Homeschooling

Education is a tricky thing. If you make it too routine, students lose interest. If you make it too exciting, they only play, and fail to learn. Somewhere in the midst of information that must be given for learning and minds that must be engaged for receiving, is the objective in education. Add into that mix a desire to raise children who have an authentic, transforming faith in God, and you have something uniquely challenging. One place that you often find these challenges is in a homeschool setting.

How do you make it all work? As a homeschooler, you may be just about to crack open those new books you just bought, and the Bible is nearby for Bible study, but there has to be something that binds these things together in meaningful, practical ways. The answer is illustrated in Frito chips. Just saying the word, Fritos, you may know what I’m talking about.

Fritos cannot be eaten without leaving behind a trail. They fulfill that craving for salt that we all have, as does the Bible, creating believers who are the “salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13). Yet Fritos also do something else. They stay with you. They invade your senses – the smell of Fritos is unmistakable, the look of them is unlike any other chip, they crunch just right, the taste is so unique that other chip-makers rarely try to imitate them, and they leave behind an oily layer of salty residue that doesn’t rub off easily from our fingers.

This is how our teaching should be. All that we do as we seek to teach and train our children should be permeated with the undeniable and unmistakable “sense” of permanence. Teaching math is not just about square roots. It’s about an orderly system and tools to understand our world within that system. Likewise, English is not just about this author or that one, but rather about the mind, ideas that connect us to others, ways to express truth and emotion. Understanding the long-term relevance of our studies, we can much more effectively teach perseverance and character development from a faith perspective. How our students interact when studying is a reflection of how they interact with others. There should be a “residue” on all that they do that speaks to their integrity, and as parents, to ours.

Like the Frito illustrates, blending together learning and faith is a commitment to staying with it. We should be able to see the evidence of our learning and of our faith, in all aspects of what we are striving to teach. The balance between these things should be seamless, and as educators, it is our job to teach and train with this permeating goal in mind.

It happens every year. Like an abrupt smack in the face of cold water, summer comes to an end and school begins again. One day things are carefree and “lazy,” and the next, traffic picks up and there’s an attitude of “schedules” to keep. For students and educators, this perpetual cycle is filled with lists that must be checked off – both before the new year begins and after it starts. Staying on top of academic and personal tasks is quite the challenge because of this!

Educators have some help in this in that the district sets the primary calendar of events for them, but they have to plan out each day’s work to fit in that schedule. There are lessons to plan, papers to allot, themes to run through the year, skills to be taught, and a dizzying list of assignments that connect all of these elements together. It’s no wonder that teachers need aides to get it all done, but even then, some of the enrichment assignments or skills that need to be developed in their students, fall by the wayside as actual teaching time takes its toll on the teachers in our midst.

Similarly for the student, they have lectures to listen to, assignments to read, papers to write, tests to take, and often extracurricular activities and social events to attend; many are also trying to maintain a job. Students can easily overlook important skills just in the process of keeping up with the day-to-day tasks. So, when does a busy student take additional time to prepare for college, or to get a job to help pay for college, in the midst of daily expectations?

Like any other big project, the best way to incorporate all of the “extra” tasks and skills that need to be attended to is to break them down into smaller parts. Preparing for college or gaining work experience in high school can be done, but students have to keep the big picture in mind and then map out the parts that will keep them on track. Educators must do the same. The challenge is not to get too overwhelmed or lost in any single project. Students should have big picture goals for each year and then break them down into monthly and weekly targets. Educators should plan the skills training time into their lessons as well as benchmarks for achieving them.

A student, for instance, might have a goal of a certain number of volunteer hours that they want to have by the end of the year, or a specific target score on their ACT or SAT. Once they know the goal, they can determine what steps will be needed to achieve that goal. Then, adding in daily or weekly action on those steps will make the goals easy to achieve.

Teachers must remember that they are teaching skills and thinking abilities, not just the subject at hand. They must be able to incorporate the more practical aspects of preparing their students for later learning while presenting the subject matter. They must not be afraid to toss out part of the lesson plans if skill development needs more attention.

In order to get it all done, both students and educators need to know what “it” is. “It” should be the big picture for each year – the long-term goals and then the broken down targets for each week. Knowing these before the year begins will help everyone, students and teachers, to make wise choices about what they do and don’t put on their school calendars.