The Peace Factor and Homeschooling Assignments

After the last couple of rough days, I was beginning to fear that homeschooling was not going to work this year.  But, today was better.  I made some minor changes to things, and things improved. 

Last night I was up until two in the morning.  I wanted to be in bed by 10, but I couldn't let go of how horribly things were going and how I couldn't go one more day with homeschooling that looked like the first two days of this week had looked.  So, I prayed.  I prayed A LOT!  I went online to some of those homeschooling mamas that have done this a lot longer than me, and I went through some of their writings and old blogs.  I went to a mom that has been homeschooling for over 25 years, and is full of God's wisdom and common sense, Sherry Hayes of Large Family Mothering.  I decided to not read stuff that I had read recently, but to go back a ways on her blog.  I came across a blog post simply titled, Academics.  Written in 2008, when I was just starting on my homeschool journey, this post had a paragraph that I know had to be from God.

"First, I wanted to emphasize that each day is a “faith walk” for me. What I try to do is to gauge whether or not we are following God’s will by the “peace factor”. When I start feeling stressed, that’s when I back up the truck and take another route."  Sherry Hayes

Megan reading

I loved that thought so much that I grabbed a notebook and wrote it down.  Seriously, I have had no peace in these couple of HORRIBLE days!  I have wanted to cry.  I was up at two in the morning, searching for some solace, praying that God would show me what to do with my beautiful seven year old that suddenly HATED all that I had planned, that she had enjoyed last year, that wasn't working.  As my little girl was melting down or staring at blank workbook pages like they were poison, I had no peace.  I had no peace as I grew frustrated and even a bit angry.  I had no peace as I had to decide if my daughter was just being obstinate or if I had messed up somewhere along the line. I had always prided myself on using a variety of materials.  Yes, there were workbooks, but there was also lots of living books and hands-on materials and even videos if I thought they would help my child learn.  I had no peace as I looked at those workbooks, the very things my daughter has cried over for two days, and realized that I had spent a lot of money on things that I bought because they were easy... for me. 

That's right, workbooks were easy for me.  They are in sequential order of skill level.  I am not required to do much planning.  I just assign the pages and stick around in case I'm needed.  It's the same reason workbooks are used in public schools.  It saves the teacher a lot of work. It isn't hard to hand out a workbook and walk away.  With a second grader, it is easy to grade too.  All I have to do is look at the pages.  No answer key, it's Christian based, and I can just take satisfaction in knowing my child is progressing.  That worked until my child lost all the light in her eyes and tears replaced them.

Since then, I have reread many of Sherry's posts. I will probably read over many more. I've calmed down and slowed down and stopped panicking and stressing out over workbooks.  I put most of them up last night, about 1:30 in the morning.  I decided to take it a little easier for a bit.  After all, we are only in our second week of school this year.  This is not how I want my year to go, even if I thought I had things all planned and figured out.

Her Phonics Reader

Today was miraculously better. Math consisted of computer games and lessons from Easy Peasy Homeschool.  I went back to some first grade lessons to try to build Megan's skill level back up.  She sees the math workbooks and cries.  I can't stand the thought that she is already crying over math, not wanting to do it, hating the process.  Yes, there are things that we might not enjoy in life.  Not everything will be fun.  However, if she hates math now, she will never want to do it, to see it as anything other than a horrendous chore.  That is not what I want.  So, I'm easing up while I pray and see where God would lead.  Meanwhile, Megan is practicing facts and learning lessons on the computer... like her big sisters! (They do Teaching Textbooks.)

I had kept a couple of workbooks, one for phonics and one spelling.  I noticed something quite sad.  I had split up the workbook work so she was not doing them one right after the other.  Megan got through the Explode the Code workbook, though she was a bit pokey doing so.  However, when she was going through the spelling book, she nearly relapsed into the distracted, unhappy child of the last two days.  It was two pages!  I realized then that I may need to rethink spelling too.  Spelling workbooks always worked well for my older daughters.  In fact, one daughter hated dictation with a passion and begged for her spelling workbooks back.  Megan may be different, may learn differently.  So... I am praying once again.  There are other ways and methods, and I am not afraid to use them.  Most of them are more natural in how to learn spelling. I was very disappointed that my daughters didn't like things like dictation.  Besides, my daughter is still in phonics.  She gets a lot of spelling work in phonics.

I have a different journey this year than I have had planned.  I had ventured on differing paths in the past, using some Charlotte Mason techniques.  Sometimes they worked, but sometimes they were too much for this mom, especially once I was homeschooling several students of very different ages.  I tried unit studies, and I liked them.  However, again, with students that have major age gaps, it was like preparing and teaching different lessons anyway.  It didn't really save me time or effort.  Workbooks, sadly, did save me that time and effort because they could be done independently, with mom around as a guide. But... seeing my seven year old melt down, or tell me how much she hates school, that is NOT how I want my daughter to see learning.

The "Peace Factor" that Sherry talks about is often lost, buried amongst fears that we aren't doing enough academically for our children.  Or maybe it is cast aside for easy schooling that requires less of stressed parents because we can hand a child some workbooks and think we've done our job.  And, hey, workbooks aren't evil.  They can be part of a quality education... if used correctly and the child doesn't fall apart at the sight of them.  My older girls have used various workbooks throughout their education.  My oldest homeschool graduate loved them!  She taught herself Trigonometry with workbooks (worktexts).  She graduated with them, and is doing well in college.  Many of them are designed to replace textbooks, or to coordinate with text books, to help take a child precept by precept into subjects.  However, I think workbooks and my youngest aren't compatible.

The signs have been there for awhile.  Yesterday I wrote, "These workbook pages are the same things that she used last year and enjoyed."  My husband reminded me today that Megan hasn't enjoyed workbooks overly much.  She always dawdled, doodling all over them in her avoidance of them.  I explained that she had learned a lot last year through some of her workbooks.  However, I only assigned a couple different books last year.  Usually she was doing phonics and math, and most of her phonics was the Hooked on Phonics Learn to Read program, which uses a DVD program with books and a reader.  Megan wasn't working on English or Spelling or Science from workbooks.  They weren't covered yet, or were done from living books.

After taking time to pray and think about this, I'm glad that things are different.  It leaves me leaning on the Lord to guide me every day.  It shows me that this adventure of homeschooling isn't all "figured out" just because I have been homeschooling for six years.  It shows me that I still have a lot to learn, and that encourages me that God still has a lot to show me.