The best advice I ever received when I decided to home school was this:
"The kind of parent you are, will determine what kind of teacher you will be."
Three years into this home schooling adventure, and that statement has never felt more true.
During our first year, I was so anal with my children.
I kept saying:
"Make sure you keep all your scrap paper. I have to prove you did the work."
"Make sure you name and date all your work. I have to prove you did the work."
"Make sure........I have to prove you did the work."
I must have driven my family completely nuts!!!! I was so worried about being able to prove to my local school district that my children and I worked hard all year long learning that I must have made the experience unpleasant at times.
The second year, I did not care if they throw away all their scrap paper, etc because as my child's teacher, I knew that they did the work. I knew that they understood the work. And I knew they had learned something.
Now that we are in our third year, we finally found a system that works for us.
VC....I feel I have been away for too long. I guess I didn't realize you were homeschooling. Good for you. I give you many props for the decision, and knowing you as a parent, you must be an amazing teacher. I have often thought that homeschooling my son would be an option and have actually been thinking more about it lately given issues with the school, but am trying to figure out how I would do that after working a 10 hour day and figuring out what he would do while I was working.
ReplyDeleteGood Luck!!!
Andrea