It’s All About Education

I’ve been inspired to consider my “next year’s plan”, putting aside my planning for a group class and considering my own class first (gee, what a concept!).  Either way, I’m planning for next year… that’s who I am.  It can be problematic because I get excited about next year and loose all interest  have to force myself to be in the here and now.  But it’s so much fun!  It has benefits too, cause the better prepared I am, and I HAVE to take time to do that, the smoother it goes.  Unfortunately, sometimes I’ll get an idea in my head and it will take 2 or 3 years to come to fruition.  Do you do that?  Well, I digress…

In the past I have let the children decide what they do and when they do it, only bringing to their attention their place in completion of their year at the key times of Thanksgiving and Easter.  When they were smaller, I did solid half hours and hours of instruction with them on math and reading skills and most everything else was “teachable moments”, self discovery and based in what they were reading (they are both avid readers).  As we approached middle school, I have required them to do more and more on their own.  So the responsibility for accomplishing their course material has landed more and more on their shoulders.  S I have had to hound more than P, though.  If you read much here, you know P is a teacher pleaser and does more than required (sometimes to her detriment as in the English teacher’s response “be to the point and more specific”).  S’s attention is too easily distracted and about 1/2 the time I hound him and 1/2 the time I let him suffer for his mistakes in time management.  It is a slow trek with him, but he does make small advancements with age and maturity.

About a month before I thought our school year should start last fall, I instructed the tweens to consider what they wanted out of their year, time-wise.  They were to know that they have to have 1050 hours of school a year (KY requirement) and the rest they needed to decide for themselves… what holidays do they want to take significant amounts of time off for?  DO they want a fall break and/or a spring break?  When do they want to get out for the summer or do they want to “go all year”?  I believed that this would further empower P and allow her to see results from her go-get-ive-ness.  I believed this would prove to S that there was a reason for “not putting off til tomorrow what he could do today”.  I also asked them to think about things they might possibly want to persue as adults and how their studies and what they studied would benefit those goals.  Know that S probably does not consider from day to day what he thought out so well in the beginning of the year.  I find myself reminding him when I get frustrated with his lack of desire for anything “school”.  I don’t remind him often, though.  Know that this is their 7th grade year, so I’m coming at this with the thought that I want them each to know how to approach studies effectively and efficiently by the time they start 9th.  It is hard to give him, in particular, this time to learn from his mistakes, but I do believe that is what will make the difference for him between success in high school and anything less.

What they came up with, after a lot of calculations, was a schedule with different amounts of time taken off for the same holidays and times of year.

Now, from day to day they are to keep their own calenders with information about how they are spending their day.  “9:30 – 10:30, math”, “12-12:30, lunch while reading” etc..  You should know that P gets very frustrated because she often misplaces her calender and S often forgets all together to log things.  P always finds it, S has had to make up for time that he forgot to log.  The only things they are required to spend time on every day are science and math.  Other things work around that.  Not that the other things are less important, but that math and science they will tend to forgo for everything else if I let them.  They were very pleasantly surprised when I told them they could count up to an hour a day if they are actively spending time teaching M something (imagine… credit for being a good sibling… huh?!).  They also receive credit for the time they spend in youth programs and Bible study when they can demonstrate a learning and/or understanding of the subject matter.  Plus, I consider the time we spend discussing things and doing things together that they probably do not… Bible discussions, letterboxing/hikes, cleaning and willingness to, folkdance.  I don’t always tell them about this “extra credit” they get, but it’s there in my head for when we get to the end of the year and I have to put the subjective analysis to what we’ve accomplished, figuring it in.  I probably should keep a written check of this time…  Their handwritten calenders consist of a piece of paper divided into 2 lines and 5 columns on both sides, so that they have 2 weeks worth of space on each side… they can be pretty detailed in that amount of space, so that they can detail when an activity covers two topics, most typically reading/history.  They came up with this format and it seems to work for them, plus it’s cheap!  I also want them to keep a running count of their hours spent in study on this calender.  I have to check on that…

One of my main objectives this year has been getting them to see that “education” takes place all of the time.  That 8-2 doesn’t have to comprise their school day.  This would be especially beneficial for S as his total attitude with all things school seems to be “it’s not going to interest me/ be fun because I HAVE to do it, so I don’t want to do it”.  Do you see how the 2 things are related?  If he could only understand that the things he likes to do can be school… love of learning ~ it’s a hard thing to teach… much sweeter when they just “get it” and, I believe in the end, a much healthier attitude.

So, where does this lead me for next year?  Let me look at where I’m going in a future post.  I promise I will… it’s just ruminating a bit in my brain first!