Traditional school learning is very driven by curriculum. I taught 4th grade for eleven years and curriculum played a critical role in organizing and directing learning. So, in alternative educational situations, what role does curriculum play?
J: Do you have a bought curriculum you use?
M: I don’t.
While Meghan says she doesn’t have a bought curriculum, meaning an overarching curriculum that dictates learning in all subjects, she does rely on a great variety of textbooks, reading programs, and classes both online and live. Among the homeschooling families I interviewed the role played by curriculum stretches from absolutely no curriculum at all to using a bought curriculum complete with texts, teacher manuals, CDs, lessons, assignments, grades etc.
The way Meghan organizes and directs the learning of her children is typical of many families in my study. Meghan uses a parent-built approach putting in what is important to parents, but able to be very flexible, creating individualized approaches for each child, depending on what they want and need.
Obviously, we set what they’re going to be learning and which years and whatever…
We kind of vary. I switch it up, year to year, based upon the kid and what I think that they would really be interested in learning.
My fourth and second graders are doing science together. My older ones take advantage of some online classes…once a week a live class, and then they have their assignments the rest of the week.
In math, Meghan has found a program she likes,
I’ve done that the first seven years, and every year all I have to do is buy new math workbooks. But I have the teacher books, and I have the DVDs.
In writing, however, they don’t use any curriculum. Writing is really her husband’s bailiwick and he is in charge and is very creative in his approach,
He’s a very outside the box thinker. His strength is writing. He loves writing so he just comes up with these off the wall projects…and he’ll incorporate history into them and you know all kinds of stuff…he’ll just tell them now this is the scope, and he’ll just go through several lessons of sitting down with them and going through it…in the end it’s amazing.
Meghan and her husband believe that communication is key in life, both speech and writing.
Speaking, writing, those are key in life. They open gateways. They open doors. They speak volumes.
They have used Landry Academy as a resource. It offers online courses at very reasonable prices, and Greg, their oldest, became very interested in the debate club opportunities. Public speaking is critical to communication and their children have been involved in a homeschool group where they give speeches.
While many parents don’t have the background and training of traditional teachers, they do have the benefit of a very small class size, knowing their ‘students’ very intimately, and being able to be as flexible as they need to. One example of their flexibility was when their second child seemed to be struggling. Academics came easily to their oldest child, but they sensed problems with their second child.
M: I mean the subjects have to get covered. But if we sense we’re losing like Gary last year. He’s very different from Greg, he’s a struggling learner. Somehow, he doesn’t process the way the average person processes information. So, his seventh-grade year we had to step back. Bruce told me, I sense problems here. Gary didn’t have a free year, he had a repeating kind of year, where we just went over the same math concepts. Bruce worked with him on writing structure a bit more. He wrote essays on topics he liked. In history we made sure he chose something he really liked.
J: And did that work for him?
M: Yeah, oh yeah!!. And he came back this year…he was just like a different person.
Bruce and Meghan felt like it was an answer to prayer.
Bruce and Meghan have many children and they have had a lot of practice planning what will happen each year in their homeschool. All their children have been homeschooled from beginning to end. In another post I will discuss their ideas of success and how their children have fared with this approach.
Photo by Thomas Young on Unsplash
Off the Beaten Track 