How Homeschooling Parents, Teachers, & Students can thrive Simultaneously In & Out of the Classroom

Written by Esther Kamoche Robinson

My daughter and I learning how to assemble and fly a kite for the first time on 3/7/22.

In our post 9-11 society, impulsivity is often judged harshly in the education field and for good reason. However, sometimes inspiration and true creativity requires small leaps of faith. During this process of becoming a blogger I have found that when I get inspiration and I follow through, it opens up more creative ideas and these small but gigantic steps of faith have enabled me to achieve my life long dreams of homeschooling my children, sharing my writing with others, and developing our artistic sides simultaneously. Through this process I am able to blend my love of art history, faith, and writing in a way that I never could have come up with on my own. It took many long hours for God to help me discover my hidden talents.

I love to have a good time and as long as I have people near me, I can achieve anything. My real challenge came during the pandemic when I had so much alone time. Even though I consider myself to be an ambivert with an introvert bent. This was extremely difficult for me and it became debilitating for me in every way.

Homeschooling enabled me to thrive along side of caring for my daughters and educating them. They need extra support, direct hands-on instruction, and lots of TLC to meet age appropriate milestones. I have the same needs. I had to fall back on my educational training and my many years of childcare experience to help guide me. Despite my many years of educating experience I encountered many roadblocks and enormous daily challenges. At times success often alluded me. The constant stress of meeting benchmarks in real time was extremely difficult, because I knew how it could potentially impact my children and their teachers if my children were unable to enter kindergarten prepared. As a mom, I don't want my children to suffer unnecessarily. I had to create an educational model that best met the needs of my children who have a variety of specialized needs. It all began when I went back to using a binder, paper, and pencil for my ideas to flourish. The old school ways of using paper and pencil enabled me to make sense of my ideas and organize them in a faster way than using a computer.

At the same time that I was teaching my children I was also developing my ideas and implementing them with my children, we were all learning and progressing at our own speed and this created a sense of satisfaction and purpose. We were able to make mistakes and make creative changes that allowed us to thrive together. In my heart I also wanted to make something that other parents could use as well to help their children if they were unable to directly homeschool their children. Hopefully, this model would allow parents and educators to fill in the education gaps that might be missing in their educational system. My goal, God willing is to continue to collaborate with other educators and parents to get that up and running within the foreseeable future.

In the meantime I have some quick tips that can be implemented fairly easily so that parents and teachers can thrive together with their students.

Home Schooling Advice for Parents & Educators

1. Talk and Listening therapy is vital for everyone. To learn some people need to talk and articulate their thoughts in order to make sense of what they are learning and experiencing. While others may need quiet to process their own thoughts or to listen to others ideas in order to learn.

2. Be aware that differences matter. Everyones cognitive development and learning styles are different and different techniques are needed for children, even children in the same family have different needs and may require different strategies and educational techniques to be successful. One child might need quiet to learn and another one might need constant white noise. One child might need to touch objects and move around their work space, while another child may need to stay in one spot with low stimuli because it is extremely distracting.

3. The power of choice is critical. Everyone in some way needs to feel empowered and valued, so it's important to be able to give options whenever you are able to in a natural and organic way. By providing choice and options for learners for things like being able to choose their assignments, ways to receive and access information, ability to use creative expression to show what they are learning, decide on their seating assignments, and pick their own meals. Choices enables children and adults to feel apart of the learning, teaching, discovery, and implementation process. They have the ability to make decisions that build up their confidence and maintain interest as they progress through the learning continuum.

4. We have to blend the old techniques of the past with the new ways. It is said among educational circles that we are preparing our children for a future that we can't even imagine yet. As we came to discover during the pandemic we have to be versatile in our educational methods and we can't be stuck on one way of teaching and learning. Learning is a lifelong habit so children and caregivers need a variety of methods and strategies to solve real world problems and that begins in and outside of the classroom. They have to be able to function at work and also at home and in the community. They have to be able to navigate the digital world and the real world and be able to integrate information and skills seamlessly and be able to make adjustments in real time. That means teaching children how to navigate this world with digital resources and without. Then teaching them how to blend and integrate these worlds together and be able to go back and forth.

5. Allow lots of room and a safe place for creative mistakes. Mistakes is where true learning happens. Discoveries and inventions happen when we make mistakes and this is proven by inventors like Einstein and the Wright Brothers and by toddlers who need to make lots of mistakes to learn and progress. Caregivers should recognize, acknowledge, celebrate their own mistakes and allow their learners to do the same. Celebrating creative failures and accomplishments together is where true learning happens and where the love of learning begins. Productive struggle is important for humans and is essential for social, cognitive, emotional, and physical development.

I hope some of these ideas would help you and your children feel more empowered in and out of the classroom.

Resources

Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence

Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas

Love Languages by Gary Chapman

Many hours of teaching, learning, reading, sharing, applying, and researching psychology, educational, and religious articles, books, and magazines.

Field Research and Collaborative discussions with parents, teachers, and students.

Participate in a round table discussion with fellow colleagues, administers, PGCEA, the former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, School and Community leaders in conjunction with many others at Bladensburg Elementary School in Bladensburg, Md.

Happy Discovery!

From the desk of Esther Kamoche Robinson