HOMESCHOOLING BEGINS WITH HOME

HOMESCHOOLING CURRICULUM

Tool or Noose?

An abiding homeschooling mom can exercise a lot of freedom when choosing homeschooling curriculum, but many moms need a renewed mindset so that curriculum becomes a tool and not a noose.

Answer these two questions to determine if your homeschooling curriculum is a tool or a noose in your life:

• Is the curriculum running my life; does it overwhelm me because I cannot get everything done?

• Are my children interested in what we are doing or are we just doing it because it's what the curriculum tells us to do?

Part of your homeschooling journey includes learning to:

• Discern the Voice of the Lord as you abide and

• Evaluate the bents and capabilities of your particular children as you reach deep into their hearts.

Why?

So you can select the appropriate tools for the task at hand—tools that truly minister to your children’s needs at that particular season of their lives… and yours.

Knowing the scope and sequence of a generic homeschooling curriculum provides you insights into the generic curriculum. Knowing the bents and capabilities of your individual children provides you with insights that will help you to minister to their true needs rather than forcing them into a generic mold.

Chinese people used to bind the feet of young girls, which crippled them for life. By following the culture and practicing this generic custom, proper growth could not take place. Their feet were molded according to the culture’s standards. Likewise, molding your children to the cultural standards will inhibit their personal growth and cripple them.

Or to use another example, you could use a hammer to pound a screw into a piece of wood, but you would damage the screw, the wood, perhaps the hammer, and you would expend unnecessary effort. The process would be much less frustrating if only you had selected the correct tool.

Selecting homeschooling curriculum can be likened to the above metaphors. If you are working too hard to fulfill curriculum requirements and if your children are balking at every turn, perhaps you need to re-evaluate the process you’ve accepted (like the footbinding) and/or the implement/curriculum you’ve chosen (like the hammer for the job of a screwdriver).

• Choose curriculum for specific subjects, which allows you to target materials beneficial to each child's specific needs at a particular season, rather than lumping all the subjects into one curriculum.

I used to have a kitchen machine that was a blender, a bread-kneader, and a mixer; but only the mixer worked well. My husband bought me a separate bread kneader, and I tossed out the idea of having a blender. I still use the mixer from the original machine because the mixer aspect works the best on that machine.

Choosing curriculum is a similar process. Use only what works and ministers to the individuals within your family.

• Develop skills separately.
  Acquire and then share knowledge together.

Using this approach (choosing curriculum for specific subjects rather than implementing a full-blown curriculum) means that you have to relate to your children individually to determine where they are academically, rather than relying on a generic plan for their development.

It also means that each child will receive the help he or she needs to master skills (like reading, writing, math) instead of being pushed through a system.

Or, conversely, the advanced child can move ahead and not be bogged down by sticking to a generic curriculum.

Additionally if we moms lead our children in subject knowledge through family reading times or through sharing what we know in a natural way, they too will begin to love learning and share with the family as well.

Thus, each member of the family contributes to the others' knowledge base.

In the end, each person in the home contributes to all the family members’ learning as each member acquires his own education.

Additional homeschooling articles themes:

• Relationship
• Stewardship
• Scholarship
• Easy Recordkeeping

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