How to be a Relaxed Homeschooler

Relaxed homeschooling borrows from both traditional homeschooling ideas and unschooling ideas about how children learn.  There is an impossible, and seemingly contradictory, tension between these two approaches to education but relaxed homeschoolers are intrepid folk, refusing to be pigeon-holed.  The operating question is: what works best for our family.  Ideology be damned!  Relaxed homeschooling suits Catholics very well because we are a both/and people rather than an either/or people!

Can't children benefit by both being allowed to follow their delight, their interests, their passions as well as being taught via loving and mindful instruction?  Why not?  In the real world aren't we always learning from both informal and formal methods?

In Catholicism there is a virtue called 'docility.'  This does not mean being a door mat; rather it comes from the Latin word to teach.  Someone who is docile is open to being taught.  If a child is truly docile they will learn in both informal and formal ways.  How to cultivate the virtue of docility in children?  Well it is hard!  But a child who trusts you, is bonded with you, feels respected by you, the teacher/parent, will be open to learning from you.

Some relaxed homeschoolers are 'tidal learners.'  This was the way Melissa Wiley described her homeschooling.  At different times of the year how learning happened in their household varied.  At times it might be more formal and at other times it might be more unschoolish.  It depended what was going on in all sorts of other areas in the family's life.

Other relaxed homeschoolers would rather work on the basic 3 R's in a more formal manner at a pretty constant rate but leave the learning of any other subjects up to the child's interests.

My own family varied wildly in how we got things done.  We would swing back and forth.  Some years were really unschooly and then, in reaction to that, we'd swing back to being much more structured.  Neither end of the spectrum lasted for long because we found both unsatisfactory in some way, shape or form.

But if I were to boil things down to their essence - the skeleton of our homeschooling life, was this:

1.  Prayer/learning the faith - this was an ever changing but also consciously thought about element in our homeschool.  Regular prayer times, regular reading out loud about something to do with the faith, regular participation in the liturgical year, regular involvement in some kind of group or activity that promoted learning the faith.

2.  Copy work - We've been homeschooling for 20 years and for at least the last 10, copy work has been a mainstay of our homeschool.   Copy work is versatile and efficient in teaching many things at once.

3.  Read alouds - This has always been a huge deal in our family.  We read aloud about everything, usually over meals and then before bed at night.  At times I was too tired and preoccupied with having and then caring for babies, so audio books and my husband took over for me.  But this has always been the core of our home learning life.

4.  Outside activities - we have been involved in various co-ops or classes over the years.  The kids have also been involved in scouts, Little Flowers, Blue Knights, American Heritage Girls, 4-H, youth groups, scripture studies, art classes, music lessons, gym classes, tennis and soccer and swim lessons, track, Irish Dance, etc.  In high school the kids have studied math with a tutor, taken science classes and occasionally literature classes in the homeschool community.  The oldest two opted to study at the community college in their 12th grade year.  Every year we figure out what we are doing outside the home, plug that into our weekly calendar, and then work around those things to develop our weekly routines.

5.  We definitely get much more formal as the student enters high school.  This is because we, the parents,  want to say with confidence that our children are high school graduates.  We want them to be poised to be ready for college if they choose to go.  Also, we have found that kids need more structure during those teens years.

The five elements above all developed organically from who we are as a family.  The two examples of relaxed homeschooling, tidal homeschooling and my own family's style are just that, examples!  There are a million variations on relaxed homeschooling.  That is because it arises organically from each family's personality.  Remember that famous quote from St. John Paul II, "Families, become what you are!"  Let that be your guiding principle!

So how to be a relaxed homeschooler?  I would say find your own elements.  How does your family click?  Look to those things and build from that, mixing formal and informal in whatever amounts best serve you and yours at any given time.