Then, as Alice Cooper so famously sang, school was out for summer.

But, while the lessons are over for some kids, a substantial chunk of the homeschool community continues on much the same as always. 

Homeschool is not traditional school. Quite often, school’s not “out” for summer because their teachers (a.k.a. parents) recognize the fact that learning never stops and home education has no mandatory schedule.

Homeschool is about embracing a lifestyle of lifelong learning, developing a deep sense of curiosity about the world, and exploring complex interests. Summer can be the best time to dive deep into the experience.

Math happens in the kitchen, baking brownies and making change at a local craft fair. Or maybe math is measuring twice and cutting once while building a new deck on the back of the house or sewing decorative table runners. 

Science takes place outside in the backyard, watching strawberries grow from blossoms to blooms to berries. It occurs late at night with a telescope pointed at the moon or searching for a giant red spot on Jupiter, catching glimpses of meteors, or focusing in on a dark, starry sky.

On lazy summer afternoons, reading may last for hours in a hammock in the back yard. And after all the reading, P.E. might be a bike ride, a dip in a swimming pool, or a game of baseball or softball.

There’s time for theatre, art, and music, too. 4-H projects are finished for the county and state fairs. Family vacations reveal rich tapestries of history or geography. Life lessons abound with summer jobs and volunteer projects.

Contrary to stereotypes, homeschool kids have active social lives during the school year and during the summer, because their friendships have never revolved solely around a building, but instead around shared interests and values. 

Homeschool’s not out for summer because homeschool isn’t drudgery. It’s not about finishing workbook pages, sitting in desks, or studying for high stakes tests. Because learning hasn’t been stigmatized as a negative to be avoided, homeschooled kids continue on their merry way all summer long. 

Done right, and with the correct balance between work and play, discipline and relaxation, summer school can become the best school of all. Rather than a time of punishment or extra days to make up for failed classes, the season offers the promise of unique opportunities and time to explore them.

Why would kids want school to be out for summer when it’s so much fun?

Gina Prosch educates her children at home in Mid-Missouri. She is also a homeschool life coach (and parent) who blogs and shares homeschool resources at www.TheHomeschoolWay.com. She is also the co-host of The OnlySchoolers Podcast. 

Image: Wikimedia CCA 3.0

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After we finish one of these banned classics, someone inevitably asks, “Why was this banned in the first place?”

Years ago, when I first began teaching, books might be banned because they showed characters having sex, swearing, committing suicide, or advocating for communism. Today, those things barely cause a ripple and, instead, books are most often canceled for reasons related to ‘presentism‘—judging the past by the standards of the present.

It’s funny how literature written hundreds or thousands of years ago tends to represent the ideas, views, values, and social structures prevalent at the time.

For instance, Homer lived around the 8th or 9th century BCE, but the “Iliad” immortalized people from the earlier Bronze Age. Whether or not the events of the Trojan War actually happened, the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean was a violent time. Is it shocking that Homer’s Bronze Age characters see violence as a practical way to solve problems? Why are we surprised that Agamemnon and his troops engaged in pillaging and plundering? It’s not like the Argive army had signed on to the Geneva Convention.

When Shakespeare wrote the “Merchant of Venice” in the late 1500s, anti-Semitism was commonplace across Europe. Venetian Jews were forced into segregated neighborhoods from 1516–1797. If Shakespeare set his play in Venice, doesn’t it stand to reason anti-Semitism might be an issue for one of his characters, who just happens to be a Jewish moneylender residing in the city?

Characters who come to life through historic works of literature show the world as it was—not as we’d like it to be. 

In Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” (another oft-banned book), Atticus Finch tells Scout, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” 

Historians and archaeologists may give us hints about what life was like during the Bronze Age or Renaissance Venice, but outside the realm of speculative fiction it is not possible to visit the past in a time machine as H.G. Wells imagined. 

But we can dive into books, plays, and poems that have stood the test of time, and help us understand what life was like.

There’s no way to know what it would have felt like to be part of a Bronze Age army laying siege to another city unless we turn a page of the “Iliad” and climb inside Achilles’ skin for a moment. 

There’s no way to pop into a Renaissance Venetian market for the afternoon, so instead we read “The Merchant of Venice” and crawl inside Shylock’s head. By doing so, we begin to see the world from Shylock’s point of view; to understand why he asked for a pound of flesh.

Today’s trend of banning or ‘canceling’ authors and their books simply because those books don’t represent modern day values condemns us to know even less about the past than we already do. 

Classic literature gives us the opportunity to gain an understanding of the constants of the human condition. Readers of the “Iliad” come to understand there were wars during the Bronze Age, just as there are wars today that cause immeasurable suffering. Readers of “The Merchant of Venice” learn that anti-Semitism was a problem in Europe long before Hitler’s Germany. 

When we read great books written long ago, we heed Atticus Finch’s advice and it makes a difference. I’ve seen firsthand how reading classics increases my students’ level of empathy. They gain an understanding of the unchanging nature of the human condition. My students also come to see how much progress we as human beings have made because, having read about a Bronze Age battlefield or a segregated Venetian neighborhood, they understand where we started.

We should embrace history—not cancel it—so that we are not doomed to repeat it.

Gina Prosch educates her children at home in Mid-Missouri. She is also a homeschool life coach (and parent) who blogs and shares homeschool resources at www.TheHomeschoolWay.com. She is also the co-host of The OnlySchoolers Podcast. 

The post Canceling Lessons Learned from Classic Literature appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

 Oops!  This stranger may have thought she was paying him a compliment, but I know better.  I asked him how he handled the situation.

 “I said the same thing I always say when people say that to me. I told her there’s nothing natural about doing triple jumps and the only reason anybody can do any jumps at all—single, double, triple, or quad—is because they’ve worked hard learning to skate.”

 Over my years as a rink mom, I’ve seen firsthand how well-meaning friends and family members do kids a huge disservice when we write off their accomplishments (or those of others) with the dismissive bromide of ‘natural talent’. In reality, natural talent is always a combination of discipline, work ethic, and a willingness to spend hours on a given endeavor. Natural talent is trying and failing. And trying again. Failing again. Then trying yet again and maybe—finally—seeing progress. As I’ve told my son many times, if you work hard enough for long enough, all of a sudden you’ll discover you have natural talent.

 “You’ve got natural talent! I could never do that!” is code speak for something fairly insidious—whether we know it or not. Dig deeper, and the truth is revealed. The idea of ‘natural talent’ is a handy disclaimer. A solid excuse. A rationalization that does away with causality. 

 Certainly, things like a top-notch vestibular system (inner ear) helps with balance, which is crucial to anyone skating. But in the final assessment, everyone who gets a spot on the US Olympic figure skating team is there because they’ve spent thousands of hours perfecting their skating skills. That’s the only way they got to be the best of the best. 

 What’s true with sports is also true with school subjects. Ask any school aged kids what their favorite subjects are, and you’ll get an answer. Some kids like math, and some kids like reading and language arts. Other kids live for the days they have art or music classes. However, regardless of which subjects kids may see as “easy” or “fun”, there will inevitably come a day when what started off as easy takes more work.

 Falling back on the crutch of ‘natural talent’ gives kids an excuse for never pursuing something that is difficult. It makes it easier to quit when things get hard. It makes it easy to justify never starting in the first place. The notion of natural talent creates a seemingly magical (and, can we say—unfair) universe where success is doled out arbitrarily.  

 “No worries, Ben, your portion of natural math talent went to Sally at birth, so it’s not your fault you don’t understand fractions.”

In the end, real, lasting success comes not to those with natural talent, but to the person who works through failure after failure. As Adam Savage often said on Mythbusters, “Failure is always an option!” As parents, we need to help our children embrace a philosophy where talent is an end result, not a primary source. We must normalize difficulty and struggle, rather than fall back on the easy out of ‘natural talent’. 

Gina Prosch educates her children at home in Mid-Missouri. She is also a homeschool life coach (and parent) who blogs and shares homeschool resources at www.TheHomeschoolWay.com. She is also the co-host of The OnlySchoolers Podcast. 

The post “I’m Not Good at That”- The Myth of ‘Natural Talent’ appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Homeschool is just that. It’s home and school. It should sound ideal. All the comforts of home. With all the benefits of education—the exploring, the discoveries, the flourishing. 

Instead, for many families it sounds like stress. Lots and lots of stress. 

It doesn’t have to. You can make the flourishing happen. You can kick the stress to the curb. The trick is to let your children take ownership in their own education. Put them in charge and see what happens.

Does that sound crazy? Maybe. But consider this. Is it any more crazy than working overtime to replicate a school setting in your home, complete with miniature desks, homework assignments, and rigorous schedules? If you’re not sending your kids to school “out there,” clearly a traditional school environment isn’t, for whatever reason, meeting your family’s needs. Why break your neck trying to turn your basement family room into an in-home remake of a public school classroom?

Instead, spend your time exploring one of the primary benefits of homeschooling—tailor make an education based on your kids’ interests. Foster their love of learning and curiosity about the world. Radically re-envision what educating children looks like. You can do it.

First—ask your kids what they want to learn about this year. Find out what truly interests them, not what they’ve been told they need to know. What subjects have they have always wanted explore and learn more about? 

Second—listen with integrity. When you grant your children liberty and agency in their education, as a parent it’s your job to listen to them, to really hear them, and then act on what they’re saying. If your kindergartener is passionate about trains, then study trains. If your third-grade son wants to learn about the stars, then study astronomy. If your ninth grade daughter is obsessed with fashion, then study fashion. 

You’ll soon see that learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum. 

Third—integrate their interests into the curriculum. Trains can be counted, which means they’re math. The Little Engine that Could is reading. Making a miniature steam engine is science, and learning about how trains changed the world is history. The same pattern of interconnectedness works for astronomy—and even fashion.

When your sixth grader wants to learn sew, buy her a sewing machine and fabric. She’ll soon be a whiz at fractions. Then when that same young woman is in high school and wants to start an Etsy shop featuring her clothing designs, you’ll help her start her own small business!

Homeschool parents quickly realize the challenge they face isn’t so much being a teacher (because heaven knows we don’t know everything) as it is being a facilitator or mentor helping kids figure out how they can learn what they want to learn and become their most authentic selves.

Convey the idea that education is not about pleasing an authority (be it mom and dad, or the government). It’s about your student’s life–with all the responsibilities and consequences. It’s a first-class ticket to independence, autonomy, and emotional flourishing—first as small children, then as teenagers, and eventually as adults who are comfortable living and working in the world, interacting with people of all ages. 

Will your homeschool kid’s education look like a traditional education? I certainly hope not. Will there be holes in their education? Undoubtedly. (There were definitely holes in my public high school education.)

Allowing kids active agency in their education plays into the boundless curiosity all children have. Nurture that curiosity throughout their at-home education, and they will remain curious throughout their lives. They’ll be armed with the knowledge that they can teach themselves (or find someone to teach them) what they want to learn or need to know. 

And—most importantly—they’ll be ready to meet the world head-on, filled with passion and accountability.

Gina Prosch educates her children at home in Mid-Missouri. She is also a homeschool life coach (and parent) who blogs and shares homeschool resources at www.TheHomeschoolWay.com. She is also the co-host of The OnlySchoolers Podcast. 

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