People often used to ask us what a typical day is like for a home educating family. My usual (admittedly clich�d) response was that there is no such thing as a typical day!
When education encompasses the whole of life, there is no way we could tell what the next day would bring. Might there be something dramatic on the news which prompted us to research online and discuss the issue for most of the morning? Would the boys oversleep, and feel so tired that I spent the morning reading to them? Would we have an unexpected visitor, or phone call? Would one of them have an idea for a story, or a project, that occupied the entire day?
New home educators sometimes like to be structured
We started home education in October 1997, when my sons were 9 and 11. They had been in school in the UK - where they were very happy - so it took us a while to get out of the schooling mentality, into realising that education encompasses the whole of life. At first I wanted to get bookwork done in the mornings, and rather discounted other learning experiences.
It took me some months before I realised that the most significant learning happened at odd moments: when one son, reading in bed, asked me what molecules were, leading to an hour-long discussion of chemistry at 10pm. Or when he wanted to know where Kosovo was, so we got out the atlases and talked about world politics. Or when their computer civilization games helped them to learn about economic systems and see the history of the rise and fall of various empires far more vividly than any study of history could do. Or when, reading a computer manual, they wanted to know what sines and cosines were, leading on to a complex instant - if brief - study of trigonometry.
Studying for a diploma
But as they grew older, they decided to use a curriculum for part of their studies. The reason for this was to gain a recognised diploma which might help them in future careers, or - if desired - university entrance in the UK. We made this decision after much family discussion and research, and used a curriculum where they set the pace, and worked at their own ability levels.
So our days had a bit more predictability in one sense: both boys tried to be up and about by about 10.00am, and working at their curriculum work, which covered six or more different subjects. But sometimes one of them would be up and working an hour earlier than that, and sometimes one of them overslept. Sometimes one awoke early - perhaps 7.00am - and read in bed for a couple of hours before getting up.
They decided to cover their curriculum work, if possible, in just four days a week - generally Mondays to Thursdays - and spend Fridays doing creative writing or other projects that cropped up. Usually at some point during the mornings they took a break, and I might read for an hour or more, depending what time they got up. But sometimes I didn't read at all during the mornings. Sometimes their workbooks inspired extra questions or discussions, or research from CD-Rom or encyclopedia. Sometimes, by contrast, there were dull repetitive sections of the workbooks, so they left them out - or we did them verbally.
Mostly flexible educationally
I certainly didn't ever run a 'classroom' or 'school-at-home' style. I made every attempt to be flexible. I generally stayed in the room with the boys while they were doing their workbooks, so that I was available for questions and discussion throughout. At the end of each workbook they had to take a short test, which must be taken without reference to the workbook (or any other relevant material).
We tried to ensure that these were taken more seriously, with quiet from the rest of us, and no discussion during the test-taking, because these are the important records of their achievement which were used in their diplomas. But how they learn - reading or discussing, doing lots of examples or a few - varied depending on mood, ability, interest and context.
At most, this more formal work took up three hours each morning. It was by no means the main part of my sons' education. I'm glad we had the three 'interest-led' years, as they showed me that a curriculum, or course, is just one tool in the lifelong all-encompassing concept of education. My sons also took music lessons with outside teachers, and one of them took an art class. We went to church activities, and they belonged to the youth group.
They also roller-bladed, and played an invented tennis-type game in the back yard. They wrote computer programs and email, built web sites, did graphic design and wrote stories. They read for hours. They played their civilization-building and similar strategy computer games, often taking a week or more of afternoons over just one game. They listened to the news, and asked questions, and we discussed all kinds of issues at the meal table. They spent time with my husband observing his workplace, learning some of his skills, helping him with his web-site.
Every day is different in home education
So... we never really had a typical day as home educators. I suppose we had a structure of sorts for a few years, in that I did get the boys up by around 9.30am if they weren't already up, unless they had a particularly late night. We had a cold lunch all together when Dad came home from work, about 1.00pm. They did their curriculum work - usually - in mornings from Mondays to Thursdays, and we all ate our hot meal together around 6.30pm. They attended various outside activities of their choosing, which gave a bit more structure to the week, and my younger son was usually in bed by about 9.30pm.
This is the pattern which gradually evolved for us, taking into account the differing needs and interests of the whole family. As they grew older, and sometimes had morning activities or really needed to sleep till lunch-time, they started doing curriculum work at other times - afternoons, or evenings.
My personal glimpses page leads to several 'day-in-the-life' descriptions of some varied kinds of home educators, including ours. Would these patterns work for another family? Perhaps, but perhaps not. There is no ideal, no perfect way of educating children which is guaranteed to work for everyone. Probably no two children learn in exactly the same way, and our role as parents is to inspire and encourage and open doors.
There
are books and web sites which show 'typical
days' from various angles. Nancy Lande's 'Homeschooling:
A Patchwork of Days
If you read one of these books, don't expect that any one of them will fit exactly with your family and your circumstances. Experiment with the parts that appeal, ignore the parts that don't. And work with your family to discover your own rhythm, your own flexible way of meeting your children's needs as you grow and learn together.
Further reading:
home
educating families' blogs
home
ed and cooking
taking
the plunge
educating
eclectically