Mothers with younger children whose hearts have been warmed towards the idea of home educating their little ones are often plagued by a nagging doubt, ‘I am just not clever enough to teach my children’. After all, the mental image of our three-year-old sitting down to do exams at the age of sixteen is understandably daunting. I acknowledge the argument that children do not always need to sit exams in order to ‘make it’, but I think you get my drift. We can perhaps remember a smattering of Maths, a few bits of a foreign language we have never really used and something about Henry Vlll having six wives. How then are we to give our children a full-blown education?
If this line of thinking is a bother to you, here are a few pointers that might be of help:
1. We Learn With our Children.
This one took me by surprise! My plan one morning was to open our history textbook, start reading to my little ones and mentally ‘tick off’ my task for the day. I was accidentally gripped. Egyptians, Sumerians, Minoans – who were these amazing civilisations that I knew nothing about? We breathlessly turned the pages waiting to learn whether Howard Carter would discover King Tut’s tomb (he did!). We searched for documentaries about the pyramids, Khufu and Stonehenge. We learned hieroglyphics ‘for fun’. I did not see any of this coming. I thought I was the facilitator; I rapidly morphed into co-student.
2. We Prepare Tactically.
All mothers have strengths in different areas. I wonder what your strengths are. At this point in our lives, my children have not discovered the outer limits of my mathematical ability. Hence, I never spend any time preparing Maths lessons. I also profit from curricula that basically teach themselves, examples of which would be spelling, writing, grammar and history. During holiday periods I ensure we have the books and materials we need, photocopy anything in advance that might be required and then do not really think any more of it. Gaps in my knowledge can be learned at the pace of my children and I am confident that when they are ready to move onto the next book then I will be also! This leaves a couple of subjects where I do really need to plan and prepare in advance to do them justice and to serve my children properly. I can handle two subjects.
3. We Have the Wisdom to Outsource When Necessary.
What does this mean? It means that my husband takes our children to football and swimming lessons. He also teaches them Greek (we are weird!). It means a Spanish mother from our home educating community has offered to teach the children Spanish and we gladly accept. It means a good friend has offered to take my ornithologically inclined ten-year-old bird watching, and I fully intend to take her up on it. It means that at some point we may have to pay for our children to do online courses or even use a tutor. Home education does not mean that we are required teach absolutely everything ourselves, but it does mean that we are in charge of the decision-making process.
4. We Read in our Spare Time.
I know mothers of littlies are thinking ‘How? Why?? Impossible!!!’ However, as our children grow older and we are profiting from the supreme joy of an entire night’s uninterrupted sleep, we need to be reading something, almost anything! Reading jogs our brains into action and helps us to make links between different areas of knowledge. I am not talking about Calvin’s ‘Institutes’. I am talking about whatever is manageable and enjoyable to you. Once we start reading, we start to want to become more adventurous. I enjoy reading the second-hand historical novels and biographies that I meant for my children to read. They are short, fun, undaunting and as a bonus I learn something!
5. We Pray.
The subject I currently find most intimidating to teach is science. I pray about science the most. To my surprise, a number of my children are quite scientifically inclined, and our lessons are buoyed by their desire to learn. I supplement our curriculum with extra books about the house which to my joy I often find them reading, tracing or copying in their own time. We watch You-Tube. We are now revisiting material that we covered three years ago, I am pleasantly surprised to find that they still remember some of it!
I do not think that there is room for the home educator to be completely passive. If God has called us to do something then we are to work at it with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. We do the very best job that we possibly can, with the Lord’s help. However, we do not need to be simultaneously working on PHDs in five different subjects in order to teach our children well. We steward our time and our resources wisely, we pray, we ask God to warm our hearts to what we teach so that we can become excited about it, and we watch our children learn, and by God’s grace, they learn in front of very eyes.
