Jackie has gotten me to thinking about the deschooling thing. Am I incorrect in thinking that the major reasons for deschooling are to de-stress your child and to allow them to "like" learning again? I have really tried to de-stress my son (which I believe was something that was/is very necessary). I do not test him on anything but Math & Spelling. The testing is not really graded but just used to let me know what we need to go back over. I don't "grade" anything. I really hated ds to ask everytime he worked on something, "Is it for a grade?" So I really grade nothing. A lot of what he does during the day is reading. (Many thanks to Jackie) He seems to like learning that way. He chooses the topics. I guide him a little with the book choices because he doesn't challenge himself still but this is slowly working itself out. He always has and still does enjoy learning. When he was in ps, like someone else said, "I like learning, I just don't like school." I have cut way, way down on his writing because he just doesn't like it at all and have resolved myself to the fact that he is just not into writing. I have not changed his routine because in our household no routine = chaos = stress for everyone. I do also require he get his work done everyday, at least try. If he needs help or just doesn't understand we work on it for a while and if we still need work then we put it away and tomorrow work on it some more. Is this enough or am I just waiting for the next break down?
I can't speak for all children, here, so I'll just tell you about my two. My dd was best served by NOT deschooling. We cut out spelling tests, but otherwise we kept plugging away. She needed to learn that she was bright and capable- and making progress with her subjects gave her that. By seeing her own good grades, she was able to really cry and let go of her ps experience. My ds, otoh, NEEDED to deschool. I cut him back to bare bones, but wasn't really comfortable letting it all go. And it was INCREDIBLY rough going. Once the honeymoon period wore off, he fought me every day. I should have just let him be. I think you really need to watch your ds. If he seems fine, keep plugging away. If he needs to deschool, at some point he'll make that pretty obvious to you. Don't be a me- let him have his time, and don't feel guilty about missing out on the academics. Adding: writing. Ahh.. my ds hates it to. But here's why: way too much in ps. WAY Way way too much. And one teacher was very fond of her red pen. My ds learned that he stunk at it. I've de-emphasized the frequency, taught him completely different ways to make his writing stronger (cramming canned description into something doesn't make it good writing, arg ps!), and take quite a bit of dictation and notes for him. I also made sure my ds was sitting up straight and taught him how to hold his pencil (and his arm!) correctly. Actually, BOTH of my kids came out of ps holding their arms hooked over- and they are both right handed!
Deschooling is simply the getting rid of the idea that learning has to fit in a certain square box. It's liking learning, and understanding that learning can take place in so many other ways than the sit-and-regurgitate approach. It's about discovering that your kid really likes airplanes, and spending an entire week reading about them, drawing them, googling stuff related to them, building models of them, finding museums that have some, talking to pilots who flew them... and maybe getting a little math and grammar in there somewhere too. You will NOT fall behind in pursuing some really great interests for a few weeks. It's really inconsequential to miss a month's worth of book work when in a one-on-one situation you will likely blow through a "year's worth" of curriculum in 6 months or less. Deschooling is about getting out of the ps frame of mind. Yes, some of it is about destressing and lightening up the work load, taking it easy and realizing things can happen differently. But, when I read about deschooling, I really took it to mean time off from ACADEMICS to let the child figure out that things are going to be different now because they are home with MOM and not at an institute with a classroom full of people nothing like them and led by an unrelated individual who has to find a "happy medium". Deschooling is about leaving "happy medium" in the dust whilst we SOAR into our own life and mind and times. But um, yes! Sounds like you have a great start! Writing was hard for us too. Not just the mechanics of thoughts-to-paper, but the actual motor skills. My boys just hated it. So I taught them to type, do a lot of things orally, and only require handwritten answers for a few things. (Math, the occasional grammar worksheet - but those are often on the dry erase board, and the odd-ball project now and then.) Handwriting has been a separate subject, taken in baby steps and not even necessarily every single day. (My 7th grader has always had atrocious handwriting, and even as recently as last year has had meltdowns over taking too many notes on notecards. This year he is learning cursive, for the first time and of his own volition, and there is a WORLD of difference. One of the best confirmations for the way we do things I've seen yet!!) Sorry so long.
We're definitely into the DE-SCHOOL approach. My son, who is 6, has been at home with me a little over a month, and in the beginning, I was really worried that I wouldnt do well as a homeschool teacher because I'm not structured AT ALL. Nothing about me is planned. And my son is the same way, repetitiveness drives him nuts, as does structure and negativity when he doesn't live up to expectations set for him, which is why he was failing in public school. In the beginning we hit all the subjects really hard, and that gave me time to decipher what subjects he was doing well at, and what subjects needed help. We touch upon Math, Science and History once or twice a week so he doesn't forget what he knows, but we mainly work on Reading, since it's the subject he needs the most help with. We're working right now heavily with sight words flash cards, and he's improved tremendously. Having a scope and sequence really helps also, that way I'll be sure he knows what he needs to know by years end.
