From Type A to Scholé: Starting With the Woman in the Mirror

Check out Exorcising School and Seek and You Will NOT Find for the first two parts of this series.

I’ve always been a pretty self-aware and introspective person, so it didn’t come as too much of a shock that I would need to change some things about myself, specifically how I approach education, before attempting to redirect our homeschool.

My Spirit

I spend most of my energy homeschooling from a place of fear and worry.

Does that sound like something a Christian would say? But, nonetheless, it’s the truth. Fear that I won’t teach them something super important. Worry that my children are behind in math or learning to read. The most convicting principle of scholé or restful teaching is that the “rest” doesn’t mean that you get a good night’s sleep, but  you have complete confidence God will bring you and your children where you need to be. You rest in Him.

If you are like me, you would say that you DO trust God to do those things. But do I really? My fear and worry would suggest otherwise. So the first and most profound change was to pull a Hannah. I turned my children’s education into His hands. I promised to educate them in truth, beauty, goodness, and wisdom as much as I was able and let Him fill in my many shortcomings. I refused to fear how they might fare on a college entrance exam. I refused to worry about what Magpie’s Sunday School teacher thought about her reading level. I renewed my commitment to spend time abiding in His word and petitioning for our homeschool every day. When I stay connected to the Vine, I find that my worry and fear stay away.

My Experience

I would guess that 99%  of homeschool parents were either public or private school educated. My experience of attending public school and being a teacher all helped to solidify what school should look like. And I must fight against it every day. Schools are not known for being places of restful teaching and leisure. Most modern public schools are all about preparing kids for the tests at the end of the year. From day one, teachers push, cram, and shove as much information into a child’s brain as possible so that they will be successful on the test. It is so easy and common for homeschoolers to fall into this mindset: I HAVE to finish this book before the end of the year or they will be behind. I HAVE to get my kids at the same level of achievement as public school kids or I’ve failed. I HAVE to turn in a portfolio or take a test to comply with our state homeschool laws and my child will do horribly if we don’t cover this topic. The HAVE to mindset quickly turns into push, cram, and shove which is the total antithesis of teaching from rest and leisure. I have fallen into this trap so many times that I can’t count them anymore, but none of this is true. When I taught school, and even when I was in school, I NEVER remember finishing a text book in a year, not even math. The teacher might pick and choose things to cover from the book so that we hit things we would need for the next year as time was running out, but do every single page and every single problem of the book. Nope, not once. But when we homeschool, we can finish those things, and if it takes us longer than a year to do it, so be it. Remove the urgency of school from your vocabulary. Change how you view school and never go back! It is not a race to the finish, but a walk through wonder and inspiration.

My Vision

For some reason this has been the most difficult part of my makeover. I had to embrace that I must self-educate along with my children. I consider myself well-educated {college degree and all that}, but I did not feel adequate to providing this type of scholé education, looking and connecting truth, beauty, goodness, and wisdom in all things. The odds are that the average homeschool parent doesn’t either. Thankfully, I heeded the advice of some more experienced homeschoolers.

What I did, based on their wisdom, was purchase a notebook, began to read one of our homeschool books {it was a poetry book}, and jot notes about the book in the notebook. I wrote down connections or ideas I had while reading, always trying to pull out things that were true, good, beautiful, or wise. This all sounds crazy, overwhelming, and time-consuming, but I started with just one book and 15 minutes every day. I’ll work through more books as I can. {In a future post I’ll give a specific example of how this worked out.} I realized that to educate in this way takes time and investment of the parent, so I had to ask myself a tough question, “Is this type of homeschool education worth the investment of the time YOU will need to learn with your children? Are you willing to do that?” Yes, yes I am.

Now I’m at rest about the direction our homeschool is taking, but I’ve got to get the kids on board. Next up, putting scholé into action with the kids by starting with the morning.

Making the woman in the mirror a more rested mom in the tree house,