Home Schooling With Joy

Sarah Bennett is one of the founders of HCOS, a homeschooling mom, the mother of gifted children and a member of the schools Gifted Committee. This article is included on our blog site with her permission and was originally included in the HCOS newsletter, January 2010. Thanks Sarah, for your inspiring thoughts. Carmen

by Sarah Bennett

Ecclesiastes 8:15 talks about joy accompanying us in our work through all the days of our lives. I love that idea. And I also think it’s central to homeschooling. How can we teach without joy? How can our kids learn without joy? What is the point of carrying on, day after day, if there is no joy in the work that we do?

I think that things start to fall apart when joy is left out of the planning process. I’ve experienced that myself. We had a minor homeschool crisis about six weeks ago. I wasn’t having any fun. My thirteen year old daughter was definitely not having any fun – and I was ready to send her off to school. I even checked the bus routes to see what time she’d have to leave the next morning.

We ended up in that place because my planning had left joy out. Instead, I had more goals. I knew that Abbie was academically capable of the work. I also knew that it fit into our schedule. And it was good work; worthwhile work. Work that would prepare her for things to come. Unfortunately, my view was too narrow. It was my husband who pointed out the error and steered me towards a solution. Instead of sending her to school we decided that for six weeks we would radically change everything. We shelved everything except for math and then supported and encouraged Abbie as she worked on a project. She spent those weeks writing and researching and now she’s putting everything together in a website. Beyond all of the school related stuff she learned while completing her project, she was able to experience joy in learning again. Her excitement was fun to watch. She has delighted in her project.

I allowed the boys (9 and 7) to work on their own project during this time. We did a big unit study on our back yard. We used photos (many of them were actually taken by Jacob) of animals and birds that live in our yard, they painted, wrote poetry, wrote a story, researched habitats and animal behavior, looked at how God designed each animal to survive in this environment, learned about Christian stewardship of the environment and drew out food chains. All of this was scrapbooked and best of all…it was fun! They boys took great joy in their project and you can see the pride and joy on their faces when they show someone their book. This was a great reminder to me about how simple it really is to approach our homeschooling in a way that cultivates joy. Having fun and being joyful in our work doesn’t mean that we don’t work hard , it just means I have to be a little more creative.

I don’t want my kids slogging through their school work. I don’t want my teenager up late every night trying to complete her work. I don’t want my kids to miss out on the opportunities that time and flexibility have opened up. And so, as I plan to get back to the rest of our subjects in the new year, I’m making sure that joy is a central component of our studies. I’m a goal oriented person, so this is hard for me. I’ve had to sit back in the past six weeks and look at where we’re at academically and where I’d like us to end up by June – and then I ask myself why. What happens if we don’t finish our math book? Well, the kids are ahead in math so nothing would actually happen if they didn’t finish their math books. Nothing. We could spend the rest of the year playing math games and doing puzzles and they still wouldn’t be behind (“behind” what, anyway? That’s a whole other conversation). Just writing down that we could play games for the rest of the year and not finish our math books actually makes my eye twitch. I’m not sure I could handle that. But, knowing that we could toss it all and still be just fine gives me a sense of freedom and flexibility. It means that if an opportunity to go out and do something cool comes up I can jump on it and go – we can enjoy it, without worrying about whether we finished math or not.

We’ve been able to enjoy a number of opportunities that I probably would not have made time for if we were still following the schedule that we followed for the first six weeks of school. Abbie has had a couple of significant opportunities open up to her. She has started volunteering at the museum. This is a weekly commitment and takes two hours out of a school day. That’s a big chunk of time and yet, I think it’s going to be more than worth it. And she loves it. It’s something she gets excited about doing. The second opportunity is with Taekwon-do. Abbie’s a black belt in Taekwon-do and really loves to teach. Having some extra flexibility means that she has the time to help teach twice a week, train for more hours, and take advantage of other teaching opportunities that pop up during the week. Her instructor teaches at schools as well and Abbie was able to go with him to an elementary school where she worked with a little girl withspecial needs. The look on Abbie’s face as she told me about how she helped the little girl with Taekwon-do was worth every minute we spent away from our school work that morning. It was even worth the drive from West Kelowna to North Glenmore to pick her up afterwards. I reminded myself that I would have said no if she had asked to help teach on a school morning back in September or October. I would have said no. And Abbie would have completed a lot of subjects that day, but she would have missed out on an experience that taught her more than all of those subjects combined and that allowed her to use her gifts to help others. And isn’t that the true end goal? That we learn to use the gifts that God has given us to help others?

My planning process looks a lot different these days. Sure, we’re jumping back in to a lot of the same things we were doing in the fall, but it’s with a joyful heart. We’re changing a few things, cutting back on a few others, and planning assignments and projects that will bring some of the joy back into our school days. Most importantly, I’m purposely planning in a “do the next thing” way. That means that I can still plan, but not for specific dates. And, if an opportunity comes up and we miss an entire day of school (or even just one subject) we can just pick up where we left off the next day and continue on our way without it throwing a wrench into a carefully crafted schedule.

If you’re having trouble finding the joy in homeschooling, my challenge to you is to pick one thing to change in the new year. Is there a particular subject that just sucks the life out of your homeschool? Change it. Turn it upside-down and approach it from another direction. Do something radical. And have fun! Nurture relationships, help your children discover their God given gifts and give them the opportunity to use them.

I wish you great joy in the New Year.