One of the things that have been occupying my “introspection” time is Miss Sam’s homeschool education. As we entered into our Ninth Grade curriculum I was met with a willingness to follow the structure but no evidence in regards to having an interest in what was being “studied” aka “I can’t remember what I just read”.

As I contemplated alternatives I kept mulling over something my mother had said when Sam was little “you don’t ever want to stifle her love of learning and her creativity”. Well, perhaps those weren’t the EXACT words, but that was what I remember taking away from many conversations about Miss Sam’s individuality.

With these wise words in mind I set about exploring other possibilities to move forward in a more productive manner with Sam’s education. As I explored Sam’s interests and what “consumes” her, I made the decision to be an “on board” parent.

I am now “on board” 100% with her pursuing her passions: art and creative writing. For example: Miss Sam has been working on her novel for quite some time now. It is absolutely incredible and displays her gift of descriptive writing. By being “on board” with this pursuit in terms of more than a “hobby” has really allowed for Miss Sam to move forward with many other dimensions in her story line. This and her recent interest in learning to play the Ocarina has moved us into an interest led learning environment with ease and excitement. There are many educational lessons to be learned within these constructs, not to mention many life application “lessons”.

The result in these most recent changes?

A sense of harmony.

A sense of curiosity.

A sense of  purpose.

Samantha’s Corner:

Mom: Is your mom allowing you to grow up?

Sam: I don’t want to grow up.

P.S. Thanks for all the giggles on my last post y’all!!!!

Recently a friend, who is interested in homeschooling through the middle school years, came by to talk about my homeschooling journey and what works and what definitely has not worked. Before I began sorting through the various curriculums and teaching strategies we (Miss Sam and I) experimented with and those that we have found success with, I gave her a piece of advice that was given to me when I first began this journey (has it really been over a year ago????). That advice was so thoughtfully given by Heather from Christian Unschooling:

Do not jump into anything right away. Allow time to ‘decompress’ from traditional school. Allow time to get to know your child again. Allow time to learn how your child learns best. Nothing is set in concrete. That is the beauty of homeschooling. You can adapt as each learning opportunity presents itself.

I followed this advice as best as the educator in me could. It was difficult for me to ‘let go’ of the structured learning environment (I still struggle with this on occasion). Anyway, as I took my friend’s hand and we traveled down the past year of being a homeschool mom I realized that both Miss Sam and I have accomplished much. How did we turn the initial chaos into a smooth learning routine?

• We worked together to see what worked for us as a ‘team’…not just ‘student’ and ‘teacher’.
• I had to learn to listen to and respect Miss Sam’s input into various methods of teaching and learning.
• When the learning environment began to get ‘tense’ we learned together that it was time for a ‘change’.
• We had to take into consideration not only our ‘biological’ schedules but also our ‘environmental’ schedules when approaching ‘teaching’ and ‘learning’.
• I had to ‘let go’ of constricting notions of ‘teaching’.

Miss Sam recently had her yearly evaluation. She has been given the ‘go-ahead’ to proceed to the ninth grade. Because Florida does adhere to stricter guidelines for high school homeschooling (in order to graduate and go on to college) our present methods of homeschooling are going to make a minor shift. We will continue to navigate these changes by continuing to:

• work as a team
• listen and respect each other’s opinion
• recognize the signposts for change
• keeping circadian rhythms and environmental schedules in the mix
• keep the learning parameters flexible

Today I am grateful: for the opportunity and flexibility to homeschool Miss Sam.

It’s fitting to begin the New Year by participating in one of my favorite memes That’s My Answer. One of today’s questions is:

What is your opinion of the education system in your city? 

Many throughout our United States would nod their heads and say ‘Ah, you live in Florida, that explains why you homeschool’. However, I would be remiss in stating that it wasn’t so much the education system that led me to homeschool but the bullies that manifested themselves within the school system. There are many great education systems throughout the state of Florida, however, I personally would rather teach my child at home.

With that being said, there was one area of disagreement I had with our education system here in the state of Florida and that was teaching to the FCAT. I am strongly opposed to it. However, my opposition did not stop me from instituting the same type of format in my homeschool teaching curriculum.

I found myself educating my daughter over this past year, to learn to take tests…not to learn. Although this is a skill that is necessary in our world of academia, it is not meant to encompass the entire learning process.

Therefore, as I have mentioned recently in My Daybook posts, I am in the process of revamping our curriculum for the coming year. I am so excited. Not just about my daughter’s learning process, but about mine. Being an educator I am trained to follow certain procedures and guidelines. These are so ingrained in me that I can’t wholly abandon them. I need to have an outline of where we are going and a means to document where we have been.

To accomplish this I have turned to the curriculum guidelines set forth by World Book. It allows for structure but also encourages learning ‘off the beaten path’. The challenge for me will be to research and implement creative ‘hands on’ learning in these areas.

The education system in any city is what the parent makes it. You cannot send your child to school with the expectation that the system will fulfill all the needs of your child and all your requirements. If you choose to keep your child in the school system, it is your responsibility as a parent to supplement your child’s education where you feel it is lacking.

So there you have it. I’ll step down from my soapbox now.

Miss Sam began her horse riding lessons yesterday and Praise the Lord, she loves. loves. loves. it!!!! It has taken what seems like FOREVER to find something this child would be interested in. I am so thankful that she has this opportunity.

I like that it is a program that has ‘levels’ and ‘manuals’ (I can see you cringing Heather!) but this really satisfies the educator in me. We also have the option for the lessons to be private or to have a ‘partner’. For now, Miss Sam will be doing the first block as ‘private’ and then we will consider having a ‘partner’. Can we say ‘Socialization 101′?????

Can’t help but share the following photos:

There are a few million things that I struggle with as a home educator. I won’t list them today. It’s Monday and we should all start our Mondays on a positive note. Thank goodness for Shari Ellen’s wonderful meme Homeschool Hi-Lights. It affords me the opportunity to validate my decision to educate at home.

One lesson I seem to learn over and over again as a home educator is allowing the natural flow of learning to take precedence. Yet for me, this takes a great deal of prayer and patience.

This past week prayer and patience and the natural flow of learning manifested itself in the form of a newly hatched baby chick.

A very dear friend of mine is a first grade teacher who has been incubating chick and quail eggs in her classroom. Early last week she invited Miss Sam and I to visit and ‘love on’ the first hatched chick. Miss Sam didn’t want to go. Not because she wasn’t the least bit curious about the chick and it’s siblings still pecking their way out of their eggs. It was because of the children in the classroom. “I don’t like crowds Mom. I don’t want to go.”

I painfully gave Miss Sam no choice. We went to see the chick and the classroom of first graders.

During our initially uncomfortable visit my dear (very smart and intuitive) friend surprised Miss Sam (she has known her since Kindergarten) by asking her to please teach her class some basic Japanese. The rest as they say is ‘history’.

Miss Sam is now a Peer Counselor for this class. For the remaining school year she goes in to teach some Japanese and to help our dear friend teach reading and math. Miss Sam loves. loves. loves. it!!! Plans are already in motion for her to be a Peer Counselor for the the 2008-2009 school year.

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” Philippians 4:6 (NLT)

Amen.

When the books were first received:

A few months later:

Thank You Heather and Shamus with all our hearts!!!

It’s been a little over two months since Miss Sam left the public school system. The biggest criticism I receive in regards to our decision to home school is in reference to her being able to maintain social connections. I do have responses to these questions which range from polite questioning to rude inferences that my daughter will grow up to be a social misfit. Many of these responses I have learned through conversations with and blog posts by Heather (thanks!).

I must confess however, that to some degree, I am concerned. Not so much about Miss Sam’s social skills but in her ability to make and maintain friendships. And not friendships for a lifetime but ‘friends’ for a moment in time. This is one of the reasons we visit a therapist every other week in the bigger, bigger city.

Miss Sam has been very adamant about not wanting to be around kids her age. The only kid her age that she is comfortable with is her friend from kindergarten. In fact, he was just over the other day for a few hours. My concern is that, since leaving the public school system, when I have suggested any type of ‘group’ activity that involves kids her own age she ‘shuts’ down.

The many weeks following her meltdown that resulted in her now being at home have been stressful from the ‘social’ aspect. An always ‘touchy’ subject with ‘suggestions’ misfiring and exploding.

Until this week.

Several days ago Miss Sam and I had a lengthy conversation – basically she asked me to ‘listen without getting mad’ at what she had to say about ‘my ideas of friends and friendships for her’. FINALLY! She was willing to talk. I was willing to listen. I’m thankful that the stars were in alignment that day as much was understood and many compromises were made.

The fruits of that conversation were harvested yesterday.

Not really wanting to go, but because of compromises promised, Miss Sam reluctantly packed our beach bag and we set out for the community pool. There were two kids around Miss Sam’s age playing in the pool. I could see Miss Sam ‘shut down’ immediately. My first reaction was to lecture. God led me to ‘listen’. Listen to what she was feeling and help her understand that perhaps these kids were feeling the same way about ‘making new friends’. And I swam away to the other end of the pool.

As I turned around I can’t tell you how proud I was to see Miss Sam ‘inching’ her way towards the other two kids. And blessfully they welcomed her with splashes and ‘let’s race’.

All I heard on the ride home was ‘I had so much fun today!’.

Me too.

For more Homeschool Hi-Lights

visit Ellen over at Fun Learning!

Related Posts…Generated By Me:

I’m Now a Home Schoolin’ Mama

I’m Still Here….Barely

For several months Miss Sam has nagged me beyond sanity to help her learn how to make an animated video. Considering that I have zero experience in this venue I delayed her requests with ‘wait until we get you a new computer with more capacity’. Well her thirteenth birthday arrived with the much anticipated ‘new computer’.

Yet, there was no pressure on me to help her with learning how to create an animated video for You-Tube.

While visiting friends in Safety Harbor, Miss Sam and I engaged in a conversation with a young man fishing on the pier. During this conversation he suggested several ways to create an animated video. Although much of this conversation was beyond my comprehension, it appears that it was enough to motivate Miss Sam.

Armed with the suggestions of the helpful young man and information gleaned from online friends, Miss Sam taught herself how to use Microsoft Paint/Paint Shop Pro X/Microsoft Movie Maker to create the following. It is an audition for a part in a Warriors You-Tube feature video.

And to further embaress myself, I am unable to embed the video (to size) in this post. So please take the time to link here to

Miss Sam’s First You-Tube Video

To visit other participants in Ellen’s fun Homeschool Hi-Light Monday meme be sure to click here.

Ellen from Fun Learning has invited me to join her new Homeschool Hi-Lights, a Monday meme for homeschoolers. It’s a great opportunity for me to share our experiences with ‘home learning’ by highlighting some of the ‘ah ha’ moments of the past week. Thanks Ellen!

I have been receiving the hard copy of Family Times for several years now (I used it quite frequently as a topic resource for the workshops I developed for my previous business Navigating Motherhood ). However, it’s only been recently (since becoming a home educator) that I have found many of the articles being a source of much needed ‘support’ and ‘encouragement’. The most recent being an article by Diane Flynn Keith titled A Recovery Program for Homeschool Split Personality Disorder.

Do you vacillate between child-led developmentally appropriate, interest-initiated unschooling on one hand, and traditional, structured, academic-based education on the other? These mood-altering swings in methodology creep up unexpectedly on homeschooling parents and are often exacerbated by events beyond their control.

Diane Flynn Keith

As the events of life seemed to spiral our everyday routines totally out of control this past week, I found myself flip flopping between interest-led learning and structured ‘this is what I need to document today’ learning. It was driving me crazy to the degree that by Tuesday I was having a ‘I am a failure as a homeschool mom’ meltdown.

Then Wednesday rolled around and Miss Sam and I collapsed on the couch and loosely watched Disney’s Robin Hood. I say ‘loosely’ because it was that time spent on the couch ‘vegging’ that the most valuable homeschool lesson of the week was ‘taught’.

We talked more during that movie than we had the previous few days. Our conversation wrapped itself around the psychology of human behaviors:

• we talked about why people react to certain stressors (like coping with Homeschool Split Personality Disorder) differently
• we talked about how the past effects the present
• we talked about how we can change and grow emotionally
• we talked about how we can increase our communication skills to where our reactions to stress will have less fallout

We missed much of the movie, but we captured the essence of why I chose to homeschool in the first place. That my friends was the highlight and the ‘ah ha’ moment of my week as a homeschool mom.

Once again, our Governor, Charlie Crist, has declared the week of March 30 – April 6 to be Home Education Week here in Florida.

Governor Crist included in his proclamation that:

Studies indicate most children who are home educated exhibit self-confidence, good citizenship, exceptional academic test scores, higher than average college attendance and success.

I am encouraged by this.

In our county Home Education Week coincides with the public school system’s Spring Break.

Being as I am on Spring Break (grin) I spent a small portion of the morning surfing the net and reading blogs. While enjoying this cruise through cyberspace, I came across Dana’s blog Principled Discovery while reading Heather’s blog An Untraditional Home. Dana has come up with an extraordinary way to celebrate Home Education Week (to include the cute image at the top of this post) as it seems the Governor of Nebraska also proclaimed this week as Home Education Week.

Dana has put together some writing prompts that provide an opportunity, for those of us that homeschool, to write about our adventures. Today’s prompt is

Profiling Home Educators: Describe yourself, your family or one of your children. What is it like to be home educated in your family? What is ‘normal’ for you?

I am relatively new to being a home educator, yet in the month since making this decision, I have come to realize the significant (positive) impact this decision has made on us as a family unit.

Even though I don’t have a ‘curriculum’ that requires me to check off blocks and blocks of ‘Done’, I have been able to assess what being a ‘home educator’ has accomplished simply by observing our family dynamics.

Before becoming a ‘home educator’, our family unit was starting to unravel. We were each moving in different directions. We were growing further and further apart. I could say that I became a ‘home educator’ for many of the reasons that Governor Crist highlighted in his proclamation. However, in all honesty, I did it to save my family.

• Being a home educator means, to me, being able to sew my family together into the beautiful tapestry we were meant to be.
• Being a home educator provides my family with the opportunity to create the individual brightly colored threads that we are sewn together with, not just threads of my choice.
• Being a home educator gives me the freedom to view each piece of the tapestry from a different perspective each day because I am not bound by ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’.

Being a home educator means that spring break is not a week ‘off’ from school. For me personally, it means a week ‘off’ from outside commitments as ‘school’ is always in session. It’s called ‘life’.