Saya dapat artikel sangat bagus dari Everything Homeschooling, yang membuat saya lebih santai menghadapi hari-hari pembelajaran bersama anak-anak. Artikel lengkap bisa dibaca di sini. Tapi di bawah saya ambil sedikit artikel yang membuat saya jauh lebih pede.
Saya sedang mempertimbangkan untuk berlangganan majalah online ini, dengan backup kurikulum guideline untuk K-12, lesson plan, worksheet, homeschooling forms, virtual trip, dan ide belajar lain hanya seharga US$15.95.
Melihat sample lessonnya sih, rasanya tertarik juga. Karena untuk membeli kurikulum yang mahal, saya jelas tidak sanggup. Jadi mungkin mau coba yang ini, tambahan semua metode HS diakomodir di sini. Tinggal pilih yang sesuai. Pencarian sih belum berakhir, masih ada waktu satu semester lagi sebelum Zahrul SD. 
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Struggling? Simplify Your Homeschool
We sometimes hear about parents, especially moms, who are struggling with homeschooling. They feel pressure — perhaps from relatives, or from educators, or maybe even pressure that they heap upon themselves.
They feel that their children aren’t “doing enough” or are “resisting learning.” This leads to worry, doubt, and stress, which, of course, doesn’t do anyone any good! They even begin to wonder if they should “quit homeschooling!”
Never! Just smile, relax, and simplify your “homeschool schedule.” Everyone will thank you for it — including yourself!
If you can live with your children, you can homeschool with your children. If you can laugh and love with your children, you can have fun and joy in your homeschool.
Simplify Now
Simplify your homeschool by reducing the pressure of “doing what schools are doing,” of trying to pattern “learning at home” after an outdated assembly-line, factory-style education. Simplify by focusing on what you believe your children need; not on what a failing system thinks you or your children need.
Consider the following points, welcome your children’s ideas, and enjoy learning in the way that suits your children and meets your family’s needs. You’ll lighten your load, ease your schedule, and create more time for what’s really important — your children and your family.
“Homeschool” Is Not “School at Home”
So many times it has been said, but it bears repeating: “Homeschool is not school at home.” Once parents can wrap their minds around this, and absorb it, the pressure and stress will be whisked away by a calm, refreshing breeze.
A home is not a school. It never has been, and it never will be. And best of all, it never should be!
“Homeschooling” is probably not the best term to describe our children learning at home. It does, indeed, conjure up an image of children sitting at desks, at home, doing worksheets.
If some children enjoy sitting at desks, doing worksheets, that is fine. Many children do, in fact, like to do “busy work” or activity pages at times.
However, lots of children prefer to be actively engaged in projects:
- Conducting science experiments in the kitchen
- Constructing Lego skyscrapers and bridges in the family room
- Reading literature books on their beds
- Playing challenging math games on the family computer
- Building bird feeders in the garage
- Monitoring the wildlife and weather outdoors
- Collecting rocks, minerals, or leaves on nature walks
- Pursuing social studies by reading Calliope magazines
- Creating a collage of artwork with siblings or friends
- Touring businesses when running errands with family members
- Helping elderly or needy neighbors or relatives
- Learning to change the oil in the car or repair a plumbing pipe
- Cooking a savory meal, lettering the mailbox, balancing a checkbook
- Writing in their journals each night about their daily experiences or hopes and dreams.
No Desk Required
All of the above projects, and much more, equals “homeschooling.” And none of it requires a desk, or a textbook, or a school environment. But all of it will spark joy in learning, be interesting to children, and be useful now and in the future.
In “homeschooling,” try to disassociate the concept of “school” with your home. Try to forget your memories and impression of what school was like for you. Those have little to do with learning at home.
Try to avoid using terms or phrases that are school-based, such as: recess, homework, math class, restroom break, school begins at 9:00, school is over at 3:00, lunch period, music class, study time, and “extracurricular” activities.
Home Is Not a School
Your home is your home. Not a school. The terms you use for events in your home should be home-based, not school-based. At home, “playtime” or “free time” makes much more sense than “recess.”
“Homework” sounds right — but it’s simply work that is done in the home. “Homework” could mean folding laundry, or cleaning the kitchen, or cleaning the gutters — similar to “housework” or “yard work.”
There’s no need for “homework assignments” (the type that are sent home with school children). All the “assignments” done in your home are already “homework” — and were probably completed early in the day!
The Reason for Schools
Remember that schools were created, and expanded, to consolidate large numbers of children in one location. The school buildings had to accommodate these large numbers of children in an efficient, affordable manner. And the large numbers of children needed to be divided into manageable, categorized groups — approximately 20 to 30 students per teacher — in various classrooms within the building.
To prevent chaos in the midst of hundreds or thousands of people in one building, rules and formats were developed, which have been tweaked here and there through the years. To move through the day in an “orderly fashion,” bells were rung to signify what people were to do next, or to stop doing now.
Obviously, such a system is not needed in your home. Yes, you will want some structure in your home, but that structure should meet your family’s lifestyle and needs. Anyone would feel pressure if they were trying to model “homeschool” after a school system’s assembly-line format, which is meant to move thousands of people through a 200,000-square-foot building!
Your home does not require such an extensive system or format!
The Educational System
Similarly, the teaching system was developed to handle hundreds and thousands of students. Rather than trying to teach 20 or 30 kids at one time, you are helping one child, or three or five children, learn in the comfort of your family’s home.
It does not require that your children “do what they’re doing in school.” Yes, you want your children to learn, but not to follow an outdated system that fails more and more children each year.
The educational system was not created to teach children one-on-one, unfortunately. But, your system is designed for helping your children learn, with one-on-one attention. Therefore, your system must work for your children and for the educational goals you believe are important, in accordance with your family’s morals, values, and beliefs.
If you try to model your “homeschool” after the type of school you remember attending, or the type of school that thousands of children are now attending, the model will crack and be useless. And no wonder that the parent would feel worry, anxiety, doubt, and stress!
Just remember: “Homeschool” is not “school at home.”
Keeping Kids Learning
“Okay,” you say, “I understand that a home is not a school building. I understand that I’m not a teacher, trying to instruct 30 kids in my dining room. But I do have 3 kids here that I’m trying to teach. How do I make sure that they’re learning what kids in school are learning?”
First, you need to ask yourself if you want your children to learn what “kids in school are learning.” Many are learning how to be disrespectful, how to bully other kids or how to hide from bullies, how to smoke, use drugs, talk back, be smart-alecky, or otherwise “unlearn” the good manners and social skills their parents originally taught them.
Next, you’ll want to consider what you would like your children to learn, such as how to be kind, respectful, and compassionate toward others; how to treat others as they would like to be treated; why peer pressure is wrong; how smoking and drugs are harmful; and how good manners and proper social skills will take them great distances in their lives.
Goals and Desires
And speaking of great distances, you’ll want to discuss where your children want to go with their lives. Your 14-year-old and 16-year-old children might have fairly good ideas of what they’d like to do for a career. And you can, of course, help them pursue those areas. When someone enjoys certain things in his or her life, and can pursue those areas of interest and build a career around those things, life can be wonderful.
But what about your 6-year-old or your 10-year-old? Is a discussion on where they want to go with their lives a bit too much at this age? Perhaps.
But it isn’t too complex for them to discuss what they like to do. They’ll be more than eager to tell you! The places they may “want to go with their lives” could be outside for a game of hide-and-seek, followed by a nature walk and collecting rocks. Or, they might want to go to the library this week, or to the zoo next week, or to build a model airplane or to create a life-sized drawing of themselves.
“Resistant” Learners
If you worry that your children aren’t “doing enough” or are “resisting learning,” ask them what they’d like to learn about. Ask them to brainstorm some learning ideas with you.
Ask them to help create some fun, learning activities with you. Let them become more active and hands-on in their own learning adventures.
When they have some choices and input in the matter, their interest levels will escalate. And they’ll no longer “resist” learning. Rather, they’ll look forward to it, because it’s something that interests them or that they helped to create.
Eliminate the Stress
When you eliminate the stress, the pressure, the worry or doubt, your family’s homeschool experiences will be happier, smoother, and more productive for everyone! When you realize that “homeschool” isn’t “school at home,” and everyone is able to relax and enjoy learning activities in the home, the stress and pressure will melt away — for you, for your children, and for your family.
When your children realize that you are open to new learning ideas, to their interests and desires, to their unique learning styles and experimentations, they will feel worthy, knowledgeable, and respected. And they will become more interested in learning and in sharing it with the person they love and admire the most in the world — YOU! It does not get any better than that!
So, the next time you think that your children “should be doing what kids in school are doing,” thank your lucky stars that they’re not. Feel blessed that your children are happily learning, in their own unique styles, in the comfort, safety, and loving environment of their home.
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Oh, I love this article. Thanks to Sherri – Everything Homeschooling.
