homeschooling. I am a product of the American public school system, and frankly, I loved school. I loved the academic parts of school. I loved lugging my giant backpack around and having my enormous trapper keeper and my pencil pouch and filling up notebooks and highlighting and treasured my textbooks and LOVED school. (Maybe not so much all of the social things. I had a group of friends and did well within that circle, but I was a geeky nerd to the core). I was an obnoxious, insufferable know-it-all, but despite my character flaws, I really, truly loved learning.

I was blessed that my mother was such an advocate for my education. We moved a lot, and going into a new school every few years meant that my mother had to prove over and over again that I could be in certain enrichment classes, or take some testing to be in a certain program. Because of her insistence though, I was able to have some amazing opportunities and talented teachers. I had a teacher in elementary school who forbid her students to use the phrase "I can't" in her classroom. She had a box of "apostrophe T's" outside of her door, and if we slipped, we had to go outside, drop in our "can't" and rephrase our statements---the idea being, there was nothing we couldn't do. There might be an impediment, or a strength that we had to develop, but never something outside of the realm of possibility. She also had a literal brainstorm in her classroom---a tornado made out of chicken wire and cotton wool that would light up and thunder whenever we were working on classroom problems. She was a real advocate for non-traditional schooling, and I thrived under her guidance and care. I think she was probably the closest teacher to a real life Ms. Frizzle that I had ever encountered.

Me being a geek at the first West Coast World Affairs Challenge event

Having that enthusiastic base in my earlier years, really pushed me through adolescence. My mother always told me that she didn't care what my grades were, but that I tried my best. I made it a personal goal of mine that my best was going to be THE best, but that's more a statement on my stubbornness, I think. We did Saturday Korean schools for much of my elementary school, and my parents made sure we did enrichment school work during the summer so we didn't have any regressions in skill. I was determined to learn anything and everything. I wanted to know everything. I competed with my peers and with myself all through my school life because this was what I was good at. I wanted to be the best, the most successful at whatever I put my hand in. I took every academic extracurricular, every AP class, every volunteer position, every enrichment opportunity that I could cram into my schedule. The arena of the classroom was my forte. It was where I thrived and found value in myself.

Model UN! I won a gavel as Costa Rica ambassador

There are obvious faults to this sort of thinking. While I was a good student, got good grades, and really enjoyed the process of learning, I pushed myself hard in ways that weren't always healthy. There were many nights where I got only a handful of hours to sleep trying to finish some coursework. Between zero period, and after-hours activities and weekend classes, and then homework, I had no free time. And not many chances to sleep. And directly correlating my self-worth with school meant that after my academic career was over, I had kind of an existential crisis. Who am I now? What sort of value do I have or bring to those around me? It was a hard lesson to learn and to correct about how I view myself.

In contrast, my husband was completely homeschooled. In fact, all of his siblings were homeschooled or were involved in a homeschooling co-op for their education. He wasn't exactly the lover of school in the same way I was. His perfect day would be a good book and time with his pet goats, and then all the soccer he could handle with some good meals thrown in. And then early to bed, and working with his hands in some way or another. While his schooling wasn't as rigorous or as extensive as my experience was, we still ended up in the same place overall. In fact, he's actually got more degrees than I do, despite all his protests about not wanting to be in college. And while I don't know that the freer form of homeschooling that was his experience is my cup of tea, I think that his parents, especially his mother, did a wonderful job in instilling a sense of independence and initiative in her children. All of them (and there are seven of them) are proactive in researching and studying and growing whatever interests they would like to pursue. All of them are excellent readers and writers, and have the ability to speak well. My husband has this extraordinary sense of confidence in himself, which I think is wonderful. If there is anything that he doesn't know, he just goes and learns it. For instance, he's putting together the solar system of our house, but he's not an electrician. He just got the plans, and read through them and decided that this was going to be something that he's could do. Obviously there's a learning curve involved, but it's never an impossibility, just a matter of research and time and practice, which is a skill and confidence that I find to be very admirable.

For all of my love of school, I very much depended on the structure in order to give me purpose in learning. Give me an assignment and tell me what I'm doing, and I am going to go gang-busters and do whatever it is that is needed to the best of my ability; but without that guidance, I'm a little bit lost. And it took me a while to find that personal initiative after watching my husband just go for whatever he is interested in.

My first exposure to homeschooled children was on an overnight field trip in the fourth grade. My enrichment group went on a joint trip to the Biltmore House and the NASA space center in Tennessee with a homeschooling co-op, and all I remember was sitting on our bus listening to these other students my age, and thinking they were WEIRD. Like, strange naked mole rat type personality weird. I had no idea what homeschooling was before meeting them, and in my head ever after was the image of the very strange student that I had to share a seat with for years.

The next time I ever spent time with a homeschooled person was in college when I met my best friend and her brother. She was the opposite of the naked mole rat. She was brilliant and bubbly, and all around a spectacularly beautiful person. And her brother also, was a literal prodigy--he was just turning 16 the year we graduated from Berkeley. And also, I think he's a pretty accomplished fencer as well, which I always thought was super cool.

After meeting them, it seemed like more and more people around me (we're in California now) were homeschooled to some degree, including my husband's family. This was a type of homeschooling that I could get behind. My best friend and her family, and my husband and his family and friends were brilliant. They were well-read and well-spoken. They had a huge variety of interests that were outside of the "normal" school education arena---like knowing everything about how to raise poultry, or being nationally acclaimed debaters or having masterful culinary skills or musical talent. Homeschooling gave them the means to study in-depth in whatever interests they had.

They were also an incredibly strong family unit. I remember sitting in their living room for the first time, and all the siblings were there, and they were reading a book together, and genuinely interested in conversation with each other. They loved to be in each other's company, and there was a sense of innocence even in the oldest siblings that you kind of lose in the public school environment (or if you do retain it, you are bullied and teased about it) that I loved. That's probably more of a testament to how their family functions internally, but the time spent together with homeschooling definitely supported those relationships.

That's a lot of background---but I thought it to be important for how we started homeschooling as a family. My husband always wanted our children to be homeschooled, and I, as much as I loved my public school experience, was not very happy with the way that school looked now---class size, class safety, curriculum standards and materials, and the exposure to bullying and subject matter outside of class were all things that I didn't want them to have. I did want them to have a classroom experience because I gained so much from it, but also looking back, I can think of moments that shaped me in a negative way, that in retrospect, I wish I had avoided.

The answer sort of solved itself when we moved out to our farm, because the only school close to us is one elementary school, and I had heard some alarming things about outside-of-the-class instances that made me want to keep my children home. Thankfully all of my close neighbors homeschooled, and so I had a wealth of advice and resources with which to draw from. My oldest child started her pre-schooling through a charter school homeschooling program, where I had the flexibility to choose whatever curriculum for her that I liked (as long as it was secular), and had monthly guidance and check-ins to make sure that we were meeting all of our educational goals. The yearly education stipend that the charter program was also a huge help. We were able to go on field trips and purchase school equipment and do gymnastics and soccer and art lessons that we couldn't afford at the time.

It was a good place for me to start because I entered this homeschooling journey thinking that my children were going to be like me. Learning was going to be easy for them, and they were going to thirst for it and knock off accomplishments daily because they were just as voracious and hungry as I was about knowledge. And then I had to completely rethink this approach because it turns out that my oldest has a harder time absorbing information. We went through several programs and books and for a little while, I was afraid that she might never learn to read. I didn't have a lack in confidence in my range of knowledge to share with my children, but I was doubting whether I had the ability (and the skill and the patience) to teach it to my child who wasn't neurotypical. Our educational support teacher (ESP), who met with us on a monthly basis, was a great point of support and encouragement. She noticed all of the milestones that my daughter was accomplishing even while I was frustrated that we weren't making an progress. As a teacher, she was able to give me suggestions and offer programs that helped us get to our literacy goals. I learned another reason to love homeschooling, because I had to spend that extra time learning how my daughter learned. And she got the extra time to absorb letters and sounds and the mechanics of writing at the pace she needed.

We eventually left our charter program because with every passing month, it seemed, in California new laws and regulations were being passed. Suddenly there were testing requirements and standard requirements, and restrictions on curriculum and what the educational stipend could be used for that was no longer working well with our family. I understand the rationale behind extra regulation, but suddenly my daughter couldn't get that extra time to learn a concept before she was being tested and rated and measured on a scale that I didn't think was necessary for a 5 year old. I am really grateful for the lessons that our ESP taught us. I learned to see the milestones, even if they are very tiny. I also had accountability to myself, and had access to resources that I hadn't previously known about. I do think charter programs can be a good way to start homeschooling, but our family grew beyond the scope of what it could provide for us, and so we started privately homeschooling.

Private homeschooling essentially means, we're on our own. It's different in every state, but in California, we file some yearly paperwork and have the freedom to do homeschooling as is best for our family. We basically continued our homeschooling schedule as we did with the charter program, in the first few months. I was using the same books and the same subject curriculum, but without the monthly check-ins and the required testing (and also without the education stipend). Over time, we ended up changing out which books we used. With four children, we needed a curriculum type that was reminiscent of the one-room class type teaching, where children can work independently with minimal "teaching" involvement. That way my oldest girls can sit with their workbooks and do the exercises that are required for the day, and I can spend more time with my youngest, who are learning letters and those fine motor skills and need the extra supervision. Some days, they'll sit with their work books for hours, doing exercise page after exercise page. Some days they'll just do their homework and then go spend the day exploring outside. Some days are farm work days and we have to do some chores. Some days are church days and we are at church and our homeschooling is a reading assignment. We always do a little bit a day, but sometimes every day is different and sometimes every day is very much the same. Because we don't use the traditional schooling calendar, during the winter months, we usually take longer breaks because that's when the ground is soft and the weather is pleasant to do all of the necessary outside farm tasks. Likewise in the summer, we usually do school straight through because it's too miserable to be outside in the heat of the day. Being able to choose the hours when schooling fits best with us has been wonderful.

My daughter with her Korean lesson

Another thing that really helps our homeschooling journey is being involved with a neighborhood co-op.

Our co-op is pretty new. It didn't exist before all of us got together, with our large families of homeschooled children, and decided to put something together. I think the biggest worry about starting homeschooling is whether or not your child is going to have enough social activity and development. You don't want to raise a bunch of creepy naked mole rat kids. You want them to be as socially developed as any other child, and oftentimes I couldn't picture when that would happen for them, if day in and day out the only person they ever saw was me. But this was proven wrong to me right from the get go. We did so many activities and were with so many people that my children were always making new friends and interacting with other adults and children. Moreover, they were interacting with people of all different ages. You forget that in a school, a child is with people their own age (plus a teacher) for the majority of the waking hours of the day, and that's kind of an unusual environment. In real life, there are children younger and older than you. There are adults that are younger and older than you and you have to learn how to interact with that age range--and it's something that's very easily done when you are outside of the confines of a classroom.

The co-op we have is an excellent place for social interaction. My kids spend time with their best friends of all ages. They have classes with other people in our neighborhood that impart their knowledge to them. They have homework that they are responsible for on top of their normal at-home work. They are learning time management, and conflict resolution, and how to behave in society amidst like-minded families. They're sheltered, too. But not in a way where they are ignorant, if that makes sense. I am not worried about school shootings or drugs or abuse or bullying or a number of other horrific scenarios in the same way that I think I would be concerned about if my children were in a school setting. And also, because this is important to our family, they are able to practice their faith in a group setting, because we all attend the same church. And while our once-a-week sessions might not seem like enough for many children, it works best with our schedules. All of us are homesteading families. We have animals and gardens and infrastructure projects on top of the normal home schedules, and so it is the only time that we are able to afford, and I think they all get the most out of the experience.

Horseback riding lessons

Obviously there are always challenges. Me as a teacher and parent am learning alongside my children. I am learning patience (I hope) and how to curb my frustration, and really seeing all of the different ways that my daughters learn---because they are all so different. It is amazing to reach a milestone or accomplish a task that was very difficult. I love to see them acquire a new interests and develop them in a way that you really couldn't do in a classroom. And also, I cherish the innocence and sweetness that is being preserved in my little ones, a wholesomeness that can get lost very easily in a school context. Even among elementary aged children, it is very obvious when school kids get together with our community homeschoolers. It's difficult to explain, but it's kind of like how my Korean friends could immediately know that I was American instead of Korea-raised: something about mannerisms and comportment that really give it away. Even if sometimes I want to just pull on my hair because we had a "hard" homeschooling day, I am grateful for the time I spend with them, and the time they get to spend with each other.

I can see how homeschooling isn't for everyone. You have to spend A LOT of time with your kids. You have to be proactive in their education to get them to learn. The initial learning to read phase is the most difficult. It was the cause of many tears (mostly mine) in our household, and it was such a huge burden off of my shoulders once we got past that stage---because really once you learn how to read, you can learn ANYTHING. I can't imagine homeschooling outside of our homestead environment, though. Part of our learning experience is also being outside. Homeschooling is that much more difficult when you don't have the space to simply be. In an apartment, or in the city, I think I would lose my mind. I remember feeling incredibly alone living in the city even though there were people living all around me because city life can be so isolating. In the country, my nearest neighbor is acres away, but I have never had more friends for both myself and my children. The sense of community and the sense of purpose is what makes the difference. We also have the financial stability to make homeschooling a really rich experience, which I realize is not something that everyone can do. We are blessed that I can be a stay at home mom and even do the whole homeschooling experience in the first place---and while homeschooling doesn't have to be expensive, there are things that we have to pay for out of pocket because it's not supplemented by a school (i.e. sports, school supplies, extracurricular activities, text books, etc.)

Learning sewing and embroidery

There are things that my children have had to learn, that probably a school student knows already. I hadn't thought that standing in lines would be a teaching moment, but it's a skill that's pretty much drilled into you on day one of school, and not something that homeschoolers have practice with. How to pack a backpack--remembering that you probably need a pencil and paper for class. Not calling your teacher "mom" during co-op. My kids don't know anything about the latest pop culture trends, but they can identify every song bird that flies past our window, and the native flora of California by leaf alone. My daughters know all the major organs of mammals from our many butchering days, and they know the life cycle of chickens from egg to hen. My daughters got bored one day and made themselves a tree house (I question the structural integrity of it, but it's still a nice activity for them.) They can milk a cow, and help piglets find their way home. And they can read and write, and whenever they want to learn something, they just pick up a book and learn it. Their friends likewise, have similar skills from their homesteading homeschooling education. The kids get together and do handicrafts and make up songs and play dress-up. They cook and bake recipes together. The boys go hunting and shooting and learn carpentry and engineering. The boys in our neighborhood built a go-cart using an old lawn-mower engine and scrap metal. It all feels so wholesome and beautiful, and I am so grateful for this community we're raising the kids in. There are difficulties with anything, and I am dreading what will happen when puberty strikes our household, but I have a lot of faith that this is best way for our family to grow.

It's a work on progress, and what works with my children today, might not work in the future, but there is always that flexibility to adapt and change and do what is best suited for everyone.

Whatever your family does to learn and grow. I hope it is good for you and your children. Especially for the little ones, I wish them the best and every good opportunity.