Fairy Hunters

What does homeschool look like in our family?

If you are a homeschool family odds are yours looks like no other homeschool family you know. 

Our experience will change as time goes on.  It has to as we incorporate other topics or subjects; growing with Bear as she gets older. 

Right now I am enjoying the "Fairy Hunter" stage.  My wee Bear is imaginative and we are going with it.  That's how our homeschool works.  It works with our family.  It may not be the vision I had in my head, but lets face it, those visions aren't always attainable or doable anyway.  It's like when we have a home project and I allot two hours and it ends up taking six.....(come on, admit it, you have been there too, right?).   Visions are ideals; ideals that may not even be attainable in the best of circumstances. 

I am going to quote John Holt..... “What is most important and valuable about the home as a base for children's growth into the world is not that it is a better school than the schools, but that it isn't a school at all.”   Its what works for our family.  While I am not putting a brick and mortar school down, I think we can all agree that the concept of education today in our country is failing.  It doesn't take into account the individual; it doesn't reflect how real learning occurs in children.  It cookie cutters each of our children; forcing our children into roles they may be not capable of being in. 

Cookie Cutter Children.  Like the sugar cookies you make at home, many do fine, many appear to be knowledgeable and go on to college, doing great and marvelous things.  Sadly however, some break when placing them onto the pan; some burn because of where they were on the pan, or they're to thin or to thick and cook at different rates; and some break when you remove them from the pan.  Many remain whole and perfect looking, yes, but some still end up tossed, broken, or cast aside as not perfect.  Often their parents are told they just are failing to thrive in school.  Who's failing?  The kids?  NO!  The teachers?  NO!  The school?  Yes, or more accurately, the method and design.  “It is hard not to feel that there must be something very wrong with much of what we do in school, if we feel the need to worry so much about what many people call 'motivation'. A child has no stronger desire than to make sense of the world, to move freely in it, to do the things that he sees bigger people doing.”   Mr. Holt is correct.  Children are born learners. 

We are Fairy Hunters. 

We don't wish to recreate a traditional classroom.  As much as I long in my heart to have a dedicated space, its not really what works for us, and ultimately not what we would really want anyway.  The kitchen table is our desk, the world is our laboratory. Much of our learning can't be confined to set hours.  It happens when it happens.  At the library, on the couch, in the car.  It happens in the field as we stop and spy a momma deer and her fawn; both of us with our noses pressed against the window, whispering for minutes afterwards, still awed by God's creation and the caring adoration shown for the fawn.  Yes, the world is our laboratory.  Why mess with it and  try to mold it to my liking, or worse; why try to mold it to match what someone else envisions. 

We are fairy hunters and rather than fight it, we're going to EMBRACE it.

No child but must remember laying his head in the grass, staring into the infinitesimal forest and seeing it grow populous with fairy armies.  ~Robert Louis Stevenson  

Don't worry about us.  We'll be fine.  We are following our own path on this journey, just as you are blazing trails on your path.

This is our homeschool experience, how about yours?