I was just browsing through a newsletter from one of the homeschooling companies that offer a complete packaged curriculum (fourth grade in a box) and optional support services. There were a few good ideas, but\u00a0one\u00a0tip came across completely wrong.<\/p>\n
The suggestion was to establish a specific area to use for homeschooling, and to use it only<\/span> for homeschooling if possible.\u00a0 Well, that’s fine if you have the space and it works well for your family.<\/p>\n What set me off was the reason they offered:\u00a0 having a space designated only<\/span> for homeschooling helps students see it as “a place for learning.”<\/p>\n Well, what’s wrong with that, you may wonder.\u00a0 A place for learning sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n Here’s my beef:\u00a0 if there’s a specially-designated place for learning, students will associate it with learning, sure, but they will also likely learn that learning happens only<\/span> in that room.<\/p>\n It’s almost like a reversible mathematical formula:\u00a0 If we use this room only for learning, learning happens only in this room.<\/p>\n Now, to be fair, I doubt that was their intention. But to me it’s the great hazard of the designated schoolroom in the home.<\/p>\n I don’t want my children to think that only our formal instructional times are learning.<\/p>\n I want them to know that all of life is learning. <\/strong><\/p>\n They learn when they sit at a desk or table to do a math lesson or penmanship exercise. They learn when we snuggle on the couch\u2014or gather under a shade tree in the front yard\u2014to read aloud from The Swiss Family Robinson<\/em>.<\/p>\n They learn when they use their Playmobil people to re-enact a history lesson. They learn when they crowd around the dining room table to make electricity with a flashlight bulb, aluminum foil, and a battery.<\/p>\n They learn when they help me make bread (why does the dough get higher, Mama?).\u00a0 They learn when we comparison-shop at the grocery store.\u00a0 They learn when we find a dead bird on the deck, look it up in a field guide,\u00a0and sketch it (from a safe distance, of course).<\/p>\n My oldest two learn about business when we watch The Apprentice<\/em> together and try to predict during commercials which team will win and why, and\u00a0who will be fired and why. They learn when they’re playing outside or perched on top of the monkey bars with a book.\u00a0 (Yep\u2014that’s my 10yo’s favorite place to read!)<\/p>\n They even learn in the emergency room!\u00a0 You can read that story here:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.homeschoolblogger.com\/Entrepreneurs\/255\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Where do your children learn?<\/p>\n Mary Jo Tate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was just browsing through a newsletter from one of the homeschooling companies that offer a complete packaged curriculum (fourth grade in a box) and optional support services. There were a few good ideas, but\u00a0one\u00a0tip came across completely wrong. The suggestion was to establish a specific area to use for homeschooling, and to use it … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}