Obi-Wan: “Interesting… I’m still not sure I understand.”
Jocasta Nu: “Well, I’m sure you didn’t call me over here for a history lesson. Are you having a problem, Master Kenobi?”
Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones
One of my local librarians asked me to sit as part of a panel before a statewide group of librarians tomorrow. The goal is a better understanding of homeschoolers and better linking between the homeschooling community and the programs/services available in local libraries.
I know! How cool is that?
The overall consensus among the librarians appears to be that working with homeschoolers is akin to herding cats. As Yoda & Qui-Gon Jinn love to say, “Bless their hearts.” They’re trying to include us all, but we all seem to have our own direction, rate of speed, and degree of willingness to play along.
To make a little more sense of what “we homeschoolers” do on a day-to-day basis, I’m including an overview of the most common homeschooling methods. What do you think of my breakdown?
Butt in the Chair (Like what most grow up with – often thought of as the One Right Way to Learn)
School-at-Home: This mimics a traditional school day, for the most part. Subjects are defined, delineated, and ordered by subject or time during the traditional school days & hours. Often a single curriculum or two is the basis for all the core lessons. Lessons and tests often have the option of being checked and graded by either a parent, mailed to a program teacher, or taken online. (e.g., k12, Abeka, School in a Box)
Classical: This approach gained favor over the years with high-octane parents of college-bound students as school systems drop traditional classes such as Latin, Greek, Logic, and the Fine Arts. Think of a traditional high school curriculum, only much more intense. (The Well-Trained Mind is one of the more familiar programs.)
A Theme (Often thought of as an “interesting” or “cute” approach to the general public)
Charlotte Mason: This is a liberal education with a decided bent toward nature and classic literature. Emphasis is placed on narration, journaling, getting outside as much as possible, studying local flora and fauna, and eschewing all “twaddle.” (e.g., The Tales of Peter Rabbit rather than Captain Underpants, and Pride and Prejudice over Twilight)
Unit-Study: Especially common among families with young children, all aspects of the child’s education is wrapped around a unifying topic such as the Little House on the Prairie books, classic children’s literature (such as in the Five in a Row series), or just about anything else you can imagine. This is especially helpful when children of different ages, skill levels and interest are being taught at the same time as activities can be expanded or contracted to meet each child’s needs.
Bits and Pieces (often brings out the “But what if they have gaps in their education?” argument)
Eclectic: The direction and timing is the parent’s, but it’s based on the child’s needs alone. Kids might take a Homeschooler Only orchestra class and an after-school wood-working program if they fit a desire or need. These families are willing to skip parts of a “program” if it’s deemed unnecessary or accelerate/delay parts based on the child’s readiness. Different kids in the family will likely use different curricula. These families may use textbooks, or they may not. They may use worksheets for math but not for spelling, or vice versa. They may give tests, but they probably don’t do it very often.
Unschooling: This is full-on, child-led learning with a whole lot of “trust the child” thrown in. This is the practice of letting real life situations (such as shopping, cooking, gardening, volunteering, etc), any and all local resources available (museums, colleges/universities, state parks, historical markers/sites, stores and a parent’s/friend’s place of employment) and passions (dinosaurs, space, trains – and often a rotation of many passions over the years) lead children to meaningful knowledge.
These families believe that children have an innate need to learn, understand and be part of the world around them and, therefore, will want to learn about as many topics as they can and participate in life as much as they are able. They do not follow any pre-determined educational schedule whatsoever. (e.g., Reading Robin Hood leads to an interest in archery.) Unschooling families may use textbooks or not. They may take outside classes or join a task/topic specific club (pottery class, piano lessons, writer’s club, etc). They may simply borrow/buy the materials needed to learn the process/skill together or on their own. There is no “one way” to an unschooling family. Unschooling is presenting topics, ideas and opportunities to kids with enthusiasm, but also being able to accept “No thanks,” as an acceptable answer.
Waay Out There (These people scare the beegeezus out of me. Sorry, but it’s true.)
Radical Unschooling: They take educational unschooling one more level and apply it to every single aspect of life — brushing teeth (don’t feel like it? don’t do it), meals (candy for dinner? sure), safety (don’t want to wear a bike helmet? leave it in the garage), bedtime (who needs bedtimes?) and etc.
NOTE: Yes, I know there’s more to Radical Unschooling than that – but that’s what screams through my head when I even hear people talking about it. No flaming necessary. No need to send in the RU troops to set me straight.
Doing something for homeschoolers IS akin to herding cats. Or maybe herding herding dogs would be a better image.
Things that my favorite librarians do that are great for homeschoolers -
- let homeschoolers have the same library card priviliges as other teachers. In our case, this means longer check out time, no late fees and book pull services
- offer classes that include fun ways to use the library – these classes are for an age range of 5-12 and are not writing intense. The librarians respect that, like all kids, our kids have their own learning rate and don’t get bent out of shape by having older kids who aren’t spelling geniuses. They leave the worries about how well a kid writes or doesn’t to the parents and trust that learning is happening even if the kid isn’t writing things down. The classes run for 6 week sessions, meeting every other week for 2 hours. Each session has a theme – Dewey and the Decimal System was one, local history was another. Sometimes there have been guests, as in the case with the local history session. What they all have in common is using the topic theme to introduce using the library resources via interesting activities: “treasure hunts” in the library, low key creative projects that are not “color this worksheet or do this craft exactly this way,” book readings and discussions.
- really get that homeschoolers are not a monolithic group – I don’t think I can stress this one enough
Make sure to be very clear if you are offering a class and it is going to be either very structured or very casual – the people at the other end will be unhappy to find out the hard way.
-trust that the parents are working in their child’s best interest – put your stereotypes and worries aside and get to know the real people.
Some of us do have socially challenged kids. So do parents with kids in school – our kids would be just as likely to be socially awkward in a school setting, maybe even more so.
Some of us have kids who thrive on “traditional school” structure, some of us don’t. Some of us have early readers, some of us late, likewise with writers. Either way, these aren’t the only communication methods available – trust that we are seeing progress with our kids, even if the time schedule isn’t what you’re used to. If this is hard, just look at the number of kids who are not reading on grade level in the schools.
Talk to the kids as if they’re real people – they are, and homeschooled kids are usually quite happy to share their thoughts and opinions with adults. Some aren’t though – respect that. We have just as much range as any other group.
Don’t try to make your programs a “classroom” setting.
Get the kids involved in making the programs happen too.
Remember, most of our kids are used to working in very mixed age settings, and with lots of adults – they don’t often make the same hierarchy distinctions that kids used to working with a small age range and adults usually fully in charge do.
I bow to Karen’s wisdom. I’ll be taking your comments along with me tomorrow!
My goodness what an exciting opportunity!! I wish our library system would follow suit! And Karen definitely has some incredible suggestions. You go girl!!!!
Love Karen’s suggestions, too.
And I don’t really know you… but what I know OF you tells me that you’re an excellent choice to represent homeschoolers and homeschooling.
Opportunities that we did not have when we started homeschooling are all over the place these days.
Yay us.
Cool! (thats all I got)
Wow – that *is* a cool opportunity!! And your descriptions were spot-on!
Let us know how it goes.
Glad to help! When we can work together, homeschoolers and librarians are quite a good fit. Some of those observations are equally at home when working with museums for classes.
That is a great opportunity. I’ll not take this chance to rant about my library. I won’t. Deep breathing.
I think your breakdown of home schooling approaches is EXCELLENT! Well thought through and very good overview. Ummmmm….now that radical unschooling thing….made me a wee bit nervous. (Yes, this past week has been more than one “fend for yerselves” meals in the kitchen.) Ahem…I mean…so I’ve heard that *some* parents have problems with this….
Yes, Theresa, the radical unschooling thing is a level of trust I just haven’t been able to muster. If it works for a family, more power to them, but it’s beyond me. Best to know one’s own limitations, right?
Hurray! They couldn’t have picked a better rep. I already read your next post, so I see it went well. GREAT for you. GREAT for us!
Wow. I missed all of this, being out of town and generally caught up in my own goings-on….but seriously, it sounds like you did a great job.
I lean more towards the eclectic with some butt-in-the-chair stuff. Now, butt in the chair more often than not means reclining on the bed with the books and enjoying some cuddle time, but we’re still on a routine with the reading. My kiddo’s interests lead her to long hours of exploration on the laptop, which I guess is butt in the chair stuff too.