The Lemonade Life

Life handed us some lemons recently. Without going into details, let's just say that Little L's budding educational path suddenly took a hard left turn into What-The-Hellsville. On June 30th, AKA when every school is already done for the summer. It was not an expected detour, and it left us in the middle of nowhere. Suffice to say we were not pleased.

Granted, she is only going into kindergarten. But kindergarten matters, because it sets the tone for the rest of her formal education. That's a 12-year period (not including post-secondary), and a very long time to potentially hate school. A bad start and a rotten Kindergarten experience could very well bias her attitude towards traditional learning and leave her jaded for the rest of her life. Maybe I'm being melodramatic here, but in my mind, I only get one shot to help her form that amazing first impression of "school" (preschool notwithstanding, because preschool really doesn't count).

So, after exploring the available options, we decided to take the road less travelled by: homeschooling. And we hope it will make all the difference. (Apologies to Robert Frost for co-opting his beautiful poem, but it totally worked with my metaphor).

Now I don't mean unschooling, or willy-nilly wing-it-in-the-school-of-life homeschooling; I'm not talking about when people just give their kids a bunch of thick-a$$ workbooks and call it a day. I'm also not talking about what people do when they want to give two righteous middle fingers to organized institutions by pulling their kids out to live "off-grid." Rather, I am referring a more structured and accountable version of homeschooling that, in my province, is called "distributed learning." It involves an actual certified teacher's weekly supervision and planning, plus the requirement of following the provincial curriculum. It yields a report card at the end of each term. If pursued until the twelfth grade, it also qualifies a student to get their provincially-recognized high school diploma.

To be clear, we are still fairly reluctant homeschoolers. As a teacher, I love the institution of school. I love everything about it, from curriculum to pedagogy to unit planning and classroom arrangements. The only thing I don't love are report cards, but no teacher does; if they say they do, they're totally lying and cannot be trusted with your babies. Just saying.

Maybe it's because I have read too many articles about the Nordic approaches to education. I think that Finland is ruining me for North American elementary schooling, because the Finnish are kicking butt and totally ahead of the curve where early education is concerned. Their super awesome approach insists on play, social and emotional skill-building, and unstructured materials-based learning for the first few years of "preschool"; the focus of the (optional attendance) preschool program is learning how to learn. Brilliant. Mandatory school attendance and formal instruction don't even begin until 7 years old, which for us in good ol' Canada is second grade. Second grade! And their education system is lauded world-wide.

(As an aside, I'm convinced that Fred Rogers must have had Nordic blood running through his veins. If not, he was certainly a visionary when it came to the state of education in our countries.)

I'd like to think that by homeschooling, I am buying my kid some extra time to be a kid and just play, Nordic style. When you don't have 19 other children to manage, you can totally streamline instructional content and whittle it down to an hour a day (in Kindergarten, at least). The remainder of the time can be spent pursuing play-based activities, active movement and hands-on projects. A traditional full-day Kindergarten would have been 6 hours long, with only 45 minutes of that time spent in recess, and 30 minutes in P.E. The remainder would have been desk and centre and table and carpet time, which is a lot of fun, too, but also fairly structured and almost always indoors (as would be expected in a busy classroom with 20 kids to one adult).

Maybe it's a case of "sweet lemons," but distributed learning not only gives Little L a longer "childhood," but it would also afford us the ability to truly personalize our girl's learning. I mean, my precocious child already reads at a second grade level (maybe higher), and is also pretty adept at simple addition and subtraction and relational math. Instead of sticking with just the kindergarten curriculum, I can skip ahead in those areas of strength. And in the subjects or skills where she is developmentally behind, I can spend more time and energy focusing on building Little L's abilities. Lemonade!

If you haven't noticed, I've made my peace with our Summer Surprise School Saga, and am ready to off-road into homeschooling at full speed. I don't expect it to be an easy road, particularly since Little L insists that her mommy can't also be her teacher (really, child? REALLY?!).  Oh, and there is also that other thing where I'm setting up my educational consulting clinic and returning to the work force part-time. It's going to be a wild ride, everyone. Pray for me.

Also, let the record show that while I'm still a bit very sore about how we ended up on this outrageous adventure, I also trust that the good Lord above had a divine hand in paving the path forward. I mean, it was by God's grace that I even stumbled into the profession of teaching, and His provision that made my B.Ed. after-degree possible. Clearly, the Big Guy Upstairs knew that I'd need to know my way around an early elementary curriculum one day, so He gave me ample opportunity to figure things out when He dropped me smack dab into a first grade classroom three days before the school year started.   He also gave me two very close friends who happen to be brilliant Kindergarten teachers, on whose expertise I can rely.

"To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven." - Eccles. 3:1 KJV

Clearly, He knew, and He was equipping me for the road ahead. I can see that now.

We may not homeschool for long, either. It could be just for this year, or until she turns 7, or until sixth grade. Honestly, it will depend on how things go, and what Little L wants to do. It will also depend on the kinds of educational opportunities available when/if she wants to return to a traditional kind of schooling. At this point, we're just muddling through. Who knows where this is all going to take us?

All I know is that I'm going to be sipping my lemonade as we go.