Last month I formally, well, semi-formally, started to home-school my 4 year old daughter. We did letter crafts and other activities over the past year, but it wasn’t a set curriculum I was using. I had decided to order the Catholic Heritage Curriculum for Pre-school to get us started. The set came with what we needed, including lesson plans. I started looking through the workbooks and noticed, much to my wallet’s chagrin, that Michaela already knew most of what was provided in the Pre-school packet. I told my husband that I needed to buy some Kindergarten materials to supplement. He told me to wait a little while to get into a routine. I agreed.
In the beginning it was a bit difficult to get her going, but then out of nowhere, her learning exploded. She started writing letters and drawing non-stop. She began to grasp sounds and was retaining a ton of information. Even though she would battle me at times during school, I found that she was absorbing it anyway. My husband and I knew that God had given us a very bright daughter. In fact, I often tell people that she is smarter than my husband and me put together. I struggled to find materials to keep her busy and I cut back our time at Co-op because she is ahead in much of what is offered for her age.
So here we are mid-October and I absolutely have to jump her into Kindergarten. Yes, she is 4. The temptation is to just let her have a year of freedom and wait to start until next year when she is 5. The problem is that she wants to learn. She keeps telling me that she wants to be able to read. So, sure, I could hold her back, but why would I? Yes, we home-school because we have concerns about the public school environment these days. My husband and I both went to public schools and things have changed drastically since our time. While our Catholic faith is a part of our reasoning, my biggest reason for homeschooling is to teach her at her pace.
Human beings are not carbon cutouts of one another. Some kids her age are still mastering colors and learning to count to 5. Some kids are already reading at her age. I want her to learn at her pace, not some arbitrary pace set by some bureaucrats who really don’t care about sound education. Pardon my cynicism after having taught in public schools briefly which resulted in my radical shift away from teaching high school.
I have decided to encourage her and teach her at her pace. At this point she will graduate a year early, but in reality we may hit a year where she really struggles in a subject. Then we have the option to put on the brakes and focus, even take an extra year if we have to. Part of the beauty of home-schooling is that the child leads in their own education. She may get to high school and stumble over Geometry and Trigonometry like I did, or she may breeze right through it. She may need time to emotionally mature and we can slow down so she doesn’t graduate too early, or she may be ready for whatever vocation God calls her to.
I was sitting in the waiting room at the optometrist’s office the other day listening to my daughter talk to a fellow patient. She was writing down letters and sounds for this woman and the woman was shocked that she is 4. I said we home-school and she said now it made sense. It’s not that intelligent people don’t go to public schools. Plenty of intelligent kids go to public schools or private schools. The problem is that many of those kids are bored to tears because they are ahead or frustrated because they cannot keep up. There are a good many who are content in the middle. Why shouldn’t education meet the needs of each individual and unique human being? Quite frankly, it should. That includes in technical areas that don’t require a college level education.
At this point my daughter is ready for Kindergarten and I am along for the ride. Homeschooling isn’t easy and I have days that I need serious patience, but then she shows me that she is learning even if she is having a battle of wills with me. What an amazing, difficult, and sanctifying journey we are on. Pax Christi.
Swimming the Depths 