Early Start - Initial Research & Experiences

I started researching/looking into homeschooling when the oldest was 3 and now three years later, I’m glad I did! I’ve had time to review curriculums, look into co-op options, learn about different styles, and find out what works for us by learning what doesn’t work for us.

I’ve found that:

A. A lot of what is mainstream homeschooling advice isn’t helpful. Homeschooling on social media only confirms the positive and skims over the tough stuff. As an example, being told to “find your community” or to start one - it sounds good behind the keyboard or when you are part of an established community, but fitting into that “establishment” can be hard and creating one is even harder, time consuming and can be disparaging. This is from personal experiences at a preschool level prior to reporting age or age of compulsory education. So a different kettle of fish. Up to compulsory age, it’s all just childcare. At compulsory age, that’s when it gets into territory of “educational neglect’ and other issues.

Or the advice of “let them play” and “don’t use a curriculum”, so both are true to a degree. They should play (but that’s only natural) and not to use a curriculum is misleading because curriculum (to most) implies “academics” or “academic subjects” but a curriculum is just instruction that’s based on a continuum of gaining mastery of a skill. A curriculum is paced instruction. Writing straight lines takes practice, hearing and seeing letters reinforces visual and auditory memory, construction (blocks or crafts) practices fine motor skills, and on the playground it’s practice of gross motor skills. It’s okay to have a curriculum as a guide - if you want to learn anything at any point in time in life, you have to be able to follow instructions. A curriculum is just a plan. You can make your own by piecing it together, like a patchwork of appropriate learning materials, or you can use one already made.<br>

B. Now that the oldest is reporting age/compulsory education, the most important thing is that we 1) know his learning style, 2) introduced and maintained a routine/rhythm, 3) introduced learning materials, and 4) incorporated learning into his interests. I also did a year long experiment to see if “unschooling” (i.e. unstructured learning as only play) is an option for him going forward. I learned a lot of things from that, one of which is that he benefits more from a balance between direct instruction, modeling behavior directly or passively, and independent learning (both open play and deep play). He loves to learn, he loves to make things, he comes up with projects. To guide him is to parent. As a note, unschooling or self-directed learning doesn’t really apply to non-compulsory education. <br>

C. Socializing with peers is possibly a joke because there isn’t a developmental uniformity among peers and because children model their parents. This actually was the best advice I received in the three years when it comes to socializing with peers (which is actually different than developing social skills that doesn’t have to happen with only peers) and that advice was “the best results (in terms of socializing) come from being around like-minded parents because children are a reflection of their parents”. And just because some group description says “like-minded” parents doesn’t mean there is a consensus, sometimes it’s just a clique. As a note, I make a distinction between socializing and developing social skills because I see “socializing” as “having fun with other kids” and developing social skills as inclusive of coping skills, conflict resolution skills, building resilience and empathy.<br>

There is a lot more to say about all those points but I’ll just say I’m super glad that we had the foresight to learn about private home education prior to compulsory age and got started when we did because due to the pandemic public school wasn’t an option and we had to look for a viable alternative. <br>

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