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Homeschooling: How To Morph From Mother to Teacher

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by Joanna Steven

Laura Brown is mother to Jayden, 8 and a baby girl, due December 16th 2010. She resides in Colorado with her children and husband where she enjoys hiking, camping, schooling and cooking up healthy and yummy eats! Laura has worked since 2002 as an Astrologer, Life Coach and Intuitive reader providing guidance and insight to those who seek her out. Through her blog she seeks to reach others with truths, insights and empowerment to live their best life, armed with strength as well as knowledge of what is ahead! As an advocate for education and health Laura seeks to provide her family with the absolute best when it comes to both. This is why she has homeschooled her son, Jayden, for the past 3 years and why she starts with her own family in creating a mindful habit of consumption. Her belief is that we are what we place within ourselves both in terms of the knowledge and food we consume. She believes that there is absolutely nothing that cannot be made better simply by starting to live consciously and with awareness!

Joanna Steven: Nearly 2 million children in the US are being home schooled, for a variety of reasons. Can you tell us more about your own decision to home school? What were the driving forces behind it?

Laura Brown: I began homeschooling my son roughly three years ago when he started having trouble acclimating to the environment of the local public school. He was feeling ostracized and frankly didn’t fit the paradigm of a public school student in so far that he was his own person, did not follow without questioning and was generally a very active child. They perceived his asking questions as questioning and/or challenging authority, I encouraged that behavior as I believe that authority is earned, not endowed.

Jayden is a child who loves to move around. Sitting still for 8 hours a day was not going to work for him. Because he didn’t fit into this box he was singled out. The more he was singled out the more frustrated he grew until it started to result in behavior and outbursts that were not typical for him. The schools response was to sit him in a windowless room, by himself, with a teachers aid for the entire day. They also didn’t want to accept any responsibility for the behavior that only took place while he was in their care. Instead it had to be our fault, as his parents, despite the fact that he didn’t have these outbursts with us.  I made the decision after much discussion with my husband to homeschool. It was not an easy decision, both my husband and I are products of a public school education. It became clear, however, that the situation at this particular school was doing more to dismantle his self esteem and confidence as opposed to cultivate and encourage it. Since I work from home the opportunity was there for me to take this on. Though it required a great deal of change and adjusting it has proved to be the best choice for our situation.

Joanna Steven: Many people who are against home schooling feel that it is not possible to give a child a good education at home. What would you say to them?

Do the research. Its really that simple and frankly that is what I would suggest to anyone who says that a home-based education is sub-par. Those who are educated at home typically exceed their peers in all subjects as well as in more fundamental areas such as confidence, self esteem and autonomous learning. Home-based education allows for the parent to teach their child in the manner that best fits *that* child. As I mentioned previously my son is highly active and as such needs to move around. He is known for reading while walking around and sometimes needs to jump up and grab a quick drink to get a bit of a break when he is sitting at his desk. While these behaviors would be seen as disruptive in a typical classroom they are essential to my son’s success in his education.

Home-based education also allows for me to move at my sons pace. In a standard classroom children are drilled with facts to memorize and then regurgitate for a test and then its time to move on regardless of whether all of the students are on the same page! With a home-based education I can move at a pace that befits my son. If he is grasping something quickly then we can breeze through a topic. If, however, he is finding something challenging I am on no schedule but our own and as such I can spare the time and effort to help ensure that he gets what we are doing. Not only does this result in his being able to retain the information on a deeper level but it instills the habit of taking one’s time to do something right the first time and not sacrifice quality for the sake of time.

Finally, while I cannot speak specifically to all states, I can attest to the fact that here in Colorado there has been a severe shortage of teachers as well as a lack of funding that has plagued our educational system. It is not atypical for classes to reach 40+ students with a single instructor responsible for teaching them all. Since not all children fit into a box or learn the same way it is enviable that many will fall through the cracks. With home-based education this is simply removed as a potential drawback.

Joanna Steven: Some parents wish they could home school, but they feel they have far too much to do in their every day life without replacing the entire school system. Do you feel you have found a good balance between educating your children and taking care of other tasks and having some time for yourself?

Laura Brown: This is the quest of all parents, I believe, regardless of their educational choice for their children. Yes, there are some days that I am challenged to wear all my hats effectively without neglecting one to the benefit of another. I challenge anyone to find someone who can do it all, perfectly, all the time! I am fortunate in that I work from home and can juggle my schedule around my son’s education. There are days when I struggle with all that I want to do but its simply about making the intention. I wake up each morning understanding that there are some things that are important and some things which are not. If the laundry goes without tending for that day the world will not stop rotating! In my opinion its about prioritizing and knowing what matters. I am big on making lists, lol, and working on tackling a few things each day that need doing. I am fortunate also in having a husband who is very supportive and will work on lessons when he gets home from work with Jayden or will clean up what I didn’t get to so that I can have a break and just relax. I think that all of life is one great balancing act and that adding schooling to the mix will require the full support of the rest of the family.

If you all work together and be patient with yourselves there is no reason why you cannot start a home-based education for your children. Lets put it this way, if its important enough you will find a way to make it work. Mind you as many who know me or have worked with me professionally can attest to I believe that taking time for yourself is paramount to the success of all our other roles. I may skip making the bed or vacuuming the entire house or cleaning the bathroom that day so that I can grab a good book and read a chapter or two. To me letting those chores slide for the moment is worth it because taking that time for myself ensures that I am working at my fullest potential in all my other roles whether its teacher to my children, mother to my children, wife to my husband or whatever other hat I have to don for that day. Taking even that little bit of time for myself brings me back charged and ready to tackle whatever else needs doing that day!

Joanna Steven: Knowing what you know now, what would you change, if anything, in the way you started to home school your child? Do you have any tips to share with parents who are just starting to home school?

Laura Brown: I would definitely do a bit more unschooling at the start than I did. Unschooling is a theory which believes that to best help those children who have been indoctrinated to the public school system we need to work on getting them out of that paradigm and into a state of mind that we can learn

through living. Its a very free flowing state of learning where in you take them to museums, you watch educational programs, you bake and cook and learn through the acts rather than through sitting at a desk reading a book. Some choose to stay with this framework of learning for the child’s entire schooling experience while others use it to help children transition to home-based learning and to get used to seeing mom as teacher.  I was quite nervous starting out, as most are, thus I didn’t really spend as much time doing this. It did make the process of getting my son used to seeing me as teacher and not just mom a bit more difficult. If I had to do it over again I would tell myself to calm down and spend the time with this “deprogramming” of sorts.

I would also slow down on getting a ton of different books and curricula because in the end you use very little of it and what you do need you can often make up yourself or find on-line for free. Do a ton of research so you know what you like and what you do not like and understand that home-based

education isn’t necessarily supposed to mirror a public school setting. Set your own schedule, move at your own pace, do not frenetically climb curtains because you didn’t get to every lesson that day. Sometimes you just need to relax and go with the flow.

Joanna Steven: Would you ever consider sending your child/children to a regular school?

If so, what kind? If not, what do you think would need to change for you to maybe consider changing your mind?

Laura Brown: I toss this question around in my head quite a bit and I’m torn. I can safely say that I will never send Jayden back to the public schools in this area, I simply do not feel that they are adequate or capable of providing my child with the best educational experience that exists. I have contemplated, however, sending him to a charter/private school here in a few years. Jayden has been itching to go back to school and I admit that with my daughter’s impending arrival creeping up ever so quickly I am considering moving his transition up a bit. He has been working with a homeschool support group which is funded by a wonderful charter school nearby. Provided that he can adjust well I think this school may be a very good fit for him. We hope to move in a few years out to the Pacific Northwest and I will then investigate the public schools there to see if they pass muster and if he would bode well.

As I mentioned I am torn. I do love homeschooling and I have seen him go from completely lost and drowning to flourishing and exceeding all educational expectations for his grade level. I take great pride in that but I also believe in listening to the child. He seems to indicate that he is ready to go outside the home for schooling and I am open to finding a place suitable for his doing that. Ideally it would be nice to be able to set their foundation with a home-based program for the first 5-6 years and then allow them to transition to a public arena.

Joanna Steven is a freelance writer and was published in Get Fresh!, the Raw Divas blog, the Raw Mom blog, and more. She is the co-author with raw vegan celebrity Tonya Kay of the Raw Nutritional Analysis series, a series of eBooks detailing Tonya Kay’s diet throughout the seasons with full nutritional breakdown of the recipes. She regularly updates her blog, The High Raw Nourished Kitchen (joannasteven.blogspot.com), and her new book ‘Well Rounded: The Ultimate Guide to a Healthy Raw Food Pregnancy.’