What I Learned About Learning

This weekend, I have been up to my eyeballs in information. Vendor booths, speakers, pages of notes and handouts, tons of quality time with my husband and fun with friends that we don't get to see enough. Any guesses where we have been?

We officially attended our first homeschooling convention. 

WAIT!  Before you check out (because very few of you are homeschoolers) - please hear me out. I learned so much that applies to other areas of life that I'm so excited to share with you. My hope is that some of this will resinate with you, too.

I'm just going to bullet point this list with notes because it seems inefficient to recap the 14 hours and nine different speakers I listened to, despite all of their fascinating topics.  Here goes...I'll replace the topic of homeschooling where I see fit to make it relatable for the majority of you reading...

* Don't put your kids on display. As parents, I think we're naturally tempted to have our kids show off for an audience. "Junior, say your ABCs! Watch this - he's just so smart." We hear it all the time, right? But this advice was specifically in reference to the fact that now that we're homeschooling, people might expect our kids to impress them with the knowledge and maturity that homeschooling families have a reputation of "rubbing" in other's faces.  Don't ask your child to perform for others and don't allow others to put pressure on your children to wow them with their latest and greatest accomplishments. The idea behind this is to keep pressure off the children and to keep the parents humble. Who doesn't need a little extra humility?

* Fruit and character are produced over time. This has been a bit of a struggle for me and I am so glad to have seen the light. My expectations of the changes I would see in my kids were a bit unrealistic, if we're being honest.  If you planted an apple tree in August, would you expect to pick apples in September? No! The daily work you put into your kids (whether it's teaching them respect, obedience or any other virtue you're trying to instill) will take months, even years, to make a lasting impact on their personality. Be consistent, be patient and know that you will see the product of your labor at the end of the harvest.

* Create teaching opportunities in the non-crisis moment. If you want your kids to appreciate gifts on their birthday or have respectful behavior or know how to handle disputes when they're angry, talk about how to act before the opportunity arises. Everyone will be unemotional during the teaching process and you'll set them up for greater success by giving them a dress rehearsal for each experience.

* People remember things that they learn when there is engagement of the senses, emotions or movement. Apparently, studies show that a person may sit quietly to think, but to remember a thought, an action must be used to anchor it. This is why my friend DutchMac pointed out that actors move around or pace while learning their lines for a performance. Brilliant. Just the act of taking notes in a conference, even if you never plan to look at the notes again, will solidify the information in my mind. Typing up this blog post is even one step further, I'd imagine! So when you see students studying for a nursing exam while on the stationary bike at the gym, know that they are (unknowingly) learning more than their classmates who are studying at the library. Is this fascinating, or is it just me? 

* Keep the audience wanting more. When studying material that children lose interest in quickly, keep lessons short. For non-homeschoolers, an example could be Bible lessons or reading chapter books out loud. If you attempt to teach/read more than your child can handle for their age, it's overkill. Yet if you do just a little bit less, you leave them wanting more, creating an interest in that topic.

* Foster a love for learning. Keep it (whether "it" is washing the car or learning the concept of gravity) entertaining and fun to create lifelong learners.

* Don't compare your kids to others. A common theme of the weekend was to teach to your kids' individual learning styles and pace because, well, we have that flexibility when home educating.  But this principle is true for us all. Don't compare the fact that your neighbor's kid can hold conversations in Spanish at age 8 or that your child's best friend has impeccable table manners during play dates while your child belches the alphabet. Sure, work on areas that require improvement, but don't compare apples to oranges. Every child has their strengths and weaknesses and comparing makes them feel like bad kids and makes you feel like a bad parent. Just don't.

* Remember the goal. I thought about it a lot this weekend and above all my other littler reasons, I landed on the fact that my main purpose for deciding to homeschool is because I truly want to be the primary influence in my kids' lives. Period. The fact that we're no longer rushing around each morning and afternoon is a bonus. So is the fact that Ryan finally has free time during the week. And that my kids are getting along better. And that schoolwork is no longer stressful. And that I can switch gears when I see my kids checked out because something isn't "due" at any certain time. Those are just bonuses!

* Our relationships are the most important thing. One of the speakers repeated all weekend, "character before curriculum" and it stuck with me. It is more important for me to work on my child's bad attitude (or mine, for that matter) than it is for them to complete a grammar chapter that we're struggling with. (how ironic...ending a sentence about grammar with the word "with") It is also most important that I am calm while teaching my kids even when they don't seem to get it after the 14th time I've reminded them how to spell "those". If I can't keep my cool, we need to stop what we're doing for everyone's sake.

* Fostering a love for learning is more important than "finishing" something that isn't working. If a curriculum doesn't fit for my child, I need to try something else on for size. If you spend $500 on orthopedic shoes for your child in March and they go through a growth spurt in June and they don't fit anymore, you wouldn't cram their poor feet into them! Same goes for learning. A dear friend gave me the teacher's manuals for Saxon math and I completed the set, buying the accompanying handbooks for all three years, only to discover that it was a horrible fit for Ryan's hands-on personality. We switched, despite Mike cringing at the additional expense, and now he loves that "math is easy." 

We met Ryan's math "teacher" this weekend (Math U See is a video series). I knew he would be at the conference, so I had Ryan record him a quick "thank you" video on my phone and he got a personalized "keep up the good work" video and signed copy of his book in return. Ryan was so excited...Steve Demme is like a movie star to him.

Using another example along these lines, if Ryan decides 25 pages before the end of Charlotte's Web  that he doesn't want to read about the spider dying, then I need to agree to return the book to the library. (and I will do this first thing Monday morning!)

* Ask myself, "What do I want my children to remember about ___________?" You can alter this question to anything in your own home, like, "What do I want my children to remember about their younger years?" or "...living at home?" or "...spending time as a family?" For me, the question is, "What do I want my children to remember most about homeschooling?" Is it the education they received? The information they retain? Or the time we spent together as a family? We get so caught up in things going just right that we lose sight of what matters most: the relationships in our home.

There is so, so much more that I wanted to share with you, but that's enough to digest for now. Mike benefited from meant-for-dads breakout sessions like, "Help! I'm married to a homeschool mom," and "Every dad is a homeschool dad," that have completely changed his perspective about this process.  I'm so grateful that we attended the conference this weekend and can't wait to apply all of my new tools and skills to our routine!