Home: the foundation and buffer

Really that title is shorthand for this larger idea:

I believe that for us, what we have and what we do at home provides a firm educational foundation for the kids--a foundation that can also rise to be a buffer against many of the negatives that come along with the typical one-size schooling.

Our local school system has a persistently poor reputation. Every once in a while someone asks me whether I am (or will, or have) home-schooled the kids. It happened again today, in fact. I haven't, for one big reason: Regardless its faults*, it still looks to me like the faculty at our local school is getting it right a vast majority of the time. Maybe even more than I would be able to pull off myself if I were to home-school. I do, after all, have a failed career to cast a rather severe shadow of doubt over my own teaching skill.

But that doesn't mean I or we don't teach our kids. We have school, as in the building down the road. But there's really no bad time for learning. Every moment is teachable.

We let the kids be a part of the things we do. We talk to them, and I think we do a pretty good job of not talking down to them. When the kids are curious, we answer questions or let them explore. They all love books. They all like going out for a walk and talking about what they see. When they see or question something we don't know much about in the garden or at the preserve or in the pages of a new book, we make a point of searching our bird guides or map books or Google and finding out more.

And then they often take what they've learned and do something new with it--all on their own. Out of a few facts about a new animal, for example, they may make drawings and tell a story, come up with a game, act out some adventure, build a home or habitat or the creature itself...I see the way they think, and it reminds me of my first ed. class in college. Just give them a little comprehension-level fuel, and they'll burn all the way through Bloom's taxonomy.

Mostly, I don't teach this. Mostly, it's what naturally happens when curiosity is permitted. Maria Montessori was onto something.

Better yet, many of those fun-but-also-thinking things, the kids do together. I like that despite the chaos of our juggled schedules, we do get to spend a significant amount of time with each other, both two or three at a time and as the whole five (plus Pumpkin) of us. They know each other and like each other. I wish they didn't fight, and they do--but I believe they learn plenty from that, too.

So that's how I see home as their learning foundation. Here's where home morphs into buffer, too:

I am hopeful that because they have this positive experience under them already this early, before they start (startED in Boy 1's case) in the more rigid classroom learning model, it will give them the momentum to keep moving through the parts of the institutional school that are tedious or unfair or not quite the right fit for Kid X's preference or style.

Having to adjust and learn and produce even when conditions don't suit you is itself a good life lesson. Being able to work well with a teacher or classmate who has a completely different preference or style can be excellent wider-world preparation. I don't think there's a lot of academic value in some of the homework we see some days, but there certainly is a value in learning perseverance. Some day the kid who "doesn't want" to study spelling words is going to be the adult who "doesn't want" to complete a 1040 form...but will have the discipline and patience to get. it. done.

But back to that buffer. I love the idea that if a particular school day is especially difficult, my kids have home--and us, and each other--to turn to to find comfort, laughter, and a little bit more freedom to be themselves.

A former pastor described the spouse's role as "a soft place to land" when the other spouse needs it. I think of our family, our home, the same way. I think they've begun to do that, too.

That you have something reliable to come home to--that's a pretty valuable lesson. One that would require some pretty seriously bad days at school to shake.

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* When I say "its faults," I mean exclusively the ones of which I have firsthand knowledge. To date, I have seen zero evidence of the kind of severe troubles the rumor mill circulates.

I will end with one more big ol' asterisk. Everything I've written about school this week is based on the public school experience we've had here thus far. The situation could, of course, change with a major policy shift or new administration or very incompetent teacher or move to another school some time down the road. Or we could discover that one of the kids has some kind of special need that can't be met in a standardized classroom. A thousand things could happen. At that point, I would not hesitate to weigh other alternatives.