Putting School In A Box- A Confession

All their supplies are gathered.  The pencils sharpened and extra erasers ready at their side.  Each one has a glass of water in case they get thirsty, so there is no reason to be distracted from their post.  Eyes twinkle and grins are immeasurable, as incapable of suppressing them as if they were waves of the ocean. They come and go every time their thoughts come back to what is about to happen.  Excitement spins and swirls around us all, creating an atmosphere of tingling anticipation as I hand out the first set of “end of quarter” tests for them to work through.  They dig in.
I’m floored. This is why, to the disappointment of this mother-desiring-less-structure, our short attempt at unschooling failed. Miserably, with relish.  It doesn’t fit for them.
As someone who craves structure to a fault, I am aware that I just fall apart if I can not organize and compartmentalize the different aspects of my life. I give up, easily and often. I don’t finish things because I already know that it won’t be perfect.  I walk away because I don’t have it in me to follow through with something that I am unsure I can present as balanced and 100% awesome.
It’s not that I’m a messy person. Ok, well, I can be.  I’m a perfectionist, most likely clinically O.C.D. who can not create or control perfect.  I simply give up instead. I stop trying.
It affects everything. This is true for the state of my house and our finances. It’s true for my hairstyle and my gift giving. I do it with my blogging and with my ability to stay in contact with those dear to me. I give up on how I dress and what I eat.  When it comes to follow through, I just suck.  I’m great in the moment. I may be a fantastic “idea  and detail person” but  it’s the follow through that suffers because I can never be satisfied with anything I do. So I turn away with fingers wedged deep in my ears, humming a tune to block the failure from my present balance. If not I’ll be thrown off  so much in the moment as to turn into a puddle of sobs and self-deprecation on the floor.  I dance a dangerous two-step, a waltz between failure and confident surrender in every moment of my day. I fight it well.  Confidence and peace typically come out on top, they really do.  Somehow, in the past few weeks they have been losing… Often.
That is why I ‘tried’ unschooling a last  year. I had hoped that if I put away all check lists and standards, to focus on the simplicity of what to learn right now, there wouldn’t be the same room for feeling behind. If I gave up on the idea of what is perfect and correct, go with the flow, I could embrace that and do it well. There would be no need to compare and critique with nothing to hold our plan up against.  It actually worked somewhat well.
Big Sister and the Brainiac thrived and learned so much.  As someone who saw examples of unschooling growing up in the homeschool lifestyle since 1982, I have openly stated my concerns with unschooling in the past and I still have those concerns for some.  But I tried it anyway. To be honest I liked it. The reasons we chose not to continue this year in that was weren’t about the education it provided but about the work for me and the financial aspect.
To do it well, I had to be researching and finding opportunities, books, videos, games… all of this stuff.  To get them all that they needed on a subject, I had to pull it all together myself.  I know lots of moms who are crafty and able to pull things out of thin air.
Oh, I’m creative to be sure.  I can ghetto rig anything to be useful, I can solve life problems like McGyver Mom on a mission to save money and time with DIY everything. Give me yard and a Vitamix with some homemade kombucha and I can fix ANYTHING.  That’s not the same thing as crafty.  Crafty is glitter and glue and paper and things that I have to decide whether they should be saved or not.  I get enough of that coming home in backpacks from the children that I DO send to school. It simply is not my nature to create more of it at home.  To me, unschooling looks more crafty than creative. I tried it and it bombed. It’s just not for us.
This year, I also decided to try something new. Something that in many years of homeschooling both as a student and as a parent, I have never tried.  Are you ready for this?  For the 2013-2014 school year Big Sister and The Brainiac are being school by a full, accredited curriculum. It all came together, with schedule and study guides. School in a box.
I know! I can’t believe it either.   Wait, that’s for newbies, right? The moms who are afraid to take their kids out of school so they want someone to tell them how to do it?  The moms who are overwhelmed and only half committed?  The families who are only doing it because they hate their school option? The kids destined for celebrity greatness and doesn’t really focus on TRUE education?  Yep. People have said these things. Let’s be honest, I have wondered these things at times myself.
There are a few reasons that we are trying out a full curriculum, even though I never have experienced one and neither has Mr. Incredible (homeschooled middle and high school).
1. It gets exhausting to be sure that you are getting it all in. Every homeschooling Mama knows this.  We second guess ourselves and take the responsibility of our children’s education seriously.  I have major gaps in my education from being homeschooled.  Likewise, I know people who went to traditional school who have major gaps. Nothing is perfect.  The difference is that for me to be confident in my job I want to spend all of the time WITH the kids educating instead of finding how and when to present each juicy morsel of information.  With this I have the map and as a seasoned homeschooler I also have the confidence to veer off the beaten path whenever we need to.  This has been a huge relief, because, Did I just tell you? I have a map!!
2. In the next few months we will be inviting DFCS into our home.  For our fostering and adoption they will have permission and access to our home.  That is very anti-freedom homeschooling.  I have great faith that we will be working with a wonderful team of public servants. We are working with a private foster agency that is fantastic and may never have a DFCS homevisit.  Yet taking the wonder and worry out of it was good for me.  I’m sadly VERY successful with imagining the “What-ifs”, and one of my biggest fears in life is being misunderstood.  We homeschool appropriately and well. Our children are thriving and well educated.  Having an accredited program with grading services relieves my wonder of what it would look like to explain a hodgepodge to a social worker.
3. We are about to have babies.  And not newborns most likely.  Toddlers and infants that will throw me right back into all of the work that the younger stage of parenting entails.  With this setup I have my balance and am ready for it. More ready than I have ever felt before.
4.  Education is a top priority. It is NOT everything.  When it gets to the point that it is consuming all of my time, energy and parenting…there is an imbalance.  My goal as a mother is to prepare confident, balanced, and prepared adults. I can’t do that if education is taking up more than the 25% that it deserves (read about the 25% rule here).  Letting go of the controlling, the planning, the researching each subject and lesson individually to be certain that each one was THE greatest thing ever… big win.
The full verdict is out.  They’re learning, and I’m not wearing myself out covering the bases to be sure that, well, I’m covering all of my bases.  I don’t exactly love every aspect of it.  I’ve decided to drop and adjust a few things to fit us and that has been easy to do.  Yet, I still do not feel qualified or ready to do a full review.
So what is the point?  I guess that lately I have felt very frustrated with all of the posts on Unschooling and Classical schooling that I have seen floating around.  Now, I seriously don’t like generalizations. Not all of them are this way. But the wheels that surround me, the squeakiest ones, make it seem that Unschooling is the only way to do it or you aren’t “really” homeschooling. Others present Classical Homeschooling in a similar way. If you aren’t doing one of the two then you are really just doing “School at home” and that’s noooooootttt the same thing as homeschooling.  I’m not going to fall for that. I will not beat myself up for admitting that “School In A Box” is working for us.
Well, I’m here to tell you that I’ve done it all. I’ve been excited with each style and approach that we have tried over the years. Never, in my wildest dreams did I think that the best fit we would ever find would be a pre-set curriculum in a box. Never. Ever.  Yet, here we are.
The beginning of this post happened this morning. It’s real. My kids absolutely love being able to look ahead at what they are learning and predict what is coming. As much as I detest Dr. Phil, I do agree with one thing that I have heard him say more than once. “Children need to predict what the outcome is going to be.” That is how they make this theirs. For these two anyway, that is what is giving them the confidence to take ownership of their education.  I thought trying unschooling would make me a “guide” to their personal processes. Instead, it took a box.
For those interested, we are using Seton Homeschool Catholic Curriculm.  Way more religious than I’ve ever gone and more workbooks than I’ve ever seen in my life. My. Kids. Love. Them.  And I’ll admit it. i’m enjoying it, too. It may not be what we do forever but it is working well for us right now!