Monday, August 27, 2007
plans & goals
Here is a nice thing to read on NOT back to school day!!!
At a homeschool conference Mary Hood suggested writing out your goals for where you want you children to be when they are 18. If you look at the big picture, you won't worry so much if they aren't reading until they are 8 or if other kids can add and subtract and they can't or whatever. She also suggested "unschooling" (she didn't use this term though) until the kids are about 13. You don't have to worry about what they are learning until then. By that time they are old enough to make plans for their future and decide what they want to do. Then they have 5 years to "fill in any gaps"
At a homeschool conference Mary Hood suggested writing out your goals for where you want you children to be when they are 18. If you look at the big picture, you won't worry so much if they aren't reading until they are 8 or if other kids can add and subtract and they can't or whatever. She also suggested "unschooling" (she didn't use this term though) until the kids are about 13. You don't have to worry about what they are learning until then. By that time they are old enough to make plans for their future and decide what they want to do. Then they have 5 years to "fill in any gaps"
If they are "behind" in any subject that they want to learn they have 5 years to learn it before they are an adult. Hopefully by that time they still have an appreciation for learning and continue to grow and learn.
Mary Hoods books are really good. She is not an unschooler, she is a relaxed homeschooler. So some of her thoughts may be different, but her books are wonderful.
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Saturday at the soccer game I heard some lady talking to some girl about school, the girl said her school started Monday (which is today), and the lady said, oh, you're gonna have FUN! you're gonna have FUN! My first thought was, how the hell does she know that? I didn't think school was supposed to be *fun*. I never had *fun* in elementary school, (just the opposite--I remember sneaking into the class and changing a grade in the teacher's grade book, and spending the day hiding in a storm drain because I didn't want to go to the summer school class that day), middle school was a nightmare, high school I did have fun cutting class, skipping school, or getting high at lunch. Somehow I don't think that lady had that in mind. In retrospect maybe she was trying to convince the girl, brain wash her, to believe that being incarcerated in a government institution would be fun. What, I wonder, is her definition of fun? This morning I called my school-age boys over and said, today, you are NOT going to school, and you're gonna have fun!!! They grinned.
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Saturday at the soccer game I heard some lady talking to some girl about school, the girl said her school started Monday (which is today), and the lady said, oh, you're gonna have FUN! you're gonna have FUN! My first thought was, how the hell does she know that? I didn't think school was supposed to be *fun*. I never had *fun* in elementary school, (just the opposite--I remember sneaking into the class and changing a grade in the teacher's grade book, and spending the day hiding in a storm drain because I didn't want to go to the summer school class that day), middle school was a nightmare, high school I did have fun cutting class, skipping school, or getting high at lunch. Somehow I don't think that lady had that in mind. In retrospect maybe she was trying to convince the girl, brain wash her, to believe that being incarcerated in a government institution would be fun. What, I wonder, is her definition of fun? This morning I called my school-age boys over and said, today, you are NOT going to school, and you're gonna have fun!!! They grinned.
# posted by Anne @ 12:36 PM 
