Learning Together

I just finished reading The Hunger Games; all three books.  Jane BEGGED me to read them after she had finished.  A friend of hers really wanted her to read them and she reluctantly did and then started in on me.  We both loved it!!  We haven't seen the movie of the first book yet; and may not based on what others who have read the book say.

One of the things I most enjoy about homeschooling my kids is learning with them.  Jane has to read a lot of books that I have assigned and that's one of the reasons I read this series; kind of a turn-about's fair play. And because of this arrangement, I have been exposed to so many great books.  AND I like seeing what she's reading.

Often, when people find out that I homeschool, they say how they could never do it because they aren't smart enough.  "I'm so bad at math (or science, or history) that I just wouldn't know how to help them," they say. 

To this I usually reply, "Well, you know, I have the teacher books; I'm not really an expert on all the subjects."  

But further to that, I have learned that it's a great opportunity to allow yourself to be vulnerable in front of your kids.  To demonstrate that learning goes on your whole life.  To empower them by allowing them to teach you, the parent.  

I've often heard it said that it is hard for kids, as they grow up, to learn that their parents are not perfect.  Maybe the reality is that it's hard for the parents to be found out?  Maybe part of what stressed me out in the early years of homeschooling was thinking that I needed to have all the answers.  Now I know that I'm only a facilitator, a guide, and I am a more relaxed homeschooler. 

I have read a lot about homeschooling high school and I remember an article a homeschool dad wrote about his college age son.  They had homeschooled him from kindergarten through high school, often, with doubts and questions, but always sticking to the dream.  His now college age son called home from college and was relating to his dad that he just found out about (I can't remember exactly, let's say the Korean War) in one of his classes that day.  The son went on to say that all of the other students couldn't believe that he had never heard of it.  At this point in the article, the dad cringes and says all the doubts and misgivings come back.  He's thinking, "Oh my gosh! How did we never cover that?  What else did we miss?" and on and on.  But all the father says to his son on the phone is, "What did you do?" to which his son replied, "I went to the campus library and looked up everything I could on it and now I know about it."  Picture the dad smiling and all the doubts shot down. 

There will always be things we haven't heard about or learned.  Our goal in educating our kids is to teach them how to learn.  And what better way than to allow them to see us learning.  I'm going to get better at that!