Our Radical Homeschool Journey

Our Radical Schooling Journey

This is our 6th year of homeschooling.  I almost cant even believe that!  Whoever said that the days of parenting are LONG but the years are SHORT wasnt kidding.  Thinking back to the moments, it seems like we've shared a lifetime home together.  But when I think back about our journey and how we got to this moment, it seems like it was just a blink of the eye.

In our 5 full years we just completed, we have learned so much.  We explored early America with the explorers.  We stood on the sidelines while the colonists and founding fathers looked death right in the eyes and declared freedom for all (albeit making MANY horrifically bad choices along the way!).  We watched as Martin Luther King Jr declared his dream for freedom to all only 60 or so years ago.  We learned about September 11th thru the eyes of a blind man who was on the 78th  floor of tower 1 with his guide dog. 

We have learned about other parts of the world too.  We learned about the ancient civilizations and the amazing technological advances they made.  We spent a whole month in Ireland, actually touring thru ancient castles and dove into the history of Irelands potato famine.  We even got to walk thru the doors of Caslin's Bar...a bar that was owned and run by our distant cousins for generations.  We found Caslin Way in County Roscommon where my ancestors lived.  We've discussed famous inventors and kings.  We've learned about both the goodness and evil in many such people.  We have listened to stories of missionaries who go to the very pits of humanity to spread a message of love and hope.

We have learned about the wonders of God's amazing creation.  My kids have spent hundreds, maybe thousands of hours learning about animals and the world around them.  My son was able to impress the owner of a bird sanctuary in Ireland with his extensive knowledge of paragrine Falcons, his favorite animal on earth. 

We have made friends with so many characters from history and fiction that we cant even count any more.  We giggled with Tom Sawyer as he convinced his friends to pay him for the opportunity to do his chores for him.  We cried with the Midwife's Apprentice as she learned that she was worthy of love and respect.  We cheered for Harry, Ron, and Hermione as they defeated Voldemort over and over.  We shed tears over the atrocity of slavery and then rejoiced when Chicken George declared they had "another plan" to escape to freedom.  They have all, both real and imaginary, become close, dear friends who we lovingly speak about with fond memories.

We have struggled through tough math or science concepts.  We have giggled together as we learned about math thru a 5 year old kid who is a professor of college math.

And we have had FUN!  We spent a month in Ireland, we spent 2 weeks in Florida, we have been to zoos, parks, animal sactuaries.  We have toured 5 or 6 different caves.  We have gone to water parks, beaches, we've taken classes at the local national park.  We have seen professional Broadway shows and dinner theaters.  We have gone to see ballets.  We have gone to Williamsburg and Jamestown several times to walk alongside people from history.  We have gone to history and science museums and art galleries.  We have learned to swim, to climb, even how to sky dive (well, thru a simulator...we dont jump from airplanes in our school lol).  We even got to steal our 14 year old daughter away to Mexico for a week, just the 3 of us.  We toured Mayan ruins, swam with dolphins, went ziplining and repelled into a cynote.  And we discussed dating and boys and celebrated purity with her by planning a sweet dinner date for her and her dad, complete with a beautiful white gown and a pink heart promise ring.  What a special special time that was with her!  And we are already planning a13th birthday trip to do with our 11 and a half year old in 18 months!

And we have played games.  I mean MANY!  We have become a gaming family and have acquired a huge board gaming library over the last few years.  We dont buy toys anymore, we buy board games.  We have games that teach history and geography.  We have story telling and vocabulary games.  We have games that teach logic and strategy.  We have games that require the kids to cooperate and games that put them against each other.  I'm convinced now that theres not much we cant learn from games.  But more than anything, we learn how to have fun as a family.

We have even started raising puppies to become Seeing Eye dogs for the blind.  Our first dog, PiRoy was amazing black labrador retriever.  He was completely attached to me and followed me everywhere.  He was calm and obedient and is missed very much.  We got him at 7 weeks old and had him for 16 months before he went off to Super Hero School at The Seeing Eye.  Now we are raising Enzo, another labrador, but this time a yellow one.  Hes much more cuddly than PiRoy was, but he is more of a family dog too.  He has bonded with each of us and has been such a joy to have around.  It has been a wonderful and unique opportunity for us to do as a family and we look forward to loving MANY more puppies!

We have watched as our kids have discovered and honed their gifts.  Our 9th grader has read and listened to the audiobook of Harry Potter so many times that she knows most of the 7,000 or so pages by heart.  In reading and rereading it so many times, it's like shes learned to write by just sitting alongside JK Rowling as if she were her personal mentor and friend.

My 11 year old daughter has discovered that she is a dancer at heart.  She is a natural ballerina and is spending more time developing her skills.  She most recently performed in a ballet show that told the story of God's redeeming love for broken people.  She is slowly learning the gift that comes from reading and writing.  Shes got the freedom to continue coming out of her shell and experimenting with her gifts.

My 10 year old is an exceptional baseball player.  He has done travel team, he's done rec leagues since he was 4 years old.  He has attended some camps and even takes private lessons with a pro ball player.  His favorite team is a local minors team and we attend as many games as we can afford.  Hes on a first name basis with a few of the players and is known by many of the people who work at the stadium.  He's the kid who everyone, even pro ball players, say can go all the way if he wants, he's that good.  One day he hopes to play for our local minor league team, and I fully encourage him to work for that goal.  Of course a majors team would be even better!  We have been so fortunate to be able to spend so much time at the ball park, because to him, since he personally knows the players, this is a REAL and ATTAINABLE goal for him.  Pro ball players aren't these guys who are untouchable and impersonal, just guys you see on TV or on baseball cards.  Pro ball players are his friends, his mentors, and his coaches.  Its awesome!


How did we get here?

I have my masters in special education.  I knew how to teach in a public school, how to modify a curriculum to fit any child.  And so we started with curriculum. A lot of it. And when I couldn't make one work, we tried another one.  TOO MANY OF THEM!  And I learned that there just is NO perfect one out there. Theres no curriculum that teaches all i want my kids to learn, or the way i want them to learn.  I dont want my kids to become the object of someone else's agenda, no matter how good a place that agenda may even come from.  I want them to learn about the world through many avenues, through many eyes, so that they can face the world in reality and with truth.

And so, when thinking back to the above list of things we have done, just a list I'm sitting here jotting down while quickly thinking back through the last 5 years, I find myself asking a question.  A big, huge, important question.  How much of what we have experienced above came from a purchased curriculum program!?  Not one bit.  Its come from reading great stories, from watching documentaries or movies, its come from deep discussions about truth with my kids.  And its come from playing games.  Following bunny trails.  And from letting my kids carve their own path.  And so, we have finally turned away from curricula for the most part. 

Its not that I am ANTI-CURRICULUM.  We still use 2 different math programs.  But that's because the kids are liking them and want to continue with them.  But everything else we are doing, we are now doing because we have a desire to pursue something.

My 9th grader has written over 250 PAGES of Harry Potter fan fiction this year.  She is rewriting the last 3 HP books, while adding in her own characters and plot twists and has changed the point of view from 3rd person, to now telling the story thru the eyes of her own character.  Is this a "normal" way of learning high school composition?  Not at all.  But is it working well?  Yes it is!  What 9th grader do you know has written over 250 pages 9f anything, let alone because they WANT TO! And the best part?  You cant even distinguish between JK Rowlings words and her own.  It's been incredible!  As I said before, it's like shes getting to sit along side JK Rowling as if she were my daughters close personal mentor.  You cant get much better than that!  And she is now well on her way to fulfilling her dream of becoming an author, just like her mentor!

My 6th grader has become the YouTube hack queen.  I might not be able to capture her interest with a science lesson, but she is constantly mixing different slime ingredients together and making videos about how to make different kinds of slime.  Shes always telling me about life hacks shes learned and loves to bake and switch ingredients around.  She is an excellent ballerina and will be broadening her horizons next year with jazz and lyrical too.  Shes hugely adventuresome and loves to go ziplining and to climb rock walls and trees.  Shes always up for a challenge and can beat just about anyone at anything physical.

And my son and his baseball.  Theres definitely not a curriculum for that, but hes learning and growing his skills thru rec league, lessons, and watching the pros either in person or on tv.

I have literally spent the last 5 years anxious though.  Worried that we weren't doing enough, that my kids were or would be "behind" other kids.  But my kids never cease to amaze me.  During the election of 2016, my then 12 year old was having very long conversations with a family friend's father who has his masters in history and literature and had run a small history museum for several decades.  He couldn't even believe how well spoken she was, or how much she understood about the politics and social issues that were being debated.  His wife has her masters in biology and she spent several hours reading some of my daughters writing and again was so impressed. 

And now that the kids are getting older and their friends come over and I overhear discussions...I'm not worried at all.  As my mom said, all her other grandchildren talk about how much they hate school, how boring it is, etc...and when she asks my kids about school and what they are learning, their faces light up, they run to grab compositions or paintings they've been working on to show her.  She said the've never told her learning was boring or that they weren't learning anything.

I couldn't ask for more!  And so, I'd say that the last 5 years has had MANY MANY successes... and really none of them have come from a curriculum.  And so the way I see it, we have MANY more adventures to come!