As we've begun homeschooling, I've quickly learned over the past few months that it's pretty much guaranteed that you're going to experience a lot of self doubt when you're homeschooling - at least initially. Am I doing this right? Are my kids learning anything? Are they learning enough? Am I teaching them the right things?
And here's one moment that cancelled much of that doubt for me...
I've been doing a lot of thinking since we embarked on this homeschool journey about what my goals are. What do I see as a positive end result, a symbol of success? If I could choose a main goal for our homeschool experience what would it be? For me, it would be that my child learns to love learning. Not that she memorizes a zillion useless facts or can blow people away with her intelligence, but simply that she enjoys learning new things and actively seeks out knowledge for the rest of her life. No dread of cracking open a book to look something up out of obligation, but instead a desire and enthusiasm to do so of her own accord.
I'll be honest, this frightened me a bit at first. Not because it's an unattainable goal or because it's a bad idea, but because it removes all the things that make me feel most comfortable - test scores and grades and rankings. You see, these things let me know in concrete, numerical terms of my success or failure as an educator/mentor. If my child can memorize her geography lesson and get an A on the test, that means we've succeeded, right? Well, no. According to my new goals, it doesn't necessarily mean that. It just means that she has good memorization skills. So, how does one measure success when it comes to inspiration and desire to learn? I wasn't sure of the answer, I just knew that it was where I wanted this journey to take us, but being a person that has always desired a solid measure of success, I continued to doubt myself.
Then, one moment on a typical Tuesday morning the answer was gifted to me. As we enjoyed our usual morning free time, me - sipping a cup of tea and wasting time on Pinterest and she - playing a game on her computer, I heard her excited, little voice call to me to, "Come see this. It's really cool!" So, expecting to be entertained by a new creation in Minecraft, I sat down beside her, but when I looked at the screen, instead I saw beautiful images of volcanoes, and an article about them. As she burst forth with all the information she had just learned from her research, I started to smile, and my heart started to sing a bit. I asked her why she was reading about volcanoes, and she simply stated, "because I was curious. They're interesting." In that one moment, I was affirmed and my doubt started to fade.You see, during her free time, she chose to learn, and was excited to do so. It didn't matter the subject or the method or if she could score an A on a test about it layer. It mattered that she genuinely wanted to learn, and that is what I hope to continue to nurture - the love of learning. I'd say we're doing just fine so far...
