August’s Theme: Organizing for the School Environment

This month at Ruly we will be focusing on organizing for the school environment. Whether you are currently a student of any age or you are supervising someone else’s educational experience, school demands excellent organizational skills.

I have been fortunate to have had the benefit of years of education, including high school, college and graduate school. I have studied in the sciences as well as liberal arts. I have made a lot of organizational breakthroughs in my educational journey as well as made some incredible mistakes. This month, I hope to share some of these lessons with you as well as learn along with you from experts in education organizational strategies.

To kick off the month, I wanted to share with you my latest education organization challenge: homeschooling!

I never really planned on homeschooling my children and kind of fell into it by accident. I attended the fine public schools in my home state as a child and received an excellent education. The public school system provides an essential function in every community and I will always support them. Yet, the public school system has an almost impossible mandate to educate every child from the intellectually challenged to the intellectually gifted with limited funds. Inevitably, there will always be some child who is not well served in this system.

As I have spoken with numerous parents with children in public and private schools, many indicate that they need to supplement what is taught in school with their own instruction at home or through private lessons. Some argue that, in a sense, every parent is a homeschooling parent to some degree.

When you mention homeschooling to most people, they have a negative knee-jerk reaction. This is starting to change as homeschooling becomes more and more common but there are still a lot of negative stereotypes out there about homeschooling, such as:

1) Religious Fervor. This is probably the first stereotype that comes to mind when someone mentions homeschooling. Many assume that all homeschooling families are religious extremists who don’t want their children learning “real” science or any views that challenge their religion. Yes, there are many homeschooling families that have this perspective but there are thousands of other reasons why people homeschool too. Every homeschooling parent, however, has to acknowledge the legal ground these religious homeschooling families have boldly broken enabling all families to homeschool if it is their choice. These families have been on the firing line for years to secure these rights and for that I am very grateful.

2) Fear of Society. Another stereotype about homeschooling families is that they have an irrational fear of the dangers of society and believe that nothing good can come from socializing with anyone outside of their tight-knit circle. Yes, there are homeschooling families that believe this but again, many don’t and are socially well-adjusted individuals happy to interact with other children and families.

Even if people are aware of the broad number of reasons to homeschool (including wanting to teach a certain curriculum not available in your public school system or needing to give one-on-one attention to a child with special needs), the most common reaction I get from other moms when I mention homeschooling is:

“I don’t have enough patience to do that!”

Homeschooling is adding another really big and important job to an already overworked mom. It does also require a special patience to work with young children with microscopic attention spans. It also requires that you give up time for yourself. So, why would anyone do this?

For me, it all started because of a birthday. My daughter is born just a few weeks after the mandatory school cut-off for kindergarten. Last year, I started inquiring about whether any exceptions are made to this birthday cut-off based on academic readiness and was told a strict “no.” I found the same answer at both public and private schools alike. So, I decided to try an experiment and homeschool my daughter in kindergarten while still leaving her in preschool in case the experiment did not work out.

Last year was tough and a big learning year for me. I used a standardized curriculum from a third party provider. There were problems getting the materials on time, keeping up with the aggressive schedule and learning how to organize the lessons and prepare for each day’s instruction. Sometimes it was hard for me to work up the energy to teach a lesson that I was completely unenthusiastic about (and often, so was my daughter) but was required by the curriculum. After this experience, I can see why many homeschooling families prefer to design their own curricula and work to their own schedule. This is the strategy we will try this year.

Something that began as an experiment has blossomed into an addiction! Once you start the homeschooling process there are a couple of things that start to grab you about it. For example:

1. Academic Flexibility. You can mold the curriculum exactly to the needs and interests of your child. If you want to teach foreign language, advanced math, music or art, go ahead! You can travel, take field trips, and continue your lessons on the weekends or during vacations. It is all up to you. While most states require that your child learn the basics each year, there is nothing to stop you from supplementing the basics or teaching them in a non-traditional way that appeals best to your child.

2. Parent-Child Bonding. Yes, there are frustrating moments to the homeschool teaching experience. When you are trying to teach a young child something that they find “boring,” it requires an enormous amount of patience. However, the big payoff occurs when you see the light bulb go on when the child grasps something difficult and the excitement that it brings both to the child and to yourself. You develop an intimate knowledge of exactly how your child learns, which deepens your relationship.

3. Fostering a Love of Learning. It has always been my goal to have my children learn to love learning. Today’s economy focused on services and knowledge requires that everyone adopt a lifelong learning strategy. Ensuring that those first learning experiences are positive and enriching is a critical task. There were many times in the public school system I attended as a child that I did what was required but didn’t really enjoy it. When you are teaching a child one-on-one and you see the unique struggles each child has with learning, you realize what a difference it makes to have an education tailored to your unique needs. You learn to restate concepts in various ways until you find the way that your child grasps best. There is no need to stigmatize subjects as “hard” or “easy” and you aim to foster your child’s interest in every subject.

But yes, it does add a huge organizational challenge to an already organizationally challenged life to take on homeschooling. These challenges are similar to those faced by any adult student or parent supporting a child in the school system.

I hope that you will find the tips this month useful for a variety of educational situations and that we might all learn a bit about our own learning styles.

What are the biggest organizational challenges you face during the school year? Please share in the comments.