We did it! First week of homeschooling done.

We started homeschooling this past Monday, meaning today – Friday – marks the end of our first homeschooling week.

In a nutshell: It went really, really well. The kids are a lot more relaxed, there is less stress and less pressure on them and it shows. Don’t get me wrong, if asked whether they prefer school or vacation time, each one of them would pick vacation. As far as school can be enjoyed though, they really do. They finally have time to do what they actually love after school. They finally actually understand what it means to study for themselves, not for school.

This first week – of course – they still had a lot of questions, but I expected nothing less. What was interesting to me, however, was what kind of questions they had. I can’t remember a single question that was asked all week, that actually had anything to do with the content of the subject they were working on. Every single question had to do with their fear of “doing it wrong” something imprinted on them by the german school system which started on the very first day of school.

Here are just some of many examples:

• “Do I have to write the date on the top right or the top left of the page?”
• “Which color should I underline the headline with?”
• “I don’t know what to do, I understood everything that was done in math today and got all the problems right, but there were only 10 of them, not the 50 I am used to from school. I was done a lot quicker because of this, is it ok to move on?”
• “Today I got all math problems right on a topic I failed in public school. Can that be right?” (It was, simply because it was explained differently).
• “Should I use lined, graph or plain paper?” (It took me forever to teach them unless stated, it is their choice)
• …. this list could go on and on.

Mainly they are just worried they will use the wrong color, the wrong paper, or write way too little down. I can not even begin to tell you how often they sat there for a very long time the first couple of days, just because they thought they had to write entire paragraphs down as they used to in public school. Never once was it stated anywhere that they had to write something down.

They are slowly starting to get the hang of it but I think it will still take a while for them to let go of the “fear” public school installed on them. The crazy thing is, that all of the things they are worried about are things that have nothing to do with the actual content of the subject. It’s all crazy things that don’t matter in the least. If you need to find the verb in a sentence, why would it matter whether you underline it in blue or green? You found it, didn’t you? You understood what you had to do and you did it. Why in the world would it matter what color you use to underline it with? This might well be a german school problem, but I can not tell you how many tears were shed over the years because the teacher they had last year wanted their verbs underlined in green and the new teacher this year wants them to be underlined in yellow. Always coming back to the question: Why would it matter?

They are finding out now, that whichever way works for them is the right way. However they can study best is how they should be studying. They are finding out that it doesn’t matter WHEN you understand something as long as you do. Don’t understand the math problem today? Try again tomorrow. Look at that you got it! There is no more “but the test is tomorrow, I will fail it. And if I understand the problem two days later it will be too late!” no more stressing about anything, just the bliss of knowing all that matters is that you understand what you are doing.

Our oldest used to do something that we called “bulimic learning”, meaning she was able to stuff a bunch of stuff in her head – she literally learned the words by heart – write it all down word by word in a test, got her A, but had forgotten all about it before the ink on the test was dry. When asked about a topic or even a subject as little as a week later, she’d have no earthly idea of what she had “learned”. That is because she didn’t understand anything. She is now realizing that it makes a lot more sense to have a solid foundation to build on, even if it takes you a day longer to understand it.

Now I realize that all of this sounds positive and some people might wonder if there is anything at all that is negative about our switch from the public school system to homeschooling. I would have to say yes, one thing jumps to mind immediately. One thing stands out: Why in the world didn’t we do this years ago?

As of right now, that is the only negative thing I can say. The fact that we didn’t save them from all this stress, the pain, the heartache, the tears. So if you are out there wondering if you should or shouldn’t give it a try, do it. Now.

I can honestly say, if there would be a race between the public school system and homeschooling, homeschooling would have crossed the finish line a while ago, while the public school system would be running so far behind they wouldn’t even see the line.

And I haven’t even gotten into how much more they are learning. As I have said they are learning a lot more when it comes to “traditional” subjects like math, history, biology, etc. It is simply explained with more time, more patience, and more resources than a single person in a public school could ever explain it. It is explained to their individual needs, so it’s easy to understand.

But there is so much more. Because they are done quicker and have time left in their day, we are finally able to tackle other daily tasks that they will need in their life as well.

This week alone all three of them have learned:

• how to make new recipes (baking/cooking). All by themselves. Just last night our son cooked dinner for all of us, without any help. (Potato cream soup and fresh dinner rolls – and it was delicious!)
• how to do laundry. From sorting by color and fabric to adding the right amounts of soap and detergent, choosing the right temperature, drying, folding, and putting away,…
• how to take care of their body by eating right (we started with vitamins and minerals), exercise (find out what is fun to YOU so you can stick with it), and how to take care of your mental health (all 3 started yoga and we are working on other things that improve your mental health as well as signs that show you might be too stressed, etc.)

Those are just 3 examples but I could go on and on.

So as far as our first week goes, I would call it a huge success. I can see us doing this for the rest of their school time. Of course there will be bumps in the road, of course there will be subjects they won’t like, of course they will be bored by some, irritated by others, but at the end of the day all I can say is that homeschooling wins over public schooling any day of the week.

By a long shot.