Planning in isolation in the midst of being with my wonderful children and husband is an odd time for me. Every year, at the start of summer, I wrap up the paperwork for our little homeschool’s year of fun and learning. While I review and formally document my kids’ progress though the past year, I begin to plan out the tactics for the next grade level.
The Hub and I have already laid out the overall strategy that is our homeschool. We have the philosophy in place. We know what we want our children to know when they graduate and move off to participate as adults in life. We have even laid out the general progression of learning within the various subjects we teach.
What I learned within the first couple of years of our homeschooling adventure, though, is not to fill in the tactics. Leave the details and specifics out of the overall plan because the details will change. In fact I cannot even count on a plan lasting through the week, much less an entire year.
And so we have developed a layered planning process, each layer providing a bit more detail and certainty to the education plan, up until the final stage at which point we leave off planning. This allows for sponteneity and self-direction on the part of my kids. There is no more drudgery this way. When lessons become dull or boring or even insurmountable, we change them. This way my kids are always challenged, always involved in plotting their own future, and encouraged to try to surmount a challenge that faces them.
And so my planning for the year involves redirecting certain aspects of their education based on lessons I learn while summarizing and documenting the past year’s progress. This planning is all in my head….and on countless small scraps of notepaper. The Hub abhors planning unless you count designing software, electronics, or building furniture meant for backyard use that turns out so lovely that the kids and I commandeer it for the living room. And so I am on my own. Yes, it is better that way since I stay home and do the bulk of the lesson teaching and since I naturally prefer to command the ship by myself. But it is hard to have that much planning going on in your head without a second voice to help.
It is a time when I feel tested by the isolation of determining the details of my children’s lessons for the next year while being in the middle of my happy, loud, and boisterous family. It is a time of contradictory feelings. Alone and at the same time together with the companions I love most in this world.
And so the start of summer is for me a time of personal growth and unresolved isolation. I wonder if all homeschooling mothers feel this sense of isolation, no matter how many playgroups, co-ops, and support groups they attend. It still comes down to you and your thoughts. Alone, isolated, and surrounded by love.
