Things I Should Have Known Before We Actually Started Homeschool

Even before the COVID19 pandemic happened, I was already contemplating on trying out if homeschooling will work for our family. Some of the things that made me want to try it is the flexibility given to the child’s curriculum, having to spend more time with my sons and witnessing them progress with their milestones, not having to put much pressure about having high grades but rather focus on building the love for learning, and not having to worry much about missing school if our family decides to take a trip out of town. I currently have a Kindergartener, who had prior experience with traditional schooling, and a toddler, and they say that it pays if children start homeschool earlier than later in their educational life. Well, thanks to the pandemic, most schools and families have been forced to bring school to the home for the safety and protection of the children. And so, here we are, my kids and I just having finished the first quarter of our homeschooling experience.

Homeschooling is, essentially, bringing the child’s education to the home. Although several versions of homeschooling is available, I believe that all of these involve the same basic elements. Homeschooling involves a learner, an educator, and learning goals. The rest are relative to the homeschooling experience.

If I were to go back to the period when I was still researching about homeschooling and how to make it work for us, I would have given the below list to myself. I hope, in one way or another, this will also help parents who are still in the stage of prepping for their new homeschooling adventure.

1. Prepare your child for the homeschooling adventure.

I say adventure because, like in any areas of our lives, there will be ups and downs in this experience for you and your child. Most children, especially the young ones and those who had prior traditional schooling experience, prefer predictability and routine in their lives. So, a shift to homeschooling would mean a big transition for them. It would help if we, parents, share with them this transition and what they could expect from it. Share with them information about homeschooling and also talk about how they feel about the transition. Discussing all these with your child openly will help them understand and process the transition.

When we considered to try homeschooling for this year, we included our child in the decision-making process. We explained to him the pros and cons and the big possibility of him not seeing his friends that much anymore and offered that he can still connect with them through other means like videocalls. Including your children in the decision-making process would make them feel involved and also heard if they have any hesitations about it. It is also an opportunity for the family to brainstorm for ways on how to handle situations if challenges arise.

2. The parent becomes the facilitator of education and seizes every opportunity to learn.

I learned this phrase when I attended an orientation from one Homeschool provider and this has been the mindset I took on during our homeschooling journey. As much as we want to become knowledgeable about all our child’s subjects, there will be topics which we will have a struggle explaining to them. Thus, instead of being a teacher who instructs a student about their lessons, we also become a learner ourselves and allow us to explore the topic together with our child. Being a facilitator of knowledge would mean that we help our child make the process of learning easier and more manageable.

One time, while my child was doing his math worksheet, he suddenly smelled smoke. It was coming from a pile of burning leaves and trash from our neighbor’s backyard. Irritated, he turned to me and asked why our neighbors were burning trash. Even though it was not part of our lesson for the day, I welcomed the question as an opportunity to learn about our responsibility towards others and our planet. So instead of finishing his math worksheet, we watched a video about pollution and ended up making “No burning of trash” posters as his idea.

Another thing about being a facilitator is that we get to observe the learning styles of our child and tailor-fit activities that would suit him and pique his interests more. Some learners are more visual while others learn more through story-telling or hands-on activities. Each child is unique so it would also help if we become mindful about the way he learns.

3. Adjustments are the norm, be kind to yourself.

In homeschooling, we have bad days and we have good ones, pretty much like in other areas of our lives. There will be days when our child seems so giddy about school but will despise it the next. There will be days when, like my story earlier, we have already set activities, but will end up doing something totally not related to the lesson. In our one quarter of homeschooling, I have learned that not everything will go as planned, adjustments will be a common scenario, and that’s okay.

One of the special things that homeschooling offers is its flexibility, not just with its curriculum, but also with the timetable and the learning pace for each student. This kind of flexibility, I later found out through our experience, would also apply to our attitude towards life. Sure, in preparing for homeschooling we have our curriculum, reference materials, activities, and schedules in place, and that’s good! Because having these would make us feel ready and in control. However, we also have to leave room for adjustments for days when it seems that nothing is working at the moment – when the kids get so cranky because they woke up at the wrong side of the bed or interruptions happen because grandma dropped by during class or we had to go for an emergency grocery run.

Leaving room for these kinds of adjustments call for leaving space for kindness to ourselves. Schedules and routines are important, but so is seizing opportunities to learn about life outside textbooks.

4. Have a dedicated learning space.

Right now, we live in a pretty decent 2-bedroom apartment wherein everything is almost within sight and a room can serve several purposes. In a place where every nook and cranny can turn into a play area, it is important to carve out a space specially dedicated to learning and only that. For families with bigger houses, they might dedicate a whole room, but for us, it would be the area behind our sofa which used to be part of our living room. And because of the only ample space we have, only the essentials are there – an electric fan, a shoe rack which we converted into a bookshelf, a cabinet to put our art and learning materials in and a small coffee table and chairs. Although we can use the other parts of our house to do activities, especially those which require movement, that space behind our sofa is for worksheets, storytelling, and lessons that require explanations. And only educational toys are allowed.

5. Homeschooling is relationship-building and values-sharing with your children, first and foremost.

Now that our children’s education is technically dependent on how we facilitate it (in some set-ups, teachers provide the lessons and activities, but it still the parent who supervises their children) and we are now with our children most, if not all, of the time, homeschooling offers the opportunity to build our relationships with our children. Just like when we are building rapport with our clients back at work, we should also build rapport with our children because, when you come to think of it, our children are the end-users of our facilitation service, aren’t they?

And like in any setting, building relationships is the backbone of success in any endeavor. In homeschooling, we are challenged on how to become both a teacher and a friend, a parent and a playmate. How we interact with them teaches them how to relate with others. So, sharing what we value and putting these into actions are also important. Homeschooling offers a way to teach children that character is more valuable than having good grades; that the process of learning is more important that perfecting assessments.

There are a lot of other things homeschooling has taught me even with only one quarter in – that each child is unique, that children are more resilient than we think, and all of these things. But, I think the above list can be the starting points which parents can refer to to prepare them for their venture into the world of bringing education to the home, may it be planned or not.

How is your homeschooling experience so far?