April 12, 2018
Homeschooling Challenge: Their Own Pace
One of the challenges I’ve discovered in our home school journey comes from my philosophy to never keep one student back for another. I allow them to advance at their own pace – if this means we spend eight weeks constantly studying and restudying one concept until we find a way to understand it or flying through a subject because it instantly clicks, we learn until we truly understand.
For instance, in our classroom (aka my kitchen table) right now:
Kimberly is working 7th grade arithmetic, 5th grade language, writing reports from a 4th grade science book, and studying high school vocabulary,
Jaquline is working 3rd grade arithmetic, 2nd grade language arts, a cursive writing K5 workbook, and 4th grade vocabulary,
And Jillian is working 3rd grade arithmetic, 3rd grade language arts, using a K5 manuscript writing practice, and reading 2nd grade readers.
This example would be easy if Jaquline and Jillian were twins. Nope. Jaquline is 8 and Jillian is 6. Jaquline chooses to do “the bare minimum” (aka, only what mom assigns) for bookwork. She is more interested in tagging along with her 12 year old sister when she’s watching her online Mastering Biology lectures. She can tell you all about Mendel’s peas (the latest lecture subject) and can explain genetic color crosses in chickens (Rebeccah and Kimberly’s continuing project) and how to avoid genetic defects (aka crooked toes, hooked beak). When she does her division, she does it all mentally! She never has a carrying or borrowing error in operations (this was the most common error for mom, Kimberly, and Jillian). She reads unabridged Tolkien and Hodges and loves them. She has a very active imagination and writes with a neat calligraphic scroll. So, when she is working, she does very well.
But she just isn’t interested in sitting down for bookwork.
Jillian, on the other hand, is at the “gung-ho” stage of elementary school. She’s been doing workbooks since she started reading and flies through her work. She sometimes has to go back and redo a concept (like carrying and borrowing numbers, greater than and less than, etc.) but once she’s gone through it for five or six times, she gets it and then we will hear her “teaching” Lucas or her dolls the newest understood concept. Jillian often does the next days’ lessons just because, “I want to do more.” She even does extra work from the back of the books “for fun!”
Jillian loves doing sit-down bookwork.
Improperly handled, this “younger child in higher grade” could cause contention in our home.
With the first instance where we had a student (our second one) surpassing another (our first one) in a subject, it caused concern for my husband and I because we didn’t want to “make learning a race” or “pressure” anyone. Then we noticed the elder asking the younger how to figure out a problem. They weren’t racing each other or fighting, one wasn’t irritated that the other was “over” her: they didn’t see it that way. They treated each other as individuals and helped. So now, we don’t worry about what “grade level” one child is at compared to another. We continued to allow them to move through our “curriculum books” as they are able.
I’m careful to emphasize to my students that they are not in competition with each other; they are in competition with themselves. Learning is competing with yourself. We are to work to the best of our personal ability and strive for our best. This is the same for anything in life! We are to edify (build up) each other. We don’t brag because that is cutting others down. We rejoice when others succeed. We rejoice when we succeed. We are happy when we help each other. We are thankful when others help us. As iron sharpens iron, so we are to help each other and build each other up.
When love guides your life and reflects in your homeschool world, you foster a culture of mutual education where each student is treated with respect. Your students learn to help others, rejoice with others, and ask for assistance when they need it without fear of ridicule. That is part of my ultimate goal – teaching them to live in love.
Thanks for reading!
Type at you next time…
~Nancy Tart