Thursday, October 22, 2009

The Downward Curve


Or I guess I should call it the low tide blues (if you like the term Tidal Homeschooling better).

We're definitely on some sort of low-motivation phase at the moment. And I'm trying to tell myself it'll be okay and we'll pick up speed again and am trying not to let it get to me as much as it has in the past.

I liken our homeschool to a sine wave. Some days we're just rearing to go and some days we just well, slow down and there'll usually be one day that we (oh ok, let me be honest...I meant I, not we) hit rock bottom emotionally and wallow in a bowl of ice cream or candy bar to feel better before things pick up again.

The rhythm of our homeschool is also changing. I feel a significant overhaul coming in the way I structure our days. Previously we used to have a clear cut "school" time, even with all sorts of other learning activities and pursuit of interests going on in the background. But these days, I feel more and more convinced that "structuring" the learning time is doing DS a huge disservice.

In addition, I'm unable to summarize our weekly learning journey how I used to. Those Week 1-2, Week 5-6 etc posts I used to do feel rather forced now. I know some folks actually follow these posts to see if they could use similar materials like we do and I feel so honored people think these posts are helpful enough to them for them to want to do that. But I want to point out that we don't usually finish any of these books as much as I've wanted to. My and DS' interests just change too often and we're always switching from one book to another or finding something even more interesting than what we used before. I think I should change this blog's name to FlightySchooling instead of FunSchooling.

I still want to record how each step of our homeschooling journey goes. Haven't figured out yet how to write it down. Perhaps I will write a sort of a learning snapshot post that relates what we did one day of the week instead of what we did that whole week.

5 comments:

  1. I could have written that post myself, Suji! My DS9 and DS7 do so much learning on their own, that my best laid plans are always being thwarted. "But it's educational!" is the refrain I'm hearing constantly when I try to switch gears to something other than the obsession of the moment.

    One can only hope that they turn out reasonably well-rounded by the end of it all.

    Cheers,

    Lisa in Ontario

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  2. What a candid post, Suji. Hey, I've got a good title for your blog: Go with the Flow Homeschooling. :)

    What you're doing isn't flighty at all. As long as you're satisfied with his learning and you're all happy, it's all part of the flexibility and beauty of homeschooling. :)

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  3. That's why I need this blog as much as I need my coffee :) I need to hear from wiser minds more often that it's ok to follow your heart. Thanks Lisa and Michelle :)

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  4. I like your sine wave description :) One of the reasons I scrapped our structured "school" time was it always felt like I was interrupting some other learning that was going on so that I could do something that he probably wasn't all that interested in anyway! I'm learning to say "hey do you want to do this?" - if I get a "maybe later" it means "no, not really mum but I'll be polite and let you think you have some chance" :)

    I do the weekly snapshots for myself (well more for the Board of Studies) - so I can put together a report at the end of the year of what he's done. While it seems wrong to divide it up into school subjects, unfortunately that's the boxes that we have to report on, so at least this way I can see that he's being well-rounded despite not having "lessons". Some weeks might be stronger in one thing that others, but it seems to all balance out in the end.

    We often skim books too - take out what we want and then discard it. Or put it aside for weeks and then go back to it. I figure all I'm really doing at this age is sowing seeds so that he has a broad range of things he is exposed to. At a later date he may choose to delve into some of the things in more detail, but at least he's had the exposure.

    I think that's enough rambling from me atm :)

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  5. Please "ramble" Kerrie! It is very comforting to me to hear other homeschooling stories and yours is so much like ours!

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