The Open Road or the Bike Path?
By Barbara FrankThe firstborn child of an overprotective mom, I wasn't allowed to ride a bike until I was ten years old. But once I finally got a two-wheeler and learned to ride it, I experienced the freedom I'd dreamed of for a long time. Suddenly I could go places without my family, places too far to walk to, like my beloved public library. Riding my bike was so much fun!
Like most young people, I loved my bike until I learned to drive a car. After that, it didn't make sense to pedal somewhere when I could get there much sooner by driving. I eagerly learned to navigate streets, roads and expressways in order to go more places faster than my trusty old bike could ever allow. I sure enjoyed the freedom I gained by learning to drive a car.
Of course, driving requires a different set of rules and circumstances than riding a bike does. It would have been odd to drive the car the way I rode my bike: hugging the curb, putting out my arm to signal a turn, or driving the car down the creek-side bike path that led to the public library. I was beyond the restraints and limitations of bicycling. Driving a car allowed me to bypass bike paths and curbs in favor of highways.
When you choose to homeschool your children, you can bypass the limitations created by formal education so that you and your children can progress freely down the highways of learning. Take math, for example. Homeschoolers don't have to limit themselves to certain math textbooks and artificial time constraints (class periods, semesters). They can use books, manipulatives and real life to learn math at their own pace. Learning math is not restricted to the classroom; it might be learned in informal sessions at the kitchen table, while making change at garage sales, while helping draw up a patio for the family home, and while figuring out how many square feet are needed for this year's garden plot. Later on, the teen who wants to learn calculus can use books, DVDs, and (if his mother is anything like me and finds calculus to be a complete mystery) the occasional tutoring session from an older student, all on his own schedule.
Like driving a car, homeschooling brings added freedom. But homeschooling using the methods of a formal school is as constraining and unnecessary as driving your car down a narrow bike path instead of the open highway.
There's no need for children to sit at desks for specific time periods in order to learn. A child will be much more comfortable sitting with you on the family room sofa or a front porch swing learning how to sound out words than behind a desk for 45 minutes of reading practice a day. Think about how and when your children learned to walk and talk. I'm sure you didn't hold scheduled speech and walking classes for them. Those abilities developed naturally, over time, with the encouragement and help of parents, grandparents, siblings and friends.
The same is true of any other skill children need to learn. Sports can be learned through informal games with family and friends rather than organized (and often expensive) lessons. Instruction in religion, musical instruments and art can easily be done one-on-one instead of through structured group classes.
What I'm saying here may seem very obvious to you, and I realize that in some cases I'm preaching to the choir. Yet I'm aware of many homeschooling parents being worn down by a grueling schedule of organized lessons (sports, music, and foreign language) compounded by time-eating homeschool co-ops and organized church activities. Many homeschooling parents have more in common with school bus drivers than school teachers; they drive their children from one class or activity to another all week long. Teaching their children is something they try to fit in around the edges of scheduled "educational" activities.
And what of the children? When I hear parents express their frustration at having to nag their children to stop dawdling and get ready for class, or football, or drum corps practice, I know that their children have little more freedom than if they'd gone to school.
Homeschooling by imitating formal schools is like driving your car down a bike path: it's cumbersome, it's unnecessary, and it limits the freedom that's yours when you're brave enough to drive down the highway. Why not embrace the freedom that's available to you and your children?
Copyright 2009 Barbara Frank/Cardamom Publishers