INTRO
It's nearly seven o'clock. The morning sun peeks into the train as it jostles towards San Diego and a day on the job. A furtive glance around the quiet car confirms the usual mix of passengers and their solitary activities. I see several with newspapers, a comparable number reading paperback novels, a few plugged into headsets, one clacking away on a laptop computer, a sleeper whose lolling head makes my neck twinge. I am the only one reading anything that looks like a history book. I am a teacher. My classroom is most often my living room.The hours I teach tend to be after the supper hour - during what America knows as 'prime time'. I work during the day to support this venture. I'm a home school dad.
Prior to having children, I had never even heard the term 'home school'. About the time our eldest daughter approached school age, a visionary friend started a co-operative, parent-taught school, which our daughter attended for three years. This worked really well for me. I came to the first day of school, one or two events during the year, and the last day of school. Many of the other teachers had taught either at home, in public school or bothand my wife gained valuable teaching experience. When we moved to another community three years later, it was clear we had to find an alternative for educating our girls (our second was now kindergarten age). My wife was insistent that home school was the right thing to do. After reviewing the options of public school (an easy no) and private school (yikes, on top of a mortgage payment?), I reluctantly said we would try school at home for a year.
An intrigued and somewhat skeptical non-participant the first year, nearly six years later I find myself fully enmeshed in home education. As the vision for what we're trying to accomplish in the lives of our children has developed -- thanks in a large part to the influence of other home-schooling families -- my participation in the educational process has increased. The Well-Trained Mind played a significant role in helping us see that successful home education has an end in mind. First, with a realistic explanation and approach to classical education and secondly by emphasizing that the purpose of education is much, much more than developing efficient consumers.MY ASSIGNMENT
Our family is just wrapping up our first full year using a classical approach. When we laid out our plan last summer, it was clear that the increased academic rigor (Latin, more reading and writing) would require additional teaching resources to compliment my wife's efforts. Casting about the house, we found only one other functioning adult. We agreed that I should take these subjects for our eldest daughter's eighth grade year: reading for literature and history, associated writing, and math. The remainder of her instruction fell to my courageous wife who also took on Latin for both girls while continuing to teach all subjects for our 4th grader and attending to our toddling two-year-old.
Since I love to read, the literature assignment was a pleasure. I read the same fifteen or sixteen great books as my daughter did. These were primarily culled from the 7th and 8th grade literature lists in Well-Trained Mind. A majority I read for the first time - a testimony to gaps in my literary heritage. For each selection, my daughter and I would discuss the character qualities of personalities portrayed, the major themes that were addressed, and hints the work gave about the author's view of such concerns as faith and the nature of mankind. Based on our discussions, we would agree on an approach to writing a theme. One example is a comparison and contrast of the character qualities of Brandon and Willoughby from Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. As she proceeded to develop the theme, we would review it together at several points along the way.
Math became an interesting exercise. In our home, 'interesting' is often a polite replacement for unpleasant adjectives such as 'miserable'. We used the stalwart Saxon Algebra 1/2 text, as Saxon had been our math text for several years. Some students find Saxon quite satisfactory. Our 9-year-old loves Saxon and recently stated her desire to 'do all of them' after finishing the 5/4 text almost two months ahead of schedule. Our eldest daughter has had mixed results. Having personally completed college trigonometry and assisted to a lesser extent with math the year before, I assumed teaching pre-algebra would be simple. I was wrong. I admit it. My first mistake was to initially let our daughter proceed on her own as long as she achieved a certain level on the unit tests. I would help her work through errors she made on the daily assignments and tests. This put the focus on fixing problems instead of learning. Once I started going over the lessons ahead of time, I discovered Saxon occasionally used terms I found peculiar, so I would flounder about trying to explain concepts in terms both of us could understand. This terminology tug-of-war proved frustrating for both of us at times. Finally, the Saxon method of incrementally adding a new concept each lesson, but having only a small portion of exercises be related to that concept made it difficult to gauge whether she grasped the content. Although we muddled through the year and she did reasonably well, I learned that curriculum does matter. Prior to becoming directly involved with teaching math, I assumed that math is math, regardless of the text. We're reviewing alternatives for next year and I'm also more realistic about my need for preparation.
In history, we hadn't made it quite as far as we'd liked the year before, so we opted for a slightly aggressive schedule that would complete the modern era and allow all of us to start with ancient the next academic year. As we hadn't been through United States history in quite some time, we chose to use A History of U.S. (by Joy Hakim) as the framework. While focusing on developments in the U.S., the text includes enough references to international events to provide meaningful context. Rather than a single history text to read as we had the year before, though, this meant completing a 200-page volume each month. A History of US is quite well written which made the additional reading time enjoyable. Our history approach was similar to literature. My daughter and I would both read the volume, then discuss the major events that took place during the era covered. Out of these conversations would come a topic for further exploration. For example: how the abolitionist and women's suffrage movements were related. She would collect resources from the library and Internet, take notes, and construct a rough draft. We would review it together at the outline and draft stages. I would typically ask questions about her goal in writing this essay, suggest additional ideas or historical facts that she should consider and pointout grammatical or stylistic revisions. This was a very iterative process, including a few calls to me at work or an occasional e-mail. Most often, however, it was accomplished during weekday evenings as the two of us sat at the computer. While working with my daughter on written assignments, I found myself referring back to my old Harbrace College Handbook from time to time.
My role this academic year was that of a fellow learner, one who is a few steps ahead on the trail and somewhat better equipped with tools to acquire knowledge and, hopefully, wisdom. I found that grading is often a very arbitrary exercise unless it directly compares an individual's effort to their potential and I struggled mightily with the impulse to teach to my strengths instead of seeking to help my daughter discover and develop hers. All told, we had a tremendous year of discovery together. The shared learning experiences deepened our relationship at a time in life when many girls her age are distancing themselves from their families.MY OTHER LIFE
All this educational activity has a cost. Frankly, my time for purely personal activities is almost non-existent. A couple of years ago I was tinkering with a family web page and was enrolled in a masters degree program. Those have been postponed for the foreseeable future. I do follow developments in the computer business both as part of my job and as a subtle addiction. Typically, Saturdays are spent on those activities that keep a home livable (yard-work, buying groceries, paying bills, etc.). Sunday is our Sabbath. I reserve time for morning devotions, running 3 days a week, dates with my daughters and my wife, and most of our home school support group meetings, and reading aloud to the family at night.
I am personally acquainted with several home-schooling fathers who have made occupational decisions specifically to enhance their participation in the education of their children. Several are self-employed or are public school teachers. I'm a computer systems analyst spending my time making software function. Including my commute, I'm gone about 11 hours a day and I am thankful that it is not more. I see very little of my family in the morning, but I'm home for dinner most evenings. One very positive change was switching from driving to riding the train. Although it slightly increased my travel time, I have redeemed an hour previously wasted behind the wheel in slow-moving traffic. That hour has proven to be crucial. It is spent reading the next book on 'the list', grading written work, or planning. True confessions: I have dozed off a few times.
Religious families sometimes discover that one pressing demand on their time originates from their house of worship. Not to argue whether one can do too much for their church (and by implication - God), but church programs always seem to be short a few hands. For my wife and I, serving in church often meant odd nights out for one or both of us and the consequent disruption of family routines. I assumed this was an inevitable component of church as was sending our children off to age-segregated classes while the adults go to grownup worship. About two years ago, at my wife's patient prodding, we visited and began attending a fellowship based on the novel idea of family-based worship. It is a delightfully simple approach to church that allows all of us to participate in communal worship on Sunday while having the rest of the week as our own. This has helped provide both time and encouragement I need to participate in both the spiritual and intellectual development of my children.NEEDS AND WANTS
Truly, I spend my waking hours doing things I consider important. There just isn't time to do everything. Perhaps if I didn't have to sleep... Do I want to teach math? As an isolated endeavor, no. But I do want my daughters to experience all the benefits home learning provides. Teaching is an extension of that desire. I've had to make hard choices about finances, hobbies, time. Though a noble enterprise, bringing children into the world and making the decision to home school does not eradicate every self-indulgent thought. There are still occasions when I crave a little private time. When that happens, I'll ask my wife when she last had an hour to herself. We'll commiserate a bit and I'll recognize that my scarcity of time would be her abundance. Then our discussion always come back to remembering the goal ahead and the joys we have known thus far and realizing we can't imagine doing it any other way.
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