Being a professional homeschooler

[marbel]

I don't mean getting paid to homeschool. I mean treating homeschooling as if it is my profession.

 

When we are doing school I do pretty well on keeping that kids on track with their work, doing my state-required logging, etc. It's the planning time that's the problem.

 

This year I have a lot of reading and planning to do for high school. I'm using some "open and go" type curriculum but not everything is easy like that. I also want to read a couple of the novels my kids will be rstudying so I can discuss them intelligently. (It doesn't work well for me to read along with them when we are in the middle of doing school.)

 

I know I should be spending a couple of hours a day working on this. But I can't get to it. I'm not procrastinating on it, and I'm not sitting around doing fun stuff in it's place. I just have a lot of housework, I'm spending time taking kids to and from their activities, etc.

 

Well, I must admit sitting down to read 1984 does feel like leisure time. So maybe that's part of my problem - feeling like I need to get work down before I sit down for fun. But I do need to read it before I hand it off to my kid to study. Even reading medieval history books feels like fun. So, I wait till other things are done, and of course they never are.

 

Does anyone know what I mean? How do you manage to acquire or maintain a professional attitude toward your role as homeschool mom? I feel like I'm going to burn out before we start school up again!

Edited July 17, 2012 by marbel

[Jenny in Florida]

Hmm, that's tough to answer.

 

I've just always considered homeschooling my primary job. And I guess it helps that my husband feels the same way.

 

It helps, too, I suppose, that I really love the planning part, and I'm a big reader under any circumstances. So, my problem is more taking time away from planning and pre-reading and such in order to do the mundance stuff like cooking and cleaning.

[merry gardens]

I know what you mean, but it's difficult. Most professionals are gone from their homes and have other people help them with their housework and child rearing.

 

Most professionals have a set schedule. That could help. Find a place where you don't see all the reminders of household chores. Schedule "meetings" with yourself to plan and prepare. Set a timer or watch the clock. Then, go back "home".

 

If finances permit, consider hiring help with housework. The hired help could even be an older child of yours.

 

If you're planning high school, then you have at least one child old enough to contribute to housework. Let your teen take more responsibilities around the home. I had a working mother and in high school, I was preparing meals and doing my own laundry.

 

I'll watch this thread for more ideas.:bigear:

[elegantlion]

I worked from the time I was 17 up until ds was born when I was 30. So, yes, I approach this with a professional mindset. I enjoy more parts than others, and in the summer I do have a hard time staying on task.

 

It helps to have a separate space. I can't work when I'm sitting with dh watching TV, I get too distracted.

 

Sometimes I schedule a mini-conference at home to get me excited again. It helps to prioritize tasks. Like I started reading a history book this summer. When I worked it into the schedule, I realized we wouldn't get to it until next spring. So, it took a lower position on the priority list.

 

Because of other issues, I've worked a little bit each day this summer. I'm almost done. It would have been better to schedule a long week and get it done earlier, but life didn't happen that way.

 

It helps because my family is on board. Dh gets if I had to excuse myself from the evening activities and work late. I plan an easy dinner and go hide in the classroom. Sometimes I even kick the dog out so I can concentrate.

[Acadie]

Have you tried making appointments with yourself to read or plan? I had a part-time job in grad school with a very successful, creative, personable education professor who scheduled her writing time in her calendar. This is the only way I find time to write now, and there's something fun about having a date with yourself. Treat it as sacrosanct, not to be cancelled unless something major comes up, same as if you were meeting someone else.

 

Although I do schedule writing time, I'd really benefit from scheduling homeschool planning time too.

 

How much do you need? An hour or two a day? A few larger chunks per week?

 

Amy

[Joyofsixreboot]

I have to treat it like a career or it doesn't happen. I've got a schedule for myself or pretty soon I'm surfing Facebook and the kids are on the trampoline. I also schedule quitting time or school bleeds over and there is no balance.

[Mom-ninja.]

It is very hard to make it your profession when you are sitting in your home. Very hard. I do my best.

[regentrude]

Have you tried a structured schedule? You could schedule the prep and reading times as part of your day and for example do that while your kids do independent school work, or institute a common reading time for all.

 

I have to have a structured, efficient day by necessity because I work 25-30 hours a week, so homeschooling is my "2nd job" and has to fit between my outside work commitments. Getting up early in the morning and starting work promptly at 8am goes a long way.

 

You mention having lots of housework, but I see that you only have two children, both teenagers. What housework do you have to do that takes this much time? Can the work be divided among the three of you? I have never found housework to take up a significant amount of time that prevents me from doing the important stuff. Is there anything you can streamline or cut out?

 

ETA: If you have to spend a lot of time in the car driving your kids around, I would consider audiobooks. We have listened to many many hours of literature and lectures while driving and thus used the time in a productive way.

[Murphy101]

Housework is not just my work. All the kids have chores.

 

Planning and schooling has time dedicated to it every day.

 

That's it in a nutshell.

[Chris in VA]

I have a thought, but I'm having a hard time expressing it! (WHat's new?) :D

 

I feel a little uncomfortable seeing homeschooling as a profession, because of the boundary I feel is necessary to set between professions/jobs and home is different from the one I set between homeschooling and "life."

 

I want learning to BE the life, and I see homeschooling as more than just the lessons that come from curricula.

 

It's the same with mothering--I don't treat that as a profession that I can lay down and pick back up, depending on whether or not the kids are around. It's who I am. Now, I'm not acting as a mom when I'm with dh (just us) but I'm still a mom. Same with homeschooling--I'm not even homeschooling right now (dd was in ps last two years) but I'm still a homeschooler in my identity, if that makes sense!

 

It's a lens thru which I see the whole world.

 

I just see things in an integrated way, I guess. A whole.

 

I go beyond the description of duties and actions and into the description of character qualities and perspective to find the definitions, I guess.

 

So, I can be a homeschooler even without homeschooling someone, and a mom even if my kids are gone from the home (or even if I no longer had them, perish the thought).

 

I don't have a problem reading dd's lit because I'm not only doing it to prepare for discussion, I'm also doing it to self-educate, because it's fun, because I want to know. The discussions we have aren't just to impart knowledge, they are to share life experiences and perspectives, both for me to share and for her to share. It's part of journeying together for this little time we have before she's off and on her own. All of it is as important as dishes and pet care and running errands and decorating the home and laundry because it's all part of my life.

 

So there's not a lot of stress about school, because it's all just...well, just part of it all!

 

Does that make any sense at all?

[Madeline05]

I make a schedule, if I pen in that I need to do something as far as planning for homeschool, I'll treat it as if it's a regular chore such a grocery shopping which I know I do on Tuesday nights. If you schedule it in along with the rest of your housework, it just makes it feel more pertinent. I live off of lists and my desk top calendar!

[Hikin' Mama]

I agree that it is very hard sometimes to treat it as a job when you're at home because it is so easy to get distracted. At least it is for me.

 

When my middle son was in eighth grade, which I was actually treating as his first year of high school, I got up every morning at 5 to read lit, history, or science. I wanted to discuss each of these with him regularly (we discussed each of the above subjects once a week, or more often if he had questions). We also met daily for math and composition. And there were other things added in that made up our week. Five am is very early, but no one else was up to bother me, and I sure as heck don't feel like doing housework at that hour, so I was content to sit and read and take notes. It was important to me to know what was going on with his studies and to provide him with a good education. When I wasn't working with him during the day, I was working with my dyslexic daughter, who required quite a bit of one-on-one time.

 

It paid off, as he decided he wanted to go to the local high school and has done wonderfully there. He even admitted that all the grammar I made him do was a benefit. :D

 

When my kids were younger, sometimes I would go to the library or a coffee shop to do my summer planning. I could get so much more done without the distractions of home. Now that my oldest has moved out, I've converted his room to my office/sewing room/school room. It's much easier for me to focus in there. I also don't have young kids needing me all day anymore.

 

Good luck! I hope you find a solution that works for you.

[Murphy101]

If semantics matters, I don't view it as a job per se, but as my vocation.

 

Whatever you want to call it, it is work that needs done and if you aren't getting it done as things are currently going, then looking at changing your daily life to make it the priority it should be is a positive thing, imnsho.

[elegantlion]

I get what you're saying and I sometimes wish I could be like that. I have a sort of split personality about work and home life. I am a mother all the time, so maybe that's an overriding commonality. But....I also need to be more ethereal more like a butterfly or a dragonfly in my homelife. If I'm bored, I don't do it. We have minimal housework because we live minimally and we're pretty neat people by nature. We're not involved in a lot of activities so we have free time. I like to wander off the beaten path during non-school times.

 

If I operated my school like that all the time, well ds wouldn't be entering high school. He's very much of a similar personality and I have to treat it like a job for there to be progress. We like tangents and exploration, but if I don't bring some of my corporate training to the table, we're going nowhere.

 

I try to insert just enough of the darting dragonfly curiosity into our schooling so I don't feel like a mean boss (to myself as well as ds). I don't really want to finish writing syllabi today, but because I'm considering it "work" then I'll do it.

 

I worked just long enough and hard enough before ds was born to never want to make another deadline, create a routine. I need the spontaneity in my homelife, otherwise I tend to lose it.

 

I have a thought, but I'm having a hard time expressing it! (WHat's new?) :D

 

I feel a little uncomfortable seeing homeschooling as a profession, because of the boundary I feel is necessary to set between professions/jobs and home is different from the one I set between homeschooling and "life."

 

I want learning to BE the life, and I see homeschooling as more than just the lessons that come from curricula.

 

It's the same with mothering--I don't treat that as a profession that I can lay down and pick back up, depending on whether or not the kids are around. It's who I am. Now, I'm not acting as a mom when I'm with dh (just us) but I'm still a mom. Same with homeschooling--I'm not even homeschooling right now (dd was in ps last two years) but I'm still a homeschooler in my identity, if that makes sense!

 

It's a lens thru which I see the whole world.

 

I just see things in an integrated way, I guess. A whole.

 

I go beyond the description of duties and actions and into the description of character qualities and perspective to find the definitions, I guess.

 

So, I can be a homeschooler even without homeschooling someone, and a mom even if my kids are gone from the home (or even if I no longer had them, perish the thought).

 

I don't have a problem reading dd's lit because I'm not only doing it to prepare for discussion, I'm also doing it to self-educate, because it's fun, because I want to know. The discussions we have aren't just to impart knowledge, they are to share life experiences and perspectives, both for me to share and for her to share. It's part of journeying together for this little time we have before she's off and on her own. All of it is as important as dishes and pet care and running errands and decorating the home and laundry because it's all part of my life.

 

So there's not a lot of stress about school, because it's all just...well, just part of it all!

 

Does that make any sense at all?

[-M-]

Back in 2006 (the "old boards"), a long discussion followed the publication of an article on this same subject -- professionalism and homeschooling. The piece appeared in the monthly newsletter of a popular Christian homeschool curriculum provider and detailed the many changes one woman made after listening to teacher-training tapes available through said curriculum provider. These changes included rethinking her wardrobe ("I'm a professional teacher. I simply don't get paid monetarily. However, now I dress like one.) and adopting a longer school-day schedule ("We commence around 7:30 a.m. and end by 4:30 p.m. whether we re finished or not.").

 

I share neither the writer's religion nor her commitment to to the curriculum provider. I do, however, share her conviction that there's nothing wrong with inserting some, for lack of a better word, professionalism into the pursuit of home education. I wouldn't go about in the ways in which she has. Still, she makes some excellent points.

 

To me, coming to the home education table (or couch or front porch or whatever) in the same way in which you would arrive at a more conventional job (i.e., washed, dressed, and prepared) is a terrific idea. I haven't much (any?) use for charts and elaborate planning, but I have great regard for arriving at the daily with my game face on and the playbook memorized.

 

In the article -- "Musings from a Mom" (link unavailable) -- Deidre Salmon wrote, "It was surprising to hear that [insert private school name here] often tests homeschoolers for admittance and finds them lacking. We all think our children are brilliant and several grade levels ahead of where they should be. Apparently this is not so. More homeschoolers must hear that."

 

I agree. We are ill-served by the false impression that simply because we home educate, we are providing a superior education. We need a periodic reality check, and the fact is that some homeschoolers are un(der)prepared for more conventional academic success.

 

And you know what? I'd prefer that my students not find themselves ill-equipped because of my poor planning or inadequate preparation. Treating this endeavor with the same commitment and, yes, professionalism I bring to my more conventional work may help me avoid failure -- mine and theirs.

 

I've long maintained that a successful homeschooling experience begins with the parent-teacher. See "It all begins with me," for example, where I wrote, in part:

When the work is taking forever to complete, when the quality is less than expected, when enthusiasm has waned, etc., I don't need to look much further than the example I've been setting. Have I been on-task? Have I been doing my job(s) with attention to detail? Have I conveyed my love of the subject and of the family-centered learning project?

For more than a dozen years, here and elsewhere, I've written about the joy of discovery, the

mornings in Nick and Nora sock monkey pajamas, the field trips, and all of the M&M moments that have made me so glad for this adventure. But I've been just as quick to assert that this, to me, is a job -- one to which I bring commitment, skill, and, again, a sense of professionalism. When I taught in more traditional environments, my students had me -- 120 percent of me, as the cliché goes; some days, more. I see no reason to offer my own children anything less.

 

Now, that said, I have never had any desire to replicate a school environment in our home. Not. Ever. It is important to me, however, that my children give their studies as much consideration as their art, their music, etc., and the way I've communicated this is by modeling the behavior I want to see. In other words, I read, study, think, write, learn, and discuss. I work. Right there beside them. How else can I hope to communicate the importance of this pursuit?

 

(May I add that I'm not altogether sure how one engages in Socratic dialogue if one is not present. I mean, I'm all for encouraging academic independence, but I am the teacher, tutor, coach, and (often) discussion leader. Um, 'hard to teach, tutor, coach, or discuss if I'm regularly in another room (mentally or physically), no?)

 

Yes, I manage our home. And, yes, I work (hard, in the interstices parenting and teaching and homemaking permit). And, yes, my family has, over the last fifteen years, dealt with its share of sorrow, loss, medical crises, relocations, absent spouse syndrome (a.k.a. a lot of business travel), even a major automobile accident -- so I know (as well as anyone else, anyway) that "life happens." It's just that, like Ms. Salmon, perhaps, I'm pretty convinced that school must keep happening, too.

 

She has decided that the way to ensure this is by adopting a certain schedule and a new wardrobe and whatnot. Someone else may accomplish the same with schedules or plans. Someone else may do so with a certain academic program. And so on. I do it by approaching the family-centered learning project as work. Good work. Work I love. But, still, work. And if, as I said, I'm on the job? I'm generally dressed for it, and I'm always prepared for it.

[ereks mom]

I don't mean getting paid to homeschool. I mean treating homeschooling as if it is my profession.

 

When we are doing school I do pretty well on keeping that kids on track with their work, doing my state-required logging, etc. It's the planning time that's the problem.

 

This year I have a lot of reading and planning to do for high school. I'm using some "open and go" type curriculum but not everything is easy like that. I also want to read a couple of the novels my kids will be rstudying so I can discuss them intelligently. (It doesn't work well for me to read along with them when we are in the middle of doing school.)

 

I know I should be spending a couple of hours a day working on this. But I can't get to it. I'm not procrastinating on it, and I'm not sitting around doing fun stuff in it's place. I just have a lot of housework, I'm spending time taking kids to and from their activities, etc.

 

Well, I must admit sitting down to read 1984 does feel like leisure time. So maybe that's part of my problem - feeling like I need to get work down before I sit down for fun. But I do need to read it before I hand it off to my kid to study. Even reading medieval history books feels like fun. So, I wait till other things are done, and of course they never are.

 

^^^YES!! This is me!!!^^^

 

Does anyone know what I mean? How do you manage to acquire or maintain a professional attitude toward your role as homeschool mom? I feel like I'm going to burn out before we start school up again!

 

I struggle with exactly the same issues, and the only way I have found to get it all done is to allot a certain amount of time for cleaning and a certain amount of time for planning. I make a list of housework chores I need to accomplish on a particular day and put the list on the kitchen counter, and I gather the school materials I need to work on and put them on my worktable. Then I set a timer for 30 minutes. I make myself work on the housework for 30 minutes, and then I reset the timer for another 30 minutes and work on the planning. I need to get up and stretch and rest my eyes every 30 minutes anyway, so this works well for me. And it prevents me from getting overwhelmed by the housework because I can get a lot done in 30 minutes if I know that I only have to do it for 30 minutes at a time. Can you tell that I hate housework and view schoolwork as fun? ;)

Edited July 17, 2012 by ereks mom

[Mom-ninja.]

I guess I have to say that I never wanted homeschooling to be a profession for me. The whole 'now I'm the teacher, now I'm the mom' thing really makes my eyeballs roll. For the past 12 years it has just been a part of our life, with no stopping or starting school vs non school activities.

I suppose you could force yourself to set an alarm, dress for work, set the clock, and do only school stuff for 8 hours. For me,though, that would just be artificial and unsatisfying, but I've seen home school moms thrive with it.

 

..as for reading their novels, maybe you could listen to them as you do housework/ drive them to activities?

 

What I mean when I say I need to consider homeschooling as my "job" is that I need to give it top priority over household chores. I can't let math slide because I'm busy doing laundry or washing dishes.

 

The children's education is number one, and not laundry. I had to realize that as did my dh.

 

So now, I focus on my "job" and ignore the house chores when I have to make a choice of what to do in any given moment.

 

It's not about "now I'm a teacher vs. now I'm a mom"

[Night Elf]

I have weekly planning sessions on Sunday. I schedule the week and then review all the work my teen will do so I know exactly what to expect and be ready to partner with him.

 

I have never pre-read books. I prefer reading them together because we discuss them as we go. I don't want to know what happens because it will color my perceptions and make me see the story from a different point of view. I like our conversations where we both make comments about what we think has happened, why it's happening, and what might happen. :)

 

The only subject I actually sit down and do on my own is his math class. If I'm not prepared, I cannot help him. We spend more time with him trying to understand and then him having to explain it to me. He's now in Trig/PreCalculus and it's killing me! Trig is almost over, thank goodness! But the math lesson definitely goes more smoothly when I already understand it before he looks at it.

 

Oh, I should add that I still do all of his work with him. He does some assignments independently, but for the most part I'm sitting with him discussing material as we go along. I don't necessarily see it as my "job" or "profession" but I do see schoolwork as my responsibility and I take that very seriously. It was a little more difficult when I had to stretch myself for 3 teens. With only my son doing homeschooling now, I feel like we're finished almost before we've begun!

[Mrs.Gregg]

Back in 2006 (the "old boards"), a long discussion followed the publication of an article on this same subject -- professionalism and homeschooling. The piece appeared in the monthly newsletter of a popular Christian homeschool curriculum provider and detailed the many changes one woman made after listening to teacher-training tapes available through said curriculum provider. These changes included rethinking her wardrobe ("I'm a professional teacher. I simply don't get paid monetarily. However, now I dress like one.) and adopting a longer school-day schedule ("We commence around 7:30 a.m. and end by 4:30 p.m. whether we re finished or not.").

 

 

 

 

 

I share neither the writer's religion nor her commitment to to the curriculum provider. I do, however, share her conviction that there's nothing wrong with inserting some, for lack of a better word, professionalism into the pursuit of home education. I wouldn't go about in the ways in which she has. Still, she makes some excellent points.

 

 

 

 

To me, coming to the home education table (or couch or front porch or whatever) in the same way in which you would arrive at a more conventional job (i.e., washed, dressed, and prepared) is a terrific idea. I haven't much (any?) use for charts and elaborate planning, but I have great regard for arriving at the daily with my game face on and the playbook memorized.

 

 

 

 

In the article -- "Musings from a Mom" (link unavailable) -- Deidre Salmon wrote, "It was surprising to hear that [insert private school name here] often tests homeschoolers for admittance and finds them lacking. We all think our children are brilliant and several grade levels ahead of where they should be. Apparently this is not so. More homeschoolers must hear that."

 

 

 

 

I agree. We are ill-served by the false impression that simply because we home educate, we are providing a superior education. We need a periodic reality check, and the fact is that some homeschoolers are un(der)prepared for more conventional academic success.

 

 

 

 

And you know what? I'd prefer that my students not find themselves ill-equipped because of my poor planning or inadequate preparation. Treating this endeavor with the same commitment and, yes, professionalism I bring to my more conventional work may help me avoid failure -- mine and theirs.

 

 

 

 

I've long maintained that a successful homeschooling experience begins with the parent-teacher. See "

It all begins with me," for example, where I wrote, in part:

 

 

 

 

When the work is taking forever to complete, when the quality is less than expected, when enthusiasm has waned, etc., I don't need to look much further than the example I've been setting. Have I been on-task? Have I been doing my job(s) with attention to detail? Have I conveyed my love of the subject and of the family-centered learning project?

 

 

For more than a dozen years, here and elsewhere, I've written about the joy of discovery, the

mornings in Nick and Nora sock monkey pajamas, the field trips, and all of the M&M moments that have made me so glad for this adventure. But I've been just as quick to assert that this, to me, is a job -- one to which I bring commitment, skill, and, again, a sense of professionalism. When I taught in more traditional environments, my students had me -- 120 percent of me, as the cliché goes; some days, more. I see no reason to offer my own children anything less.

 

 

 

 

 

Now, that said, I have never had any desire to replicate a school environment in our home. Not. Ever. It is important to me, however, that my children give their studies as much consideration as their art, their music, etc., and the way I've communicated this is by modeling the behavior I want to see. In other words, I read, study, think, write, learn, and discuss. I work. Right there beside them. How else can I hope to communicate the importance of this pursuit?

 

 

 

 

(May I add that I'm not altogether sure how one engages in Socratic dialogue if one is not present. I mean, I'm all for encouraging academic independence, but I am the teacher, tutor, coach, and (often) discussion leader. Um, 'hard to teach, tutor, coach, or discuss if I'm regularly in another room (mentally or physically), no?)

 

 

 

 

Yes, I manage our home. And, yes, I

work (hard, in the interstices parenting and teaching and homemaking permit). And, yes, my family has, over the last fifteen years, dealt with its share of sorrow, loss, medical crises, relocations, absent spouse syndrome (a.k.a. a lot of business travel), even a major automobile accident -- so I know (as well as anyone else, anyway) that "life happens." It's just that, like Ms. Salmon, perhaps, I'm pretty convinced that school must keep happening, too.

 

 

 

 

 

She has decided that the way to ensure this is by adopting a certain schedule and a new wardrobe and whatnot. Someone else may accomplish the same with schedules or plans. Someone else may do so with a certain academic program. And so on. I do it by approaching the family-centered learning project as work. Good work. Work I love. But, still, work. And if, as I said, I'm on the job? I'm generally dressed for it, and I'm always prepared for it.

 

 

 

:iagree: I agree with a lot of the points in the comment. When we first started homeschooling I used the first 6mos as a time to reconnect with our family I wrote about it here . I then spent the next full year of K and 4th grade trying to find out what style/system works for us/me. What works is treating it like a profession. Being prapared prior to lessons. Not pulling things off at the very last moment but putting forethought and attention to it. I don't want to do a dis-service to my children by not properly educating them. I don't want to replicate "school" either. I've spent about 2 hours aday M-F and several hours on the weekends planning for our coming year. Reading ahead texts, lesson planning, Unit planning, Planning for spontanious moments.... by this I mean making sure we have room in our schedule to do the fun stuff but still stay on track.

[marbel]

So much to respond to here. Lots of good things to think about.

 

I should note that I am not new to homeschooling - but we have always been (for lack of a better word) fairly relaxed in our methods and timing. I don't recreate school at home. My husband and kids are on board with homeschooling (it was my husband who first mentioned it, way back when) and from the start he said that when he came home from work he'd rather see a messy house and me engaged with our kids, than a clean house and the kids in front of the tv. Now my kids do have chores; they help with housework, do laundry, etc. So those are not problems.

 

I am the problem; my way of thinking is the problem.

 

I can't respond to everyone here but I thank everyone for their thoughts. I am not always a good out-of-the-box thinker so I find everything helpfu in clarifying my own thoughts. I do have a few things to respond to directly.

 

I have a thought, but I'm having a hard time expressing it! (WHat's new?) :D

 

I feel a little uncomfortable seeing homeschooling as a profession, because of the boundary I feel is necessary to set between professions/jobs and home is different from the one I set between homeschooling and "life."

 

I want learning to BE the life, and I see homeschooling as more than just the lessons that come from curricula.

 

 

Yes, I see that. I want learning to be happening naturally, organically as some say. That was easy when it was all Five in a Row and and on up. It's just getting harder for me now. Maybe not harder, but requires more forethought on my part.

 

If semantics matters, I don't view it as a job per se, but as my vocation.

 

Whatever you want to call it, it is work that needs done and if you aren't getting it done as things are currently going, then looking at changing your daily life to make it the priority it should be is a positive thing, imnsho.

 

Yes, vocation is a better word than job. Professional was not quite what I meant, but was the only word I could come up with at the time.

 

Back in 2006 (the "old boards"), a long discussion followed the publication of an article on this same subject -- professionalism and homeschooling. The piece appeared in the monthly newsletter of a popular Christian homeschool curriculum provider and detailed the many changes one woman made after listening to teacher-training tapes available through said curriculum provider. These changes included rethinking her wardrobe ("I'm a professional teacher. I simply don't get paid monetarily. However, now I dress like one.) and adopting a longer school-day schedule ("We commence around 7:30 a.m. and end by 4:30 p.m. whether we re finished or not.").

I remember that article, but wasn't here to see that discussion. I can imagine it was... lively. And I was thinking about that today as I wrote my OP. I remember being really put off by the notion of a 7:30am - 4:30pm school/work day. It wasn't (and still isn't) the picture of homeschooling that I want in my home, though some aspects of it are appealing and (in my mind) right: being prepared, being physically and mentally present with the students. It's being mentally and physically present in the preparation that is my problem, even though I enjoy it greatly. (I know that makes no sense.)

 

I struggle with exactly the same issues, and the only way I have found to get it all done is to allot a certain amount of time for cleaning and a certain amount of time for planning.

...

Can you tell that I hate housework and view schoolwork as fun? ;)

 

Schoolwork is fun! ;)

 

Anyway, I set everything aside today and spent a couple of hours working on our Medieval history plan. It was so satisfying to get it done.

 

I really do just need to set aside the time. It's so easy for me to get hung up on the day-to-day that I lose sight of other parts of my life. It should be easier as my kids get older. I need to readjust my thinking.

 

Thanks for the good discussion. Of course it doesn't have to be over! ;)

Edited July 17, 2012 by marbel