Switching Gears

On one of our first dates, my husband *tried* to teach me to drive a car with standard transmission.

I emphasize the word tried because I wasn’t particularly successful.

His instructions were good (I think), but as the car lurched forward and then stalled (what felt like) a few dozen times, the Tim Horton’s drinks in the cup holders between us threatened to spill and it became pretty clear that I should not be in the driver’s seat.

I would not recommend first date driving lessons but I guess it couldn’t have been too terrible because I still married him.

Our homeschool journey so far has felt a little like learning to drive a standard. I can’t tell the clutch and the brakes apart half the time and it’s been anything but a smooth ride.

Throw in some learning challenges, a wild toddler and a pandemic and, more often than not, I can’t even find the clutch, never mind remember whatever it is that I’m supposed to do with it.

We started our first year with an all-in-one boxed curriculum with detailed daily schedules and assignments. Unboxing it was exciting because...books! The schedules were so pretty. And I could just envision the satisfaction of checking off the all the boxes.

But, it was expensive. I was forever feeling a step behind. It wasn’t very enjoyable for anyone.

It was what we needed to get started when I had no idea where to start but, more often than not, I was left wondering what I was doing in the driver’s seat.

Years two and three started with some hope for a smoother ride.

I bought the next level of the same all-in-one curriculum but thought that I could make it work for us by going through it at half the pace and adding it a bunch of other resources that I thought were “really good.”

Famous last words.

It was nice to break away from a scheduled curriculum a bit but, in its place, I had simply created my own schedule and the next two years weren’t exactly a smooth ride either.

Checking off the boxes on all the great resources I had collected was getting a little taxing once I factored in the “I’m never doing school again” comments and a toddler who tore off baby proof latches, left oatmeal trails through the house, coloured on the walls and rearranged the furniture.

This year, I am attempting to shift gears. 

We’re not exactly unschooling but we’ll get by with a one page weekly schedule, some of our favourite resources and my best effort to not care if we finish the work book by June 2021 or not.

It’s been freeing and terrifying to let go of the schedule. 

I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much because pandemics have a way of disrupting life in general and we’re still in the middle of one. 

But, maybe I won’t spill the drinks!