Chatting with a friend who is considering homeschooling has me thinking about how our homeschool has evolved over 15 years, and some of the common misconceptions around homeschooling. One of my favorite things about homeschooling is that our kids are free to take charge of their own education and explore any and every topic they want to learn about or skill they want to acquire. I think there is a mistaken belief that as homeschooling parents we fill the role of “teacher” for all the traditional school subjects or that we spend hours sitting at a table drilling with textbooks all day. In reality, I’m not a teacher, I’m a facilitator. We don’t have a school room, the whole world is our classroom!
When I’m planning I ask the kids what they want to explore. This is not set in stone, I check in with them often and we shift with their interests. This is Hutch’s list right now and I love it.❤️ Some of these will be online classes, some in-person, some a combination of discussion, research, and field trips. Heck, in some cases the kids self-teach using YouTube videos! We’re not married to a curriculum and have an open mind about the resources we utilize to learn. In many ways, they learn exactly as adults do - following their passions and finding what they need to serve their individual learning style. Sure, I help find teachers to connect them to, join them in discussions, ask questions, answer questions, hand them a book, or direct them to a resource. But I don’t take credit for their learning. If there’s one thing I have taught them it’s how to find the information they’re looking for and how to discern whether that information is coming from a credible source. If they’ve learned that, then they can learn anything they wish to!
One of our most utilized resources is the Outschool platform. Through Outschool the kids connect with amazing teachers all over the world. For example, our younger kids learned about Ancient Rome from a former Harvard professor who actually lives in Rome for half the year and was involved in leading the restoration of the colosseum. Pretty awesome!!
I’m excited for another year of learning and exploring! Hard to believe we’ll have our first 2 homeschool graduates in 2025! 🎓
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