Titus 2 Men And Women

How To Homeschool For The Weak, Unmotivated or Confused
by Denise Lower

November 22, 2002 is not just the date of the anniversary of the death of JFK.  It was the day I finally admitted to myself that I was lost in a sea of self made schedules that didn’t work.  Schooling schedules, cleaning schedules, writing schedules, just plain ‘ole life schedules.

I had just taken two weeks to sit down and examine our lives and try to make a "schedule" that was appropriate for our lifestyle, work schedule and home school life.  I had meticulously drawn up a very detailed, almost minute by minute schedule for school......when we would get up, when we would "begin school", when we would take our breaks, even when we would eat snacks and lunch.

Now, these things are probably FINE for the normal stay-at-home mom.  Many of us, on the other hand, have far too much "stuff" (a biblical word I LOVE to use) that gets in the way of that perfect schedule.

I am NOT putting everyone into little molds.  I am simply saying that some women cannot stay with a schedule either due to their personalities or other "stuff" that comes up in their lives.

My SCHEDULE looked really, really good on paper.  Then something got in the way..........LIFE, or that biblical "stuff".

For three days I have beat myself up trying to decide exactly WHAT it was about our life that did not take well to "scheduling".  What in the world was wrong?? We were a small family.  I was only attempting to home school ONE child, not multiple children, for which they even have websites to help them stay focused and organized.

THEN, in the shower at 10:30 that fateful Friday morning, (which, by the way was SUPPOSED to be when we were doing Poetry recitation and memorization), it dawned on me...........I AM STILL A S.H.E.!!!!!!!!! And I had not read any books to help a S.H.E. home school!

MANY years ago, I ran across a book which has since become a classic and has been updated at least once that I know of.  A woman recently has devoted an entire website (www.flylady.net) to ladies who are born S.H.E.’s., and with permission from the sisters (Pam Young and Peggy Jones) who originally wrote Sidetracked Home Executives (where the anacronym S.H.E. comes from), uses their text as inspiration for her zany, yet truthful and truly helpful daily email messages.

I have used this website in the past, to sort of "jump start" my housekeeping when things got out of hand (which will ALWAYS happen when a S.H.E. does not use her note cards or reminders!).  The last time I did this was in the summer when I did not need to think of "fitting" home schooling into my daily schedule, let alone into my life.

Add a 4 month long, life draining illness and a "relocation due to job opportunity" 500 miles away, and you have something akin to C.H.A.O.S. (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome), only with the responsibilities of "teaching" thrown in.

My mind must be just beginning to clear from the extended illness, because after my "shower moment" of that Friday, my wheels have been turning non-stop.  I began to consider all the books I had read to prepare myself for this home schooling journey.  Not ONE of them operated on the premise that the person doing the home schooling would be full of good intentions, but unable to do two things.

ONE, organize herself in such a way that NO area of the family life would suffer and TWO, motivate herself on a daily, hourly, YEA, I say unto you,  minute by minute basis in order to carry out the multiple duties of household, family AND school.

This lack of ability to be self motivated could come in the form of MANY, MANY things.........infant-sleep depravation, debilitating illness, menopause (which I have decided is the time of life MY brains fall out), space issues, (shoebox living-why bother anyway), OTHERS illnesses, etc. etc.  I am sure you could fill in "whatever" in that space and you would get my point.  I repeat, I am a born S.H.E. (personality NOT given to organization) and I am in a very ill time of my life, which makes it VERY difficult to motivate myself.  Still I wondered, WHERE could I get the help I needed?

I even went to my beloved computer, which has ALWAYS been able to give me information and advice when I need it.  I could not find ONE book written from the standpoint of a S.H.E., who is also home schooling.  All of the "How to Begin Home Schooling" or "Home schooling for Dummies" were written to the B.O.’s of the world (Born Organized, like my spiritual mother Sharon, with whom I started this website, at which time I became almost allergic to her notebooks with tabs organizational process).

I really REALLY want that home school where everyone has a job duty.  Where all the children LOVE to learn, BEG to be read the Homers Iliad and Odyssey.  Where my son carves his own toys out of wood, plants his own garden, manages his own compost pile and asks for the scientific name of mushrooms.

I want to be that mother who grinds her own flour, cans her own produce, cooks everything from scratch and inspires her son to greater and greater intellectual heights.  I mean it, I REALLY, REALLY want to live like many of the home school books I have read. 

In fact, I envision myself turning over the soil in our own organic garden, after spending a morning discovering Plutarch’s heroes and the theory of relativity.  I can almost SEE myself walking through the woods with Caleb, with our Nature Book in hand, naming off the fauna and flora of this beautiful Northwoods world to which we have just recently moved.

HOWEVER, there is a glitch in the process that I am only just beginning to understand.

That glitch is the fact that I am a S.H.E. I was born a S.H.E., I will always be a S.H.E. and will more than likely DIE a S.H.E.

NOW I can create an UNschedule.  NOW I can attempt to home school.

NOW I know why everything I attempt to do fails after even just short attempts.  It is NOT my intelligence level.  It is NOT my lack of love, care, concern, sensitivity.  However, it DOES incorporate all the circumstances around me: my health, my husbands schedule, my son’s learning disability.

IT IS GENETIC.  IT IS ME.

SOOOO, here is to all the born unorganized, sidetracked women who are also attempting to home school.

Part 2

It seems as I reflect on the ways and means I was using to try to get us "on a schedule", that I have been approaching this backwards.  I have been trying to "fit" home school in to our "life.  I need to fit our "life" into "home school".

Charlotte Mason, an educator who lived in England in the late 1800’s, and whose writings have inspired one method of homeschooling, states that "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a Life".  It is NOT the latest fad diet, to be tried for a little while, then given up when it doesn’t work.  It should encompass everything we do and everything we are.

Speaking of fad diets. we have also been trying to change our eating habits for the past two years.  It has helped me at some very ill times in my life, but I have not been able to incorporate it entirely into our "lifestyle". Now I think I know WHY!!!!!!!!!!!

One of the traits of a S.H.E. is starting something and not being able to finish it because we get side tracked.  I have always wondered what we get sidetracked with.  When I am cleaning, I tend to see something in the room I just carried something into which needs attention, then I go to take care of THAT, then something ELSE takes my attention.....the first couple of chapters of Sidetracked Home Executives covers this phenomena much better than I ever could.

When I am trying to incorporate a new eating lifestyle into our lives, I get sidetracked by other food, or by the fact that I am not in my own house, cooking my own food.  Sort of getting side tracked by proxy.

Why I could not recognize getting sidetracked as my problem with home schooling is beyond me.  It is so obvious to me now.  However, what is NOT obvious is HOW to NOT get sidetracked with home schooling.

I believe one of the things I get sidetracked with is the "crafty"things I like to do that are literally laying all over the house.

That quilt I am hand quilting to hang on our new 16 foot vaulted ceiling wall.....the bedspread and pillow shams to match the new curtains and dust ruffle I finished......the Christmas presents I am knitting this year (only one left to go and that is almost done!). I dearly LOVE to cross stitch, knit, quilt, sew, crochet or basically do any kind of "home craft". 

I am also a perfectionist, or so I have been told.  I do not see this quality in my life, however a very close, important person in my life pointed out to me that this quality is what keeps me from finishing the things I start.  I do not understand that philosophy.  I have also been told I have a fear of failure, which explains why I do not finish what I’ve started.  I believe it was simply a pattern started in my life by my own mother, who also started MANY projects before finishing the last one. An example, or a "mold" that I followed, being the obedient child that I am and that I remain.

I tend to believe it is more the challenge and excitement of starting something new that drives me to start new projects, and then the boredom that sets in from doing the same thing over and over again that makes me stop THAT project and start a new one.

I asked this question to a group of women who have been there, done that, are doing that.  One of these fine ladies stated that Caleb was fortunate to have  a mother who can still be excited, who rushes in where fools dare to tread.  That this quality in me is what will keep him excited about learning. 

WHY then is it so difficult for me to STAY ON TRACK?? Probably exactly what Charlotte Mason has to say about habits and thinking.  We can train our habits and our thinking into certain ruts, and mine just happens to be in the "start something, stick to it for a while, get bored, find something "new" to start, put down what I originally began, start the "new" project and on and on ad nauseum" cycle that I can now see has been in motion my entire life.

As I look back, there are some things I have successfully STOPPED this cycle with.  Like our marriage.  We no longer run away from each other when difficulty raises it’s ugly head.  We do not "call it quits" (although at times that DOES seem easier).  Each situation is different, yet it requires the same type of skill.  I call it "stick-to-it-ness". VERY difficult to obtain, yet with perseverance, we have obtained it in our personal lives.

We have recently moved for what we have told each other will be the last time.  Even if we eventually get a nice house in the woods close to Lake Superior, it will still be up here, somewhere in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  It was always our dream to live somewhere "up here". 

We have promised Caleb a farm.  We love to grow things.  We are pretty sure we would love to raise a few animals.  I would love to raise angora rabbits and goats for their wool and learn to spin my own yarn, part of my love for knitting.  So when I SAY I would love to be one of those home schooling moms that "does it all"......I MEAN it.

But there are some things I definitely need to pull together.

After my daily walk with God in the form of devotions and prayer time, I will start with this house and the duties and responsibilities included therein.  The housework, the bills, the cooking and the dog.

Then I will work on the home school schedule.  I will make those items mesh together before I move on to the next item, our dietary lifestyle.

Recently I had the unbelievable pleasure of corresponding with a woman who lives in England, Carole Bostelman. Carole is a former resident of the United States.  Her words of rebuke and encouragement were like water from a spring to a thirsty soul.  So many things she said helped me put my entire life in perspective.  Let me share some of what she said in outline form:

1. What does God want me to do?
   a.     Are the things I am doing the things God wants me to do?
   
   Seemingly the same things.......but totally different when you begin to examine them.  Oops, I said outline form........I just can’t help myself.
   
   
2. Look at MY child and MY home school and see what is happening.
   
   
3. What do I really need to teach my child?
   a.     What does he need to be taught? What does he already know? What is the BEST way he learns? (NOT according to the "experts, according to what YOU see.)
   b.    Are there areas that need more attention?
   
   One of the goals of MOST homeschoolers it to raise a child/children who are independent learners and who love learning.
   
   
4. If I work on the "front end" (planning) and let my child in on what I am doing, he will eventually take responsibility for his own learning.  If this is done, then when I DO have days when I can barely move, Caleb can look at this sketched out path and be SELF-MOTIVATED (something we can learn together).
   a.     Make your child part of the "plan".
   b.    Think of what the best way to make a chart for your child to follow. Stickers? Pictures?
   c.     DO NOT make specific TIMES....just require a time it needs to be done i.e.: by lunchtime, or by break time.
   
   
5. DO NOT SCHEDULE MINUTE BY MINUTE
   a.     Work on the 180 day requirement. Allow yourself to school according to DAY ONE and DAY TWO, NOT Sept. 5th, Sept. 6^th, Sept. 7^th.
   
   
6. Look at what time you have (consider hubby’s schedule, etc.).
   
   
7. Decide what you MUST schedule and put that in FIRST, then add what you’d "like" to do.

This next list is more directed toward ME. 

1. Treat schooling like the JOB I used to have.....no excuses.
   
   
2. Consider what is going on in YOUR life. My issues were: health, recent move and culture shock ( a foot and a half of snow at a time!), menopause and hubby’s schedule (or lack of one).

Here was one of the hardest things for me to consider.  I needed to look at our lives and decide what I really CAN do vs. what I WANT to do.  When I was honest with myself, I realized there were many things I needed to put away. Some days the pain of my illness is so great, it is a major feat of strength to just cook the meals and read to Caleb.  I needed to focus on my STRENGTHS, but remember my limitations.

Another fine lady reminded me to have a "heart relationship" with my son.  How easy it was to forget one of the most important things in raising a child amidst all the lists, schedules and appointments.

One way I decided to try to accomplish this was "start from scratch". Another woman told me to start with ONE lesson for 20 minutes or so a day, and just accomplish the planning and teaching of that for ONE MONTH.  After another month, add another subject. 

She also asked me what ONE THING do I want to accomplish for this school year?  I chose reading, since that has been our main focus for this year anyway.  I started with that, then added Math, much sooner than one month.......but if he does not learn ONE additional thing this year, at least he will be able to read, fill out a job application, balance his checkbook and be able to tell if he is being cheated in a business deal. 

My son has some mild learning issues he deals with on a daily basis, plus a health issue that might go away, but it might not.  I have read many home schooling articles devoted to children with learning problems and the most important thing I can see, is that it is MOST important that I teach my child day to day living. 

It is most important for me to know that Caleb knows his manners (please, thank-you, may I?) than for him to try to memorize the birthdays of the Presidents.  I would rather he knew how to take the trash out without being told than to know the theory of quantum physics.  I would MUCH rather he know how to operate a saw and know how to use power tools, than how to rhyme "oil".  These "hands-on" abilities will take him further in life in the arena he will probably end up in.....is this NOT why most of us home school anyway?

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING anyone shared with me, and that I can share with any of you is : BE OBEDIENT TO GOD, and to the leading of the Holy Spirit IN YOUR LIFE.........not is someone else’s.

Just like it was difficult for me to escape the "rules and regs" mentality of a certain church group I used to belong to and let the Holy Spirit lead me in life, it was just as difficult for me to understand that I could be a very successful home schooling mom if I let go of the lists and schedules and let GOD do the leading not only in our spiritual lives and in our home life, but also in our home school. This concept is difficult for obedient S.H.E.’s to grasp.

Everyone thinks that staying at home all the time is easy. Having had a career in the past, I can say with confidence that I think it requires more discipline.  And if you do not automatically have that type of discipline then being a stay at home mom and home schooler becomes a type of prison which you are constantly trying to break out of. You will make up any type of excuse as to "why" it would be better if little Johnny or little Suzy would be better off in traditional "school".

THEN you give up, put the child back in public or Christian school and THEN very soon thereafter, you get the GUILTIES. Oh, you have cleaned up the house, started a few new projects, but then you start hearing those reports about home schooled children. Which in turn leads you to pulling him out and bringing him back home, start a new schooling schedule, letting the house go, leaving your projects on the shelf.........and on and on it goes until you feel so torn apart you are now physically ill.

SOMETHING HAS TO STOP.......and the only way to make that type of behavior stop is to DO IT GOD’S WAY..........PRAY, LISTEN, then DO.  Be obedient to God.  Consider what HE wants you to do.  Remember your limitations.  Focus on your strengths.  Have a heart relationship with your child (and your whole family for that matter).  It is YOUR life that God gave you, not someone else’s.  Glorify and Honor Him by letting the Holy Spirit help you run your home school.

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