Junior High (Middle School) Is a Waste of Time (Yours and Theirs)

July 30, 2004 by 4 Comments

Government schools drown kids in busy-work for 2 years of Junior High (now frequently expanded to 3 or 4 years and called Middle School) until the hormones have subsided enough to allow the students to settle back into learning mode. If you have been homeschooling for a few years before your first student reaches the ‘tween years, you probably will not have to deal with this problem — at least not to the degree that the government schools do — freeing you and your students to move on with real learning.

First, you will not have nearly as many distractions (other students) to deal with. Also, those students in your home, being siblings, will not be interested in attracting the romantic attention of the student across the room. Second, the students you have will all have the moral character imposed by your own family’s values, not questionable or even non-existent morals imposed by undesirable family situations. Third, you have the ability to distract your students with subjects of interest to them, allowing them to continue learning, often at an increased pace from before because they suddenly can see their future looming in the distance as they begin to put childhood behind.

Junior High/Middle School curriculums tend to repeat and repeat and repeat the same things the kids have just learned in the upper elementary grades, because there are too many other things going on in the classroom to attempt any new material. By this age your students probably have several interests outside of the “normal” curriculum topics. Let them explore a little, reading magazine articles and library books, or do some internet research to delve deeper into the subjects they find interesting. So what if all your Melissa seems to care about is her pet rabbit? Let her read everything she can find about rabbits — you may have a budding veterinarian on your hands. Maybe young Scotty eats, sleeps, and breathes toy robots — a little extra devotion to researching and a career in robotic technology may get the required kick-off. My young children used to play with three sisters who were obsessed with playing hospital — every one of those girls has since grown up to become a medical professional. Let your students indulge their interests and see what develops! They will appreciate their newfound independence with self-directed study, and you will be rewarded with not having to nag and prod those students into repeating the same (now stale) information again and again.

Filed Under: Curriculum Choices, Homeschool v. Public School, Kinesthetic Learning, Learning Outside the Books

Kids Will Be Kids

July 27, 2004 by Leave a Comment

You have heard them, maybe you have even used them — those alphabet-soup-acronym-labels that get tossed around so flippantly today. They have become the easy excuse for not remembering things, for not paying attention when we should, or for feeling restless and wanting to change our circumstances. “I can’t remember that; I have XYZQ.” “She won’t listen; she’s JKLM.” “He can’t sit still; he must be MNOP.” We seem to find it much easier to excuse poor behavior than to correct it. This is not to say that such physiological conditions do not exist, but to toss their names about carelessly demeans any person truly suffering from them.

My role as an educator requires that I do just that — educate. If I stop the process before it is completed, I have not done my job. Therefore, I will persist in teaching phonics to ensure that my student can read any word put before him. I will teach reading and comprehension to ensure that my student understands whatever she is reading. I will teach math to ensure that my student can perform the various calculations needed throughout life for wise purchases, financial planning, and home improvement projects. I will teach geography, history, and science to ensure that my student can comprehend the importance of news items and current events. I will teach social grace and manners to ensure that my student can converse with confidence and ease in any situation. I will pursue this teaching adventure by trying every tactic necessary to impart understanding to each of my students. I will not throw up my hands in despair when the subject gets tough or my student balks at its difficulty. When my student is confused by a lesson, I will not assume it is the student’s fault. I will instead analyze the material being presented in light of my student’s personality and learning ability and see if there is another way to teach the concept that my student would understand better.

Homeschool dad and speaker Gregg Harris (father of I Kissed Dating Goodbye and Boy Meets Girl author Joshua Harris) profoundly states, “A teacher’s idea of a good little boy — is a little girl.” What an impact that one statement had on me as a prospective homeschooler! At the time I heard Gregg speak, my young son was spending government school Kindergarten on the “Time Out” chair for committing the socially unacceptable sin of being an energetic little boy. Our society as a whole has forgotten that God created our males to be warriors and protectors of their nurturing female counterparts. It is not within their natural make-up to sit quietly, watching life pass by. For me to expect my son to forsake his favorite game of sword fighting would be for me to expect him to deny his God-given warrior instincts. It would also be doing him a disservice to stick a negative label on his natural tendencies to be a “Defender of the Home.”

I attended a seminar once on memorizing scripture. I did not memorize much scripture (ok, any), but I did learn a valuable lesson: before you can find something in your memory, you have to have put it into your memory. Most (all?) of us have trouble remembering things from time to time — it is natural. As life becomes more and more fast-paced, we each have more and more things to deal with and to remember. If the necessary details are not put into our memories, we have no way of pulling them out again. Back when we had only one car, no children, a tiny house, and a slower pace of life, I had no trouble remembering all the things I needed from the grocery store. Now we have a driveway full of vehicles, a larger home, one adult-child leaping out of the nest, another near-adult-child climbing to the edge of the nest and admiring the view, and a website to tend. I often walk to the front of the refrigerator to write something on my grocery list, but instead open the door and wonder why. The only syndrome I am suffering from is the same thing we all suffer from: a busy life.

Right now I could click my computer mouse and instantly be chatting with my dear friends on the other side of the planet in Uganda, East Africa. I can click a few more times and read the reactions of homeschool moms reading my website across the US, Canada, and northern Europe. At no other time in the history of civilization have these things been possible. I remember being very excited as a little girl any time the party-line telephone rang, but having my mother say the call would not be for us… if someone was going to call us, we would know about it. Times have changed. We have so much more to deal with on a daily basis. Back in the days of the party-line phone, my family owned one radio and no television. My home right now has multiple radios, televisions, and computers. Times have changed. We must adapt to survive. Listening means paying attention to what we hear and filing the important details away in memory for later retrieval, or writing them on the planning calendar for future reference.

The point I am so far successfully avoiding is this: Please do not assume that your child’s behavior is the result one of the many alphabet-soup-labels being bandied about so freely today. Your child is, after all, a child — an energetic little person trying desperately to fit into a busy world. Our children emulate us in ways we rarely notice: playtime today is more likely to include “busy” activities, rather than slow, carefree relaxation. A child who does not enjoy sitting still for school time may not be overly-active as much as he may just have a few wiggles to release before he can efficiently listen to a lesson. We have also allowed television to teach our children to want to be constantly entertained without personal involvement, to expect all of life’s problems to be solved in 27 minutes, and to change their focus of thought every 10 seconds.

A child who seems not to be paying attention to you may be deeply involved in thoughts of his own devising: planning out a new invention, playing a game in his mind, or contemplating the details of the last story he read/heard/watched on video. I have suggested to my own family members that we speak a person’s name as the first word of a sentence, in order to break gently into those busy thought-patterns and gain the needed attention, thereby avoiding the need to repeat statements.

Many parents become concerned when a child can sit still for extended periods of time for an activity of their own choosing, such as a video game, but not otherwise, such as for schoolwork. Stop for a moment to consider this from an adult perspective: I find myself much more likely to sit with rapt attention when I am enjoying the activity and fidget when I would rather be anywhere else doing anything else. Perhaps a lack of attention during school time simply indicates that the child is not interested in this material or in the way this particular lesson is being presented.

When my own son showed these signs, I knew something drastic had to be changed in order to keep his attention long enough to impart the lessons. We changed reading material to include his interests, teaching comprehension by listing questions for magazine articles covering paintball, military body-armor, and new automotive innovations. It did mean more work for me, reading each article myself and making up questions to ask about the information, but I decided the result would be well worth my effort… and it was. My son’s involvement increased dramatically, along with his reading speed, when he was excited about the subject matter. We also had some unique bonding time as I was able to share his interests in scientific breakthroughs. We took trips to the local library to look for magazines; he chose the articles he was interested in, and I read them first to write the questions for him to answer (nothing fancy, just short-answer and fill-in-the-blanks). We also subscribed to Popular Science for its reports on the latest developments in technology. My son still reads those and delights in pointing out which inventions the magazine predicted would be out in 3-5 years, but the US military is already using, only months after publication.

Another tactic we effectively used was competition in math assignments. Plodding along at his own pace, my son could barely focus enough to do a dozen problems in a day; his time was just too precious to “waste” on math. When he reached a level of math higher than I myself had learned, I felt my responsibility was to learn it myself first, then teach it to him. With Mom as a classmate, he got faster, trying to get ahead of me — knowing that I would have to hurry to keep up. (Unfortunately for him, math is my specialty.) That first year of Saxon Advanced Math went by fairly easily, but he was not looking forward to another year to finish the book’s 2-year-plan. Then my daughter began looking into 4-year colleges for transfer from our local community college and found she could pick up a needed semester of pre-calculus during the summer session. That class was a duplicate of my son’s math class at home, and she convinced him to take the class with her — completing his next year of homeschool math, giving her a companion, and fulfilling their dream of someday taking a college class together.

One horribly-hectic month later they were done: 5 hours of college credit (1 semester) crammed into 16 class days. Class time took 5 hours a day, 4 days per week, and homework took everything else! For 4 weeks they ate with one hand while doing math problems with the other. But they loved it!!! The super-fast pace and the added competition of other students was something my son really thrived on. (However, it was a very small class — only 6 students — and very informal, not at all like government school high school would have been.) It may be that your bored student needs a bigger challenge. If you do not have access to a nearby community college (or if your student is not yet at high school level), try seeking out other homeschoolers who may be willing to do a class together, adding a competitive edge and camaraderie to a boring subject.

I remember an old movie with Walter Brennan as a mule-driver (Skudda-hoo, Skudda-hay, or some such silly name). At one point in the movie, a young punk is trying to move a mule team, and they refuse to budge. As I recall, he wants to get the mules out of his way so that he can use his truck to pull a large fallen tree out of the road. Anyway, the line that has stuck with me for years is when Walter Brennan says, “Mules got pride! They won’t move ’cause they know they’re not needed. You give them a job to do, and they’ll do it!” So Young Punk backs out of Walter’s way, while Walter hitches up the mules to the tree trunk — which they proceed to remove with great effort — and great personal satisfaction. Moral of this story: be sure you are giving enough of a challenge. Perhaps your student is reluctant to do a lesson because it is just too easy; skip on to the harder stuff and see how he responds.

Skipping easier lessons to substitute harder ones, skipping rope (or any physical exertion) before lessons, approaching subjects from entirely new directions, all can help to put a fresh spin on subjects considered “taboo” by your students. Give the wiggles an outlet or channel that energy into your lessons. Explore all these avenues before you jump to conclusions and are tempted to label a student as having some physiological malady. Kids are kids, children are children, and if we expect them to be children, we will all be a lot happier with the outcome.

Filed Under: Behavior, Homeschool How-To's, Homeschool v. Public School, Math, Parenting, Reading, Roadblocks to Learning

Do the Best Job You Can and Pray for God to Clean Up the Rest

July 21, 2004 by 4 Comments

I remember the first time I ever heard about homeschooling. We were visiting our friends Mike and Barb Webb in Colorado, who had just begun teaching their three boys at home. As with many of you, my first reaction was, “Can you do that?” Barb laughed and assured me that, yes, it was not only quite possible and legal, but it was also extremely fun. Barb, Mike, and the boys spent the rest of our visit showing us the fruits of homeschooling: taking us on a picnic-turned-berry-picking-adventure in the mountains, making jelly from the wild berries while listening to Mike and the young boys discuss deep scientific topics, watching those rough-and-tumble boys play oh-so tenderly with our 16-month-old daughter, and recounting story after story from their homeschooling experiences. The boys delightedly identified birds soaring high overhead or butterflies and moths with only a fleeting glance.

Being a total newbie to this idea of educating my own offspring, I was full of wonder and questions. I should probably credit Barb with incubating the idea of being able to homeschool without loads of guilt hanging over one’s head. I had asked questions and listened intently to her answers for hours on end when I finally got around to The Big Question we all dread: How do you know you are doing enough? Barb’s soft but confident answer still echoes in my heart: “You do the best job you can, and you pray for God to clean up the rest.”

Her explanation was most likely prompted by a confused expression on my face. Barb went on to give me a spontaneous teaching on how God only expects us to measure up to our own “best” level, not anyone else’s capabilities. Once we have done our best, we have nothing to feel guilty about — we know we gave it all we had. Any mistakes we make along the way can be laid at the foot of the cross, repented of, and left in God’s hands. He alone is big enough to wipe away the tears and scars of past hurts. He alone is able to call us by a new name and give us new lives. He is the one who makes us new creatures — all things become new in Him.

Moms and Dads, do the best job at homeschooling that you are capable of doing. Pray for wisdom and guidance, knowing that God will give it — He will not give a stone when asked for bread (Matthew 7:7-11). Then pray for your insufficiencies to be covered by His grace. God is more than capable of filling in the gaps we leave. After all, God is the One who invented this homeschooling process in the first place (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Doing Your "Best", Encouragement for Parents

Biblical Model of Discipleship

July 20, 2004 by Leave a Comment

It worked for Jesus, and it has worked for me. Whether you are folding laundry, making bread, or shingling a roof, this method works:
You do it with them watching you.
You do it with them helping you.
They do it with you helping them.
They do it with you watching them.
You leave with them doing it alone.

Jesus modeled this method for His disciples by teaching and healing the multitudes. As the disciples watched Jesus, they learned. As Jesus had Peter, James, and John step aside with Him to heal, they learned. Jesus had the disciples try it on their own, while He stayed nearby to assist when needed. Finally, He was able to send them out with confidence.

Now we can apply this same method to teaching many new tasks, from long division to changing a tire. First, you let your students watch to get a good idea of how the job is supposed to go when it is done correctly. For many jobs, your children have already watched you do it over and over, informally — they did not realize they were learning something, they thought they were just watching Mom do her jobs.

Second, allow the students to help with the easier portions of the job and work their way up to trying the more complicated parts. Again, you may have already accomplished this stage, simply taking advantage of the extra pairs of hands.

Third, trade places with your students and take over the role of helper, doing the easy tasks for them, but remaining close by in case the students need assistance with the trickier operations. This can be a scary step — actually turning over the outcome of the task to someone else. But if we think about what really matters, teaching the skill itself is much more important than having the towels folded perfectly straight.

Fourth, step back a little and observe your new trainees as they perform the entire task by themselves. It is often a good idea at this stage to “act busy,” involving yourself in another nearby task so that your apprentices do not get nervous from being watched. Keep watching until they are confident in their newfound ability, then walk away to your next job — or maybe free time!

Remember, practice makes perfect: your new worker will probably not do the job exactly the same way you do it, but they will get better with time, and it is important also to emphasize that to the child. “I don’t expect you to do it the same way Mommy does it because you just started, and I’ve got 20 years of practice ahead of you. But I know you will get better and faster the more you do it.” Then be sure to praise their progress!

Filed Under: Encouraging Your Student, Home Chores, Homeschool How-To's, Learning Outside the Books, Role-Modeling, Scripture Applied to Homeschooling

Homeschool Beginnings — A Child’s Point of View

July 12, 2004 by 1 Comment

(This article was written by Jenny: homeschool graduate, Guilt-Free intern, and computer whiz.)

To homeschool or not to homeschool — parents often have a hard time making this decision. I want to provide you with the view of a homeschool graduate, giving you an idea of how a child might react to the proposal to homeschool.

I have now graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, but how I was able to make it to this point is the real story. I started out in public school, where I was educated until the summer before fifth grade when my parents made the decision to educate me at home. The deciding factors in the situation were all issues that I agreed with them on completely, but it was the idea of homeschooling that I was not as in agreement with. In fact, I was against being homeschooled from the beginning.

My objections were numerous, I had no idea how my parents thought they were going to teach me — after all, what could they possibly know? Secondly, I was objecting to the loss of all my friends from school. Another qualm that I had was merely a fear of the unknown, I had friends who were being homeschooled, and although they seemed normal and happy enough, I knew very little about homeschooling. Overall, I really did not think homeschooling was the education for me, though I knew how much I hated the public school system.

In the summer before we started homeschooling, I was upset and scared. I had an attitude typical of children in public school — I thought my parents were not smart, and I did not have confidence in them to trust them with my social life or education because I did not think they really understood me — or could ever understand me. This common misconception was dispelled soon enough, but it did take some time.

The fear I had decreased after I talked to a good friend who had been homeschooled for his entire education. He encouraged me to try homeschooling, and explained to me a little bit about how homeschooling would work, and the many benefits I would have because of homeschooling. After this conversation, I was more willing to be homeschooled, but I still doubted that my parents were capable of such a task.

The first few weeks of schooling were certainly a testing period. Mom was unsure of her capability as a teacher, and I was just as unsure. At first it was like play, we did workbooks and educational exercises, and it was like pretend school — it was kind of fun. The reality set in later that this was school, and as that reality dawned, so did the reality that homeschooling was actually school, and it was a great alternative to the public school system I had been in.

I was also enjoying the benefits of homeschooling. I liked being able to take a break for a snack or bathroom break anytime. I did not have to watch the clock pass time away as I sat and did nothing because I was ahead of the other students. I also did not have to work hard later in the evening to catch up on the homework that I was slower on than the other students. Strangely enough, mom could also teach math so much better than the teachers that I had in public school. We also were able to watch the Andy Griffith show during lunch, providing a pleasant break and laugh as well as some family time between subjects. My favorite aspect of homeschooling throughout the experience was that homeschooling took so much less time than the 7 or so hours that we had been held captive at public school.

By Christmas of the first year, I was thoroughly enjoying my homeschooling experience. I realized that mom was a LOT smarter than my friends had convinced me that parents were. I also liked being able to hold it over my friends that homeschooling took little time, and that I actually was enjoying the assignments that I had. I could listen to whatever music that I wanted to, in my own room, and start school at any time. For a while, I got up at 6am and did my work before anyone else was up, so I could play by 10am. At other times, I would sleep in and start my work later in the day. My puppy could sit by me while I worked or in my lap if I could manage it.

Socialization was not a problem either. I soon realized that the children I had considered friends at public school were hardly people that I wanted to spend time with, and the few that I did like to be around I remained friends with through outside activities. I still had all my friends from church and clubs, and I was able to do many “social” activities with mom, like going to the store during the day. Our family also joined a couple of homeschool groups, with which we could do group activities like field trips and coop classes.

By high school, the benefits were great: I could do my work at my own discretion and was able to get ahead by an entire year. I took college classes during my senior year, and was able to be acclimated to that culture in advance (another good “socialization” opportunity that I had because I was homeschooled). I got along well with the teachers, and even was commended by them several times for the wonderful education I entered college with. Many of my teachers were amazed at how well I could grasp the topics they were teaching, or even that I could write full sentences with some semblance of grammar.

Today I am fully convinced that I got the best education at home. Beyond that, I was able to avoid many of the downfalls of the public school system and benefited from advantages of school at home. Our family has become quite close through homeschooling, a result that I doubt we would have gotten if my brother and I had gone through the public school system where peer pressure encourages children to disregard their siblings and parents as stupid and useless appendages. I intend to homeschool my children as well when I have a family, and I trust they will have as successful of an experience as I have had.

I encourage everyone to try homeschooling. I believe that once you give it a chance the benefits will outweigh and overrule your doubts.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Family Unity, Homeschool v. Public School, Sibling Relationships, Socialization

A Homeschool Success Story: Teaching a 5th Grader to Read

July 7, 2004 by 1 Comment

We had pulled our children out of public school with my daughter starting fifth grade and my son beginning first grade. My daughter had been taught to “read” with this farce: when you come to a word you do not know, think of a word that begins with the same sound as the first letter of the unknown word, and if it fits in the sentence, it is probably right. Wrong. As I evaluated her reading ability, I realized she was guessing at more words than she was reading — and guessing incorrectly. She would use most of the letter-sounds in a word, but pronounce them in random order, a process which could lead the unsuspecting to cry “Dyslexia!” But I knew better. She was a very bright child who had grown slower and more despondent with each year of public schooling. She caught on to activities done at home with lightning speed, but the formal education lessons just did not take.

I had learned to read in first grade through a very thorough phonics program and was teaching my young son phonics as well, so I quickly recognized that my dear daughter had not had the benefit of learning to “sound out” entire words, even though she obviously knew the letter sounds. Her government school had pushed reading activities, using the read-as-many-books-as-possible-this-month rallies. Whenever that came along, my daughter would go back through the little children’s storybooks we owned, rereading them year after year, instead of pursuing new reading material. Reading familiar things was obviously much easier and more comfortable for her than the effort involved in tackling anything new.

Trying desperately not to bruise the psyche of this sensitive 10-year-old, I suggested that perhaps we needed to expand her reading capabilities by teaching her a new method for discovering how to read unknown words. Our supervising teacher that year was a close friend and (coincidentally) special education teacher who recommended her favorite remedial phonics system — a 2-week “crash course” in phonics for older students. (Ironic, isn’t it, that the “special ed” kids eventually get taught phonics, but the “normal” ones never do?) Although I knew my daughter’s capabilities well enough not to suspect learning disabilities, I knew she needed help — and fast, before she got discouraged with homeschooling and a mom who corrected her whenever she read a word incorrectly. It was a complete shock to me at that time that she had gone so many years in public school without anyone noticing that she was not reading at grade level (in 5th grade, she was accurately reading only the words for 2nd grade level). That revelation was the point when whatever faith I had left in free government education went swirling down the drain.

I bought the recommended book (Mary Pecci’s At Last! A Reading Method for Every Child), took my daughter through the 2-week crash course, and then thought “Now what?” Seeing she needed more practice to reinforce her newly learned skills, I grabbed my son’s phonics book for a guide and wrote my own remedial phonics practice sheets for fifth grade “beginning” phonics. I made up word games and puzzles to make the lessons fun and yet challenging. After I felt she had gained enough skill and confidence (and could actually read big new words), I challenged her to go back to one of the books she had “read” several times and read it again, this time sounding out the difficult words. I was confident that she would see the change in how many words she had guessed at before, but I was not prepared for her response: “Mom, you ruined this story! It’s a whole different book now!” However, her emotion was based more in surprise than anger, because she also realized how poor her reading skills had been. She also saw that her newfound ability to break a word into syllables and sound them out meant that no word in the world was too difficult for her now. We pulled long words out of the dictionary and chemical names from shampoo labels and she correctly read them all. Her desire to read Little Golden Books was quickly transferred to long chapter books, and the bookshelves in her bedroom grew heavy with her expanding collection of favorites.

Once reading was no longer a struggle, her schoolwork became a challenge for me as I was pressed to keep up with her, checking her work and reading over her assignments. During Christmas break of her 7th grade year, she calmly asked if I had ordered her 8th grade English book yet. Baffled as to why she would care nine months early, I said that no, of course I had not ordered next year’s book yet — why would she ask such a silly question? Her reply left me speechless: “Because I just finished the 7th grade book and I’m ready to start the next one.” I ordered the book.

She continued at that pace, to graduate from high school ten days before her 17th birthday — sixteen years old, with 7 credit hours at the community college in chemistry and English composition. She has now graduated from a 4-year college with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration — at age 20. Another day I will tell you about my son who just graduated from Homeschool High with 26 hours of college credits.

Filed Under: Encouraging Your Student, Homeschool How-To's, Phonics, Reading, Visual Learning

Meatball Education: Filling in the Potholes of Public School

June 30, 2004 by 3 Comments

Some of you are wishing you could pull your children out of the classrooms they’re already in, but feel that would be too difficult or traumatic. Fiddlesticks. Adjusting from an organized school system to homeschooling does take time and effort, but it is well worth it. I remember hearing somewhere that I should expect an average of one month of homeschooling to adjust for every year of public school — double that if the child attended preschool. My daughter had attended 5 years of public school (K through 4th) plus preschool, making for about a 12-month adjustment period to homeschooling. In her case, that was very accurate. By the beginning of our second year of homeschooling, she was “in the groove” and loving it.

The adjustment was rocky at first for all of us, but grew easier with time. I had never homeschooled children before, but they had never been homeschooled before either, so we were breaking new ground together. Many times we cuddled together and cried together and vowed to get through this together. We changed methods, we changed books, we kept trying new things until we found the things that worked.

So if you do pull your children out of public school, then what? You are thinking that you cannot fix the potholes in their education until they will recognize you as their teacher; you cannot get them to recognize you as their teacher until you can prove yourself by teaching them; you cannot teach them until you can fix the potholes in their education.

A magical transformation takes place on your first day of homeschooling: Student asks a question, and Mom gives the answer. Suddenly Mom is seen as Teacher. Student recognizes that Mom knows stuff. Occasionally, Mom may not know the answer, but Smart Mom will reply, “Let’s find the answer together.” And an exercise in research skills is begun. There is no crime in reading the answer out of the teacher’s manual or answer book — that is why you bought it! (Only purchase those for the subjects in which you really need them — hopefully not for 2nd grade reading.)

I am a die-hard fan of reruns of the old TV show M*A*S*H, in which the surgeons performed what they referred to as “meatball surgery.” They saved their patients lives, then sent them on their way to another hospital for more complete care. As homeschoolers, we often have to do a similar thing, patching up the missed portions of education, so that the rest of the child’s education can be furthered. If you have brought your students back home from government school, you will find potholes. There is just no way to keep a classroom of 30 students moving along without dragging a few along the way. Even if your student was the brightest in the class, he probably got bored waiting for the others to catch up and missed something. That is a pothole. Meatball Education fills in those potholes.

You will start homeschooling and be sailing along, gaining momentum, until one day — BAM — out of nowhere you fall into a pothole. We found potholes called “fractions” and “decimals” and “using commas in a series” and even “how to pronounce the word ‘a’.” A pothole means that you have to put your current lesson aside and fill in the missing part before you can proceed. Try some of these lines to help you and your students get through the potholes and back out the other side:
“I’m not just your mom, I’m your teacher; but I’m not just your teacher, I’m your mom.”
“Love comes free with the education. One free hug with each question asked.”
“You can sit on my lap while we do this particularly difficult lesson.”

Do not be discouraged — finding a pothole simply means you are educating. Look upon potholes as merit badges: I have found another one; I am filling in the gaps in my student’s education.

Filed Under: Encouragement for Parents, Homeschool How-To's, Leaving Public School
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