Teaching children really is like herding cats. Anyone who thinks that forcing a child to follow a predetermined path set by a school teacher, administrator, politician, or software company mogul, is either fooling themselves or does not understand children. Children do not learn on command any more than cats reliably come when called. It just doesn’t happen.
So how can you adapt teaching to the ever-changing receptibility of a child’s mind? You have to be ready when their mind opens up to a subject with a method of teaching that will work for them at that particular moment.
Having curriculum options around is not a problem in our house. I think most moms who homeschool are secretly packrats, and I am no exception. A friend or neighbor moves away and gives us crayons, or paper or other supplies and I immediately add them to my burgening stash of learning-related consumables. I find curriculum rejects at used bookstores and yard sales and am lucky enough to have in-laws who feed my children with a constant supply of miscellaneous books, science and crafting materials, and general supplies. As a consequence, I have mastered the art of stacking and organizing and packing supplies in unique places that are hidden from immediate view and yet are easily accessible.
In our little homeschool we have cycled through a number of purchased curricula in search of optimal material over the years, but I never got rid of the material we did not use. Options abound for me to turn to when that shift in learning style or receptibility to a subject takes place. And now I am finding that we are coming full circle to material that was “too hard” or “too rigorous” a number of years ago.
Susan Wise Bauer’s Writing With Skill worked wonderfully for my kids for a couple of years, and then all of a sudden a week ago I realized they have matured to prefer Classical Writing’s curriculum style. Part of this is a maturity-related shift that has pushed us into a more Socratic style of teaching and learning. And part of it is that kids learn in fits and starts, just like they grow. You can be fighting to teach grammar for months and moths without success and one day your child just gets it. And a few weeks later, you are done teaching grammar. They know it now and will never forget it. They understand the subject and are ready to move on.
So the moral to the story is that you really do need to stay flexible and as a consequence, wear “packratting” as a badge of honor that is the smart and frugal homeschool mom. Don’t sell off or give away a curriculum if you buy it and discover that it doesn’t quite work. You never know when it may turn out to be exactly what you need as a tool to help your child through a difficulty in understanding a subject.
Just like herding cats, teaching kids is unpredictable and often comes full circle.
