It Isn’t Just the 4 R’s
Today when I go to the grocery store in the middle of the week with my son he usually isn’t the only kid in there but twenty years ago I really stood out when I’d take my four sons to the store. I’d regularly get the question, “Aren’t they supposed to be in school?”
One of my favorite quotes from Mark Twain is:
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
I never want to have “school” interfere with education. Going to the store with mom can be VERY educational. In fact, the kind of education that they will use on a regular basis for the rest of their life!
I was reminded of this just last week.
We have weekly family calls so everyone can stay connected. Our three oldest boys live in Texas and our fourth son and his wife live in Missouri. Last week on the call our youngest was telling his brothers about this really interesting YouTube video he saw about how the grocery stores are laid out. He was giving them suggestions about how to shop and the reasons why.
My oldest son chimed in about how “wasn’t that how you taught us to shop Mom?”
Wow! He remembered!
Sometimes we let homeschooling be just “school” and forget the importance of “home.”
Don’t get me wrong. I have two master’s and a teaching credential. The core subjects (Language Arts, Math, History, Science) are VERY important to me.
But they aren’t the MOST important.
Ideally, they are a vehicle to teach the important things.
Things like curiosity, courage, communication, and kindness.
Things like common sense, understanding good and bad, and justice.
Things like budgeting and going to the grocery store and not getting sucked in by the merchandising.
Homeschooling has its bad days.
There have been many days when I go to bed worrying about my kids’ schoolwork. Were they doing enough? Were they getting it?
Some days were total disasters.
I would have given up a long time ago if I didn’t figure out a way to stop the worry.
I would lay in bed at night listening to all the negative thoughts in my head telling me things like:
They aren’t learning anything!
How are we ever going to get through our curriculum this year if we keep having days like this?
I’m a horrible teacher. I’m failing my kids.
I would catch myself in this downward spiral and try and find one thing that they had learned that day that they could use for the rest of their lives and insert it into this sentence:
If all they learned today was _______________ they are better off than the majority of kids today.
Sometimes that blank was filled in with something like “even grown-ups have to apologize sometimes.” Other times it was filled in with things like “helping others” and “working through frustrations” and “the importance of taking a break“.
The “home” part of homeschooling needs to be the most important part.
The “home” part is the “real” part. That is probably why the first curriculum I wrote is titled “REAL Life.” It is kind of a life skills/self-help/entrepreneurship course. I haven’t actively sold it for years but I think I’m going to dust it off and update it. One of the modules is all about advertising.
And I also need to take my youngest son to the grocery store.