If you take the 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. typical bricks and mortar school day, deduct the lunch and recess break, and all the immeasurable time spent lining up, taking a seat, listening to PA announcements, listening to the teacher lecture one student about something unrelated to one’s own learning self…you will indeed be left with about two hours of what I’ll call “hard-learning” — focused time on a “skill.” After that — those other hours — are about using the skills and learning about life itself. This happens both in school, and out.
The idea of two hours for skills seems to be quickly becoming the approved amount of time on both sides of the US-Canadian border. With school-sanctioned materials — which is probably the case for those who are at home not of choice — you will already have your two hours outlined for you. But below are…
Some thoughts to consider
Reading
Consider reading for the spill-over time; in other words, not part of the two hours. (Except for kindergarten and first grade young ones learning to read… but even then, and extra pre-bedtime reading, with child reading to parent, then parent reading to child, can make the focus on reading be about pleasure.) Once reading is fluent, only then begin to ask questions of comprehension. And for older children, this — some probing for comprehension — should be a conversation, not a painful Q&A session.
Writing
To my mind (published-writer mind) writing is taught in all the worst ways in public education. For one thing, there is far too much time spent on it. Once the most basic skills are in place, write only as needed or as wanted. (Ha…some of you are balking at this. Please read on…) Obviously, if a child loves to write, they can spend hours at it! But if they do not, the time is better spent nourishing a passion for reading, or listening to audio stories and podcasts, and developing the part of us that loves to discuss and debate. In other words, conversation. Again, conversation might be part of your two hours or outside of it, but nurture conversation daily. Writing is, ultimately, putting your words on paper; so enjoy words, and what they can do. They are powerful.
My son began to educate at home after fourth grade. It took him about a year to “de” school, and for several years after that, he only wrote when he really had to. So I share the following story in the spirit of saying “Please do not worry, just because your child is not writing daily for three hours…or even one hour…”
Our homeschool group had annual “biography” fairs, at which the learners would bring a giant poster board all about their person-of-interest for the year. We also had science fairs, and “international dinner” evenings, which entailed each learner choosing a country to study, and present, along with a dish of traditional food. Year after year that was one of my favorite evenings.
He attended science fairs to see what his friends were working on. And for bio fair and the international dinner, until the age of thirteen, he turned up with mostly pictures and maps on those poster boards, with a few lines of scribbled words under each, and sometimes not even that. And I do remember wondering if I should be worried. But when I heard him talking with friends, about the people and places he studied, the historical knowledge he seemed to accumulate and know in his memory — such a memory. So unlike anything he could have inherited from me! I wondered at times if his memory was what it was because he did not set it all out on paper.
At the age of fourteen, he turned up with a posterboard that had one small picture and no less than eleven pages typed and printed, written from his research, about the Spanish Civil War. As an ex-history major, I read it and felt it was worthy of first year college, notwithstanding the lack of citations. In twelve months he’d moved from producing third grader material to advanced learning. He was writing because he wanted to, and it made all the difference.
Arithmetic
In your two hours, explore number books, or whatever texts/programs are offered online. (Know that there are places on this planet that do not use textbooks…and it is not because they cannot afford them.) But explore number games, too. Talk about math. Verbal math is so useful; it serves to visualize the reality of “numbers” in one’s mind. I recall one afternoon of riding about town on our bicycles, discussing how much more of the ingredients we would have to put in our ice-cream-maker to completely fill the thing…which left us talking about adding “half of two-thirds,” a useful thing to know. And good to eat.
Numbers are everywhere. Again, some bit of time spent in a book, or with online worksheets (and there are MANY available) and then in the extra hours, you will discover infinite ways to absorb: move from room to room, even in your home, and you will find clocks, timers, weigh scales, thermometers and thermostats. Or the more hidden types: let’s divide a shelf of books into types, or use them as objects to multiply. Use playing cards to practice multiplication tables…
Social Studies
Podcasts are amazing. For my son, the bonus of being able to MOVE while learning proved optimal, and he would tramp around the neighborhood for hours listening to Roman history or whatever he was keen on at the moment. The aural quality of this learning was a sizable piece of developing that memory.
If you are in doubt as to the “school system” validity of subjects your child chooses to connect with, you can check in with the curriculum of your province or state. In those hours outside the “two” though, and given the times we are in, I gently suggest you err on side of what most engages their imagination and motivation.
Science…and coming at subject “sideways”
Admission: science became very optional in our unschooling home. My son (21) is now at music school, studying vocal jazz, and he works full-time for Pepsi. I would venture that a child who is not interested in a subject is probably not going to gravitate to it for his adult earning hours. However, that did not let us ‘off the hook’ for some scientific knowledge. I decided to come at the subject “sideways.” And I hope my examples cause you to conjure similar ideas for whatever subjects your young one resists.
About every three weeks we drove to our local “Science World” and spent a full day, relishing new exhibits, spending time with faves, and viewing whatever new science film was in the omnimax theater. I also found a series of “history of science” books by Joy Hakim. With his passion for history, this was a rich way to access what science is about.
So consider what might be a “sideways” approach to a least-favorite subject.
All those other hours
Letter-writing, cooking, reading for pleasure, exploring the world around via museums, galleries, the library, beaches, parks, skateparks — all constitute learning. We spent hours at our local bird sanctuary, even on dismal rainy days. On those days, we took books and a thermos of hot cocoa and went to the sanctuary’s “warming hut” — a building with a wood stove and tables and chairs. More often than not, we’d be the only ones there, and we’d actually work — yes! — at “schoolwork” (as in, the two hour sort) while enjoying the crackling fire, and the rain on the roof. I would work alongside my son, and the mugs of hot cocoa was a break to discuss what we were up to.
William Steig (New Yorker cartoonist, turned children’s book author/illustrator) said in his Caldecott award speech:
“Wonder is respect for life.”
To bring Wonder into our days is the best place to begin. And can be nurtured all day.
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This post was previously published on A Parent Is Born.
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