Homeschooling is totally new to me. I didn’t have any experience with it growing up and wasn’t aware of anyone who had actually gone through it themselves until only recently. It was very daunting at first (and still is), but I wanted to share some recent experiences because they struck me as quite meaningful.
I believe my son is like many five-year-olds: he has a lot of energy and finds it difficult to sit for long periods. Like my own trajectory, I can almost see the ADHD diagnosis and Ritalin prescription in his future.
I first employed this version of homeschooling: simply taking what’s done at school and shifting it to the home. I was thinking about the benefits like personalized attention and instruction, movement at our own pace, safety, and support. I was still, however, looking for a formal curriculum and trying to emulate the ways things were done in school.
But sitting Pax down to work on things like basic math problems and drills was like trying to ride a bicycle with one hand on the brake: lots of resistance. It felt like I was coercing him into doing something against his will. Sitting down for any period of time and just reviewing problems came out to be like a punishment.
What started as being full of energy, enthusiastic, and eager soon became him being antsy, distracted, frustrated and dejected.
The move to Ecuador has helped me explore new perspectives on my homeschooling approach. My wife had picked up a copy of a very different kind of math book for kids called Verbal Math. It sat unused for quite a while (we actually had this before the move). But here’s how its use has unfolded now:
I pick up the book and ask Pax if he wants to lie with me on our hammock. Generally, the answer is yes, because this is always 1:1 father-son time and is quite special. While we’re rocking on the hammock, I pull out the verbal math book and begin reading it with him. This book is structured in such a way that there’s no pen or paper needed. In fact, he doesn’t even look at the book. It’s just all questions asked verbally that he needs to hear, comprehend, and work through. Here are some example problems:
- Count backward from 13 to 7
- What is 3+2+4?
- If Susie has 5 cookies and then gives 2 to Jill, how many cookies does Susie have?
Like magic, the resistance I feel with sitting him down at the table to drill problems has vanished. We just rock, with him lying in my arms, working through and talking math. There are, of course, limits to this. I can’t interrupt the creation of his latest magnetile construction efforts or interfere with a play fort creation to employ math problems. I also can’t just endlessly sit there questioning him. But I’m beginning to sense when I can initiate a hammock math session and when it’s time to bring that session to a close. Sometimes it’s after twenty minutes, others it’s only after five. Sometimes we got through 3 pages, others only through 1 portion of a section of a single page. Being so intimate with his learning experience and understanding these limits is one of the elements I really appreciate about homeschooling.
Another added benefit of this approach is that I can consistently work with him on explaining why we’re learning what we’re learning. If he wants to be a builder or an architect, he needs to know math and numbers to make measurements. If he wants to buy things, he must know how to add and subtract money. Many of the problems in this book are real-world basic problems that explain the why of what he’s doing intrinsically.
The Benefits of Hammock Math:
- He’s learning math
- His previous resistance has mostly melted away
- I can work with him each time by picking up where he left off and following his cues to understand where to focus, where to push, and when to ease up.
- With the knowledge of his math, I can constantly reinforce what he’s learned or will learn in everyday experiences: paying for the bus, counting stones, dividing a pizza, etc.
- Both he and I get to really sink into the moment and enjoy the process of hanging out, swinging in a hammock in tropical weather, and learning together. Why would I ever want this experience to go to someone else?
Another example of the importance of knowing the WHY of what we’re learning and how powerful it is: learning Spanish. My wife and I had begun learning Spanish in preparation for our move to Ecuador. We were driven to do this because we already knew the why. But trying to get the kids to learn Spanish had become an uphill battle. It was just another example of us telling them things they should know.
Fast forward to after our move, and our kids are sitting in a Karate class being taught by a teacher speaking only Spanish and meeting new friends who only speak Spanish. Suddenly they understand why they must learn Spanish: to communicate and make friends. Now they’re asking us how to say things and working to remember the basics of our day-to-day lives like fork, spoon, water, etc.
As soon as they understood the WHY, the endeavor shifted from a PUSH (us pushing knowledge onto them, often with resistance) to a PULL, where they sought the knowledge.
Now I don’t want to paint a super-rosy picture here. They’re not yet holding basic conversations in Spanish, nor are they math prodigies. I’m sure they could be better at math and Spanish if they were enrolled in classes and fast-tracked through with brute force. But if I let go of the need to compare our children with anyone else’s, the argument of “fast-tracking” loses its footing and becomes irrelevant. If we can fully enjoy the ride of learning, then why not? This is how we, as adults, take up most of our learning. Some, but not all.
My Learning as an Adult
As a child, all my school-based learning was goal-oriented: to pass a test, get a grade, get into college, and get a job. As an adult, I’ve found learning to be more varied in its employment.
Professional certifications comprise an entire industry unto itself, and strike me as beng very similar in nature to schools. The knowledge you can learn there can be generally useful, given the right motivations (being internally driven to become better at something or expanding your knowledge). However, if, as I will admit that I have done in the past, your primary objective is to check a box on your resume, then what you learn is irrelevant. When you’re working a full-time job (already putting in the extra hours for “overdelivering”) and trying to manage the other elements of your life (physical and mental health, family, etc.), sometimes adding on the study of 1200+ pages of course material is untenable. That’s when the school mentality kicks in and the goal becomes to survive the test and get the certification. I remember walking out of an exam room once with my certification but leaving behind 80% of the crammed material in the realm of the forgotten. I do remember the lovely intentions of thinking “I’ll hold on to these materials for a deeper dive later, when I have time.” I played the game and got the credit, but didn’t have (or wouldn’t prioritize) the time to truly learn.
The things you care about (your passions) are what you do because they’re meaningful to you. Learning Spanish, learning to surf, studying religion/spirituality, learning to invest. I embrace my method of Spanish study because I feel that it is really helping me grasp the language, and am willing to invest the time needed to complete my lessons. Learning Spanish poco a poco (little by little) helps me communicate better with those around me daily. There isn’t a concept of cheating, competition, or shortcuts – you have to work to get better. There’s no use for a certificate at the end of a course. The certificate won’t help me communicate.
The former, for me, is an example of externally-driven results-based learning where my objective is to get a certificate, not knowledge. The latter is internally-driven where knowledge is what I’m seeking.
I know which type of learning has been more meaningful to me and I’m hoping that this is the kind of learning that can define my children’s pursuit of knowledge.
Disclaimer: I want to make clear that these are just my observations at this point in time. I know that things can shift under my feet in an instant. Resistance to this hammock math approach can spring up at any moment. Their level of Spanish understanding via this method can plateau. I expect that our learning journey will be one of constant evaluation and pivoting as we navigate ever forwards. Since there is nobody else saying where they should be, and because I have the time and the space to support them, we will continue the adventure and see where things go.