Curriculum is Not the Boss of You

It's back to school season and all the homeschool parents are in their glory cracking open crisp new curriculum and books and setting out bouquets of sharpened pencils. It's lovely. All of those beautiful resources are elements of carefully crafted plans for engaging learning. Plans full of hopes and dreams. Inevitably at some point we are going to introduce children to this perfect set up we have and more likely than not they are going to mess those plans up. 

Please tell me I am not the only one who has felt this way! I love planning and dreaming up ways to facilitate learning. Even if it's spur of the moment I find great delight in putting together ideas, activities and resources to engage my kids. But then I involve the children and sometimes even my best laid plans are met with resistance, indifference, or half hearted engagement.UGH!



Obviously I adore my children but come on... sometimes this sequence runs through my head lol. 
In light of all of this I have to continually remind myself "CURRICULUM IS NOT THE BOSS OF YOU." If you know me, you know that I don't use a lot of boxed curriculum (outside of Math) but I do create my own curriculum and even that has to be kept in it's place in my life. Curriculum is a wonderful servant but a horrible master. 

I understand that curriculum and plans create a safety net for those of us who've jumped into the mammoth undertaking of educating our own children. Any naive spectator who has the opinion that people homeschool their offspring just so they can play all day has never been witness to the countless hours homeschool parents spend pouring over curriculums, lesson planning or stocking their personal libraries. Neither have they witnessed parents on the unschooling spectrum who go against their natural tendencies to constantly observe their children, taking stock of their interests and are diligently walking beside their children facilitating interest led learning and fanning their children's passions to flame. Rarely do I meet homeschool parents who aren't doing enough - typically they fall on the "doing all the things" end of the spectrum and still have a niggling fear that they're going to mess up their child. (Also we are big supporters of more play.)

So with these safety nets in place we at times can't help but rigidly stick to the plan lest we create a gap in our child's learning. I want to encourage you however that curriculum is not the boss of you. You are the qualified educator of your child and you can decide to skip things. You can decide to assign only half of the questions if your child is already showing mastery. You can decide the curriculum is boring you all to tears and to try something new. You can decide to leave out a lesson and supplement with something else. You are the boss. 

I have heard friends and fellow homeschoolers say things like "We dread X subject every day...", "Our curriculum is so time demanding we really don't have time to be in nature or do art...", or "I hate how all our subjects are separate, I really wish they had combined them more...".

You guys - there's no reason for this! (Except I guess if you're doing a registered online distance education program). It really is O.K. for you to decide that something isn't working for your family, or for you, or for one of your kids. EVEN IF it works amazingly for Jane from Co-op and her children are excelling and happy as clams. If it doesn't work for you it doesn't work for you. This doesn't mean we don't have to push through things at times or do hard things but I do think we can learn to ask good questions and to determine if something is working towards our goals or not. 

Here are some of the ways I find perspective regarding curriculum and my plans...

Do We Dread It?
If the way a curriculum is set up, the content or the required assignments are something we dread partaking in it's time to take a critical look at it. 

Can I Alter it?
Sometimes a curriculum can have decent content but is boring or repetitive in what it requires of your child. You are allowed to switch that up! Rather than a whole year of answering questions and filling out worksheets what if you varied how your kids demonstrate their learning? 
Next time you're tired of worksheets try one of these options:

• Create a doodle page to summarize learning
• Have a discussion with your child
• Ask your child to create a video newscast about the content
• Do a watercolour painting response (paint a map for geography, paint the bird in your study, diagram the life cycle of that animal, paint a scene from the history book, etc)
• Create a comic about the subject
• Give an oral presentation about the content
• Write an acrostic poem
• Perform a skit or role play

One thing I am constantly aware of (even when teaching in the public system) is how much writing is required. Often worksheets and answering questions can so exhaust a child that they have nothing left for when we want them to actually work on developing their writing. I would far rather have a discussion with my child about content and then save their writing stamina for working on creative writing or whatever skill I'm aiming towards in that writing arena. Quality over quantity is always foremost in my mind.

Should We Jump Ship?

Even the best laid plans can not work for you or your kids. If it's a daily fight it might be time to jump ship. In the event that is going O.K. for your kids but you absolutely hate it it's worth exploring other options as well. You are a critical component of your homeschool and how something fits you matters greatly. It can be hard to move on from something if you've invested a lot of time and money. I always try samples of programs to see how they look in our homeschool. With our math curriculum I forego purchasing the entire "Kit" and just grab the work text or student text. The difference in cost goes from $200 to $40! I honestly find most teacher manuals redundant and not necessary. If I forget how to do something that isn't explicitly taught in the text it takes 5 minutes to google it to remind myself. 

Realistic Expectations

One thing I have to constantly remember is that nobody can do it all. Everyone has gaps. The public system is not doing it all. There are plenty of learning gaps in public education. I am not responsible to provide a gapless education. It's not even remotely possible. The public system is also not the Gold Standard for education. It is one education model. What I am responsible for is to identify our priorities and work towards realistic goals. Again... I have rarely met a homeschool parent who has too low of expectations of their kids and their education. 99% of the time those expectations are sky high, mine included. I'm learning to bring those expectations down to a realistic level and then bring them down again because I'm not always great at being realistic lol. 

Give and Take

Along the lines of feeling like we should be able to do it all is the reality that we need to understand that when we choose one thing we are typically giving up other things. When I say yes to filling out every worksheet in a workbook I am giving up the time where we might be doing something else like art. When I say yes to adventure and time and nature I am giving up structured classroom time. Our yeses are always a no to something else and that is O.K. Sometimes we feel locked in and that we don't have a choice. We always have a choice so be intentional with it. 

So as we go into this school year let's remember that curriculum is not the boss of us. Whether it's one you've purchased or plans you've developed on your own, they are a tool to be used. They do not get to drive our schedules, lock us in or tie our hands. We get to decide how and if they are used. Sometimes it will feel like our children are ruining all the things (like the Toby to our Michael) but ultimately we're doing this all for them and the resistance, tears or apathy are cues we need to be listening to and inviting them to communicate. 

~ Monique