A lot of my mommy friends have been asking me this question a lot in the past: “How did your homeschooling go?” I knew I could always give a short answer, but I thought it’s about time I really dig in to the details of my experience as a homeschooler. It was like being asked “how are you,” and instead of answering “fine” on autopilot, you decide to add a little bit more spice to see how the people asking the question would react to it.

Homeschooling, Day 1

Homeschooling is one of those things we couldn’t really say something about until we’ve done it, especially if you’re like me who wasn’t even a teacher to begin with.

On our first day of homeschooling, the first thing I remembered was switching from “Mommy” mode, the one who cooks breakfast, and prepares everything in the morning, to “Teacher” mode, who insists in accountability and getting things done. There was an internal shift that happened because of one central dilemma: do I talk like the serious mom who wants her child to do house chores, or do I talk excitedly as if we’re just going to play?

It took me several hours to plan for this day, but at the start of it, all that really mattered was my attitude towards executing it. I knew then and there that I didn’t only have to plan about what lessons I am going to teach but also how I’m going to teach it.

Homeschooling is different from Tutorial time

It’s different when you just review lessons or study advanced lessons during tutorial or remedial time as compared to when you really sit down with your child and start a homeschooling program with him or her.

It’s different because homeschooling will be the primary source of your child’s learning, only to be supplemented by external activities and other resources of your own choosing.

In Math, for example, in traditional schools, the teacher would be teaching a concept in class for one meeting, then proceed to give Math problems or exercises as seatwork and assignment. The parent, or a tutor, would then assist the child in answering these exercises at home, then review what has been studied for the day, do some more exercises and perhaps some advanced lessons for the next day.

In homeschooling, we would teach a Math concept, considering our child’s pace, then check for understanding immediately. We would let them do some exercises, but we would sit with our child all throughout, taking note of how she applies the learning in the way she approaches the problem and tries to arrive at a solution.

Various things would come to us at once: how our child understood the concept, her working memory, the speed in which she was able to answer the problem, whether she thinks and writes about the solution in an organized manner, whether she was really able to comprehend the abstractions of the concept, and what could possibly be going on in her mind while doing the exercise.

We would see our child in a new light

This remarkable thing is something we will not really be able to observe while our child is in a traditional class, but will be revealed to us in a homeschooling class.

Sometimes we will be able to figure out that there is no problem with teaching the concept, and no problem with her understanding it, but while trying to solve the problem on her own, we would almost always see where the problem lies and be able to help her with it.

For example, it might be that our child thinks she is not good in Math and therefore will not be able to solve the problem—this is a mental barrier and we have the responsibility to make her see that she is indeed capable of doing so, but empty words will not work; we need to provide her with something she can work with.

Based on our keen observations, we can probably work out the fact that there is a basic knowledge inside her mind that we can use as an anchor for new knowledge such as a foreign Math concept—only we could tell because of how well we know our child—if for example she likes to fix her things in an organized way, we could use that knowledge and tell her she has already been doing Math for a long time and will just be learning to put it on paper so others would see how simple things can be mathematical in their own way.

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There are other ways to make things work, especially since each learner is different, but the most important thing is that we collaborate with our child every step of the way.

What are some things you have tried to make your child understand a concept better? Let me know in the comments below.