Because that's the point of homeschooling, right?
We could be creative in the concepts we were learning. We could skip over the things we thought were pointless busy work. We could get rid of the fluff.
Because that's the point of homeschooling, right?
Math could be fun. Science could be fun. History could be fun. Everything could be fun.
Because that's the point of homeschooling, right?
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Well, the problem with always making everything fun...is that not everything is fun.
The irony of homeschooling is that we pride ourselves in having our kids learn outside of the four walls of a classroom, complaining that what goes on inside the brick and mortar school building is not the Real World. And yet, here our kids are in the Real World...and they are so protected from disappointment and struggle. We're afraid to let them just sit in the facts that long division isn't necessarily the most exciting concept in the world and sometimes you actually do have to use handwriting and hey, not everyone will look the other way when you still write your 6 backwards at ten years old.
We want to make everything fun! Exciting! Wonderful! Easy!
We say things like We don't really need to learn things like long division, because when will you have to do that without a calculator anyway. And we make sure that science always revolves around a messy explosion. And we tell our kids if they need to know the answer to something, all you need is Google. So...what do we really need to learn about anyway?
We don't want things to be hard. Or boring. Or difficult. We don't want anything to be a struggle.
Which works for awhile...until, oh let's just say your son tells you he wants to raise pigs. And once he gets into it, he realizes he only wants to do the fun parts. Not the hauling water in the winter or chipping ice or cleaning the pen or stopping his video game to check feed. Just the parts where he pats the pig on the head and everyone praises him for taking on such a huge responsibility.
Which makes sense. Because when double digit multiplication wasn't fun you told him he could just use a calculator. And when you came across that one boring part in history you said let's just skip this.
Maybe I'm simplifying here. Or maybe the conclusions that I'm drawing don't hold water at your house. All I know is that if homeschooling is Real Life, and it should reflect Real Life. Yes, as homeschoolers we have the opportunity to morph and modify and custom build our education so it's interesting and pertinent and fun for those involved. But we have to remember that sometimes Real Life is hard. Sometimes Real Life is a struggle. Sometimes Real Life doesn't go our way. And often times, Real Life is a mixed up glob of good and bad that can't necessarily be separated from each other.
Does your homeschool reflect Real Life? Hmmmm...
I don't necessarily think there is anything wrong with making "school" fun. I mean there aren't many times in real life where you are forced to sit and learn things that aren't of immediate need. Yes- you will take classes or training, but usually you choose to or they are directly related to your job so they have purpose. That being said, there *is something wrong with making life fun. Life is full of responsibility, good and bad, and just like you said they can't always be separated.
ReplyDeleteOf course our school is not all fun, work is required. Division must be written down and worked through. Unreadable words must be recopied....
Sadie, true - I agree that there is nothing wrong with attempting to make "school" more fun. I just think some folks have gone so far in making everything about "learning" fun that they've went over that line of making everything in "life" fun. And when you step over that line, you end up with kids who are shocked when they come up against those bad/boring/less-than-awesome parts of life that are just "part of life". Or parents who are tripping over themselves, apologizing to their kids that division isn't fun. (I've met some like that.) I know there are people who will say that "when it is part of life, the kids will just happily learn to deal with it" but I don't think that holds true for every kid. Heck, it doesn't hold true for every adult! :) Thanks for reading!
DeletePerhaps you're right. Maybe "fun" isn't the "true North" of the learning compass. But perhaps helping kids feel good about what they've just done, accomplished, overcome. We can't control what goes on in our world, but we can control our attitude toward it. My motto on "disagreeable" tasks has evolved into "try doing it better." When a job it well done, it always feels good, and feeling good is a choice we can control no matter what the "real" world is doing.
DeleteI think it's all in how you choose to look at it. Life is fun to me because that's how I choose to look at it. It's a great adventure and a wonderful journey.
ReplyDeleteSince that's my outlook, that's what our school looks like. Does that mean it won't be hard? No, there are times life is hard, but that doesn't mean you have to think it will be.
I agree that it is all in how you look at it. :) It is a great adventure. But if kids are purposely protected from the "hard parts" (as some groups of people I've recently run into have) then the kids don't get the opportunity to try on that attitude - which is a fabulous attitude to try on! :)
DeleteThanks for your post. I am now a grandmom of 7 but 'hummmschooled' our 3...way back before homeschooling became 'cool'. In fact, then, for some it was outright dangerous. I watched it become popular over time...and I have to say, some of the concepts you speak of here were beginning to be evident then.
ReplyDeleteMaking school fun is great...and as one of your commentators said above, life is fun, so school should be. But you are so right in pointing out, because I believe it does need to be pointed out...We cannot just skip over the boring and hard stuff in our family school...that's just avoidance. We can do what we can to make it better, but there is only so much intervention we can provide...only so much insulation.
Every single person -and our children are just small persons- has to find his way...Some are helped by our discerning help, but when we become enablers, we create needy souls rather than contributors. And as you said, these children are then surprised at life's many bumps. Do we want them taking that into their adulthood?
If there is one area that I have seen needing improvement among contemporary homeschoolers, it is this. You are correct in your observations and again, you are right in addressing it. Keep up the honest-while-sensitive work!
It is so nice to hear that from someone who has "been there". I love to hear what veteran homeschoolers (meaning those who have done it, survived, and are now watching the new generation) think of what homeschooling is now. Thanks for your response, I think your observations are so important to those who are still in the thick of it. Thanks!!
DeleteGreat post! I am a grown unschooler--both my brother and I were homeschooled for most of our education k-12--and I experienced firsthand the dilemma you're talking about. I was a kid who got jazzed about learning almost everything. Almost. Math was my big setback, and after going through years of not really being forced to get up to par with my math skills, I found myself behind during my high school years. Eventually I had to come to the realization that I needed to buck up and do it or I would not graduate.
ReplyDeleteI think the biggest lesson to learn for me was that there are some things you need to do regardless of whether they're hard, boring, or even personally unimportant to you. In these cases, what I needed to remember (and still need to remember) were two things: my disposition and the big picture. In the first, I was helped greatly by the words of my aunt (a math tutor) who said that even if I never ended up using advanced mathematics, learning them could be viewed as "brain food," i.e. a good exercise regardless of practical application. Second, sometimes doing something un-fun is a stepping stone to achieving an important, or fun, goal.
I know this is something my brother still struggles with in adulthood. At times he can be incredibly stubborn or tactless, simply because he doesn't want to do something--especially if someone else tells him it's important and he disagrees. I can't chalk this up to schooling alone as I think it's in his nature to be this way, but sometimes I wish the tendency could have been curbed a bit more when he was a child (hindsight is 20/20).
Best of luck to you!
Thank you. Sometimes I feel like homeschooling moms of right now have missed the part about asking kids who WERE homeschooled/unschooling how that WORKED for them. I remember sitting in on a panel of homeschooled/unschooled kids and the question coming up from a parent saying "What would you have changed if you could have?" and hearing so many of the kids say things like "I wish I would have had deadlines because I had no clue when I got out into the real world" or "I wish I would have been made to learn something that wasn't necessarily 'my thing' because you have to do a lot of that in college." I remember one girl talking about being so frustrated that she got to college and had to write a paper. Her mom had never made her write a paper because she figured "oh, when you need to do it, you will learn now". The daughter was so angry that she got to college and had to learn everything so fast because now she suddenly needed to know it...and had NEVER had to do it before.
DeleteSometimes I think we (as parents) just plod ahead and forget to ask the people who have been there. :) Thank you so much for responding.
WE just lived that here at our house yesterday. My oldest was complaining that she was bored and nothing was fun. I told her "that in life not everything is fun. A lot of times you just do things out of duty not because you like it or it's fun." So she was bored for a while, but eventually found something useful to do.
ReplyDeleteOne of the paradoxes of life and learning is that sometimes you have to get through parts that aren't fun in order to have the fun. Are doing scales fun? Not always. Is being able to play the piano fun? Frequently. We just went through a patch where we had to "encourage" our son to keep going with Basketball when he was not having any fun there at all. And then a few weeks later he had a few more skills under his belt and he was saying "I really like Basketball now! I want to keep going!" If we had let him quit when he wanted to he wouldn't have ever discovered the fun of it.
ReplyDelete