Unceremoniously Homeschooling

Quite frankly, I think homeschool “graduations” are ridiculous.

Maybe a big sending-off party for 18 year old friends….call it a graduation if you like, whatever…

But reading about homeschool kindergarten and 6th grade ending ceremonies practically nauseates me.

I mean I skipped my own college graduation ceremony from UPenn because I didn’t see the point in it.

I vehemently don’t like the idea of a school/learning year ending (or starting up again).

Homeschooling/education should be continuous.

Taking a break from something implies it sucks or is torturous. If your learning approach feels that way….then switch materials, switch activities, re-think your learning philosophies. I honestly think if homeschooling feels like too much work….you are doing it wrong sub-optimally.

One of the many, major benefits of homeschooling is the MOMENTUM we can generate. That’s why I’m so strongly against mindless weekends, summers off, and all other lapses into the conventional school mentality.

A parent should be able to clearly see how long breaks negatively affect their homeschool. I noticed that if we didn’t do math with my young kids on the weekend….they would forget whatever “facts” they had learned on Friday, e.g. 6+7=13.

And then they’d have to relearn it again on Monday. No big deal, right? But if they had done a little math all weekend long they would not only know 6+7=13 but they’d be on to 7+7, 8+7, 8+8, etc. on Monday instead.

In other words breaks aren’t neutral – they are BACKSLIDES.

And this is hardly my own theory. Read Malcolm Gladwell:

 

And then there are the math geniuses who, as anyone can’t help noticing, are disproportionately Asian. Citing the work of an educational researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, Gladwell attributes this phenomenon not to some innate mathematical ability that Asians possess but to the fact that children in Asian countries are willing to work longer and harder than their Western counterparts. That willingness, Gladwell continues, is due to a cultural legacy of hard work that stems from the cultivation of rice. Turning to a historian who studies ancient Chinese peasant proverbs, Gladwell marvels at what Chinese rice farmers used to tell one another: “No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family rich.” Contrast that legacy with the one derived from Western agriculture—which holds that some fields be left fallow rather than be cultivated 360 days a year and which, by extension, led to the creation of an education system that allowed students to be left fallow for periods, like summer vacation. For American students from wealthy homes, summer vacation isn’t a problem; but, citing the research of a Johns Hopkins sociologist, Gladwell shows that it’s a profound handicap for students from poor homes, who actually outlearn their rich counterparts during the school year but then fall behind them when school lets out. “For its poorest students, America doesn’t have a school problem,” Gladwell concludes. “It has a summer-vacation problem.” So how to close the gap between rich and poor students? Get rid of summer vacation in inner-city schools.

 

And as John Taylor Gatto (among others) has said, “Learning is its own reward.”

So your homeschool shouldn’t need empty praise, made-up grades,….and definitely not phony leveling-up ceremonies.

Let’s graduate completely from the antiquated school mindset!

[Dan1]

 

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