Thoughts About Homeschoool Kids and the Learning Process

I am miffed sometimes by things I have to explain to my kids about learning and the process of learning and what's normal.

The other day my ninth grader was confused after watching the Thinkwell video on factoring trinomials. He obviously didn't get it as he bombed the assignment. It was the first grade he received below a high B. I glanced at the work and it all came back to me immediately. (One of the challenges when using online learning is the mom is not teaching so jumping in for help is not always easy.) I explained it in my own words and he got it instantly. I had him re-do the assignment and he got every one correct.

That wasn't good enough for him, he was still angry with himself. I explained there is no quick way around it, to factor the trinomial takes trying combinations and unless you are lucky and the first combination works, you have to try again and again. He was surprised to hear it and said he thought since he didn't get it on the first try it meant he was stupid. Wrong. I said it will take 3-10 minutes to do each math problem. He was shocked. Why would he ever think that these were thirty second operations?

Recently my sixth grader had the same thing with pre-algebra work he was doing. In that case he actually had to write out the problem and work it through. He was used to doing things in his head and not really trying. I had to explain that it is normal to write out the problems and to show one's work and to actually do the operation rather than having the answer just pop into his head. He expressed dismay and accused me of lying about that. Uh, no, really, most people do write out math operations and figure them with a pencil and paper rather than just doing them in their head.

Yesterday on his own my ninth grader decided to take a test for math. Problem is, it was old material he last looked at over two months ago. He took the test cold and got more wrong than he wanted to. I had to actually explain to him that before one is tested they should review the old material, do some of the work and refresh their memory about it. I said that is called studying and it is not cheating. It is normal to have to review and refresh oneself. He was surprised to hear it. He thought that was cheating. Where do they get these ideas?

Today my older son told me that he was talking about algebra with his crew teammates. A boy in grade nine said he was in Algebra I and learning negative exponents right now. He said that everyone in school hates them. My son was surprised to hear that he wasn't the only one to dislike them. My son struggled with those at first, but he didn't know that others struggled, so he thought he was stupid for not getting it at first and not enjoying them.

A problem with homeschooling is the kids are not always in group learning environments with a large number of kids. They do not see enough of other kid's struggles. Thus they think when they struggle a bit that they must be flawed. They think they're dumb if they have to work at something or if they don't get things the first time they hear it. Even if they have some group classes it's not always difficult content that they have to struggle with. Often the classes that are offered are the fun things that tempt the kids and motivate the parents to feel happy to pay someone else to teach.  Homeschoolers on tight budgets tend to keep their kids at home to do the hard stuff. If it takes them 5-10 hours a week to teach math they often can't afford to replace that with a $75 per hour tutor! So the slogging is done at home in isolation, where kids get the idea they are alone in their struggles. If mom struggles to teach it to them, the kid may take that as the issue is them being dumb for not getting it easily rather than realizing that it is just challenging material that everyone has to work to learn.

My relaxed homeschooling with the Charlotte Mason method, the narration used to gauge learning, the hands on activities and eclectic learning we have done has not included much, if any, paper based tests and has been very low on parroting back of memorized facts. We are now paying for this. Sooner or later it's time to learn the regular old school way. That is this year for my older son. It's time that he learned about studying and test taking, and timed tests.

As I had planned to do, we have begun reading the book Study Smarter Not Harder together. I've read some chapters of this book in 2011 but now he is reading it and I'm re-reading it. We are going through it one chapter a day. I told him that I want him to find the study method that works for him and that I want him to make choices regarding his preferred methods. I want him to own this process.





As for my younger son he continues to surprise me with the ease with which he learns. His ease makes me realize how much my older son has struggled that I didn't realize as I thought that was normal for kids. I know my son has had visual processing challenges that began after Lyme Disease and new symptoms in fall of 2011 created more of a challenge.

My younger son takes anything that I throw at him. Spell this, he does it correctly without studying or even ever having seen the word written out before. Memorize these Latin roots, three minutes later 25 are memorized. Do that math work at your own pace and bam! The kid is doing multiple math levels in one academic year. I ask him to write an essay and his first draft needs only three minor edits. He barely has to work at learning. My challenge with him is to give him enough intellectual stimulation so he is not bored by schoolwork. I fear if he went to school he would be bored in regular middle school and would downshift his effort as even with slacking he could pull off decent grades. If he's in a regular program that's too easy for him he'd not achieve what he's capable of. I'd have to work to get him in honors classes or send him to a magnet school or a rigorous academic private school.

Through working closely with my kids, teaching them and being with them while they are learning I have insight as to how their minds work. I am sometimes surprised with how hard my kids are on themselves and how the lack of exposure to seeing other kids struggle in classroom learning has contributed to them having an incorrect perspective about learning sometimes taking real effort. Little things like not realizing that one algebra problem might take four minutes to complete leads my kids to begin to think they are struggling to learn when in fact they are doing fine or even great. I don't quite know how to convince my kids of what is typical. As with so many things, they don't believe me when I say it: they are both in the developmental phase where they start to question Mom and think they are right and think I'm wrong.

Having a false perspective is one of the challenges when learning certain topics is done at home at the kitchen table or when using online classes or cyber learning tools. A certain amount of (dare I use the word) isolation with learning experiences sometimes leads to challenges like this. My kids have done group learning but it's not been much with math or grammar or spelling and they have never been in classes that did traditional testing where it was revealed to the class what the different kid's grades were. Even just having friends take the same test and then comparing grades is something they don't have exposure to.

Maybe part of the problem is I have never been the kind of Mom who chimes all day "you are so brilliant" and "oh look how smart you are" and I never say "you are gifted". I hope in my efforts to not over-praise and to not give false praise I have somehow contributed to them not realizing how well they are actually doing at what they are in fact doing just fine or fantastic with.

I have high expectations but my kids have no gauge to realize my expectations are high. They think what I ask of them is typical and right. They know that I'm aligning their homeschooling experiences with what they want to do for careers. They are the true captain of the ship; I'm just the navigator who plots the way. What they struggle with is not realizing that the trip is not just something that actually runs on auto-pilot, sometimes they have to do manual labor and put forth blood, sweat and tears to learn and that's normal and typical. I just have to somehow convince my kids of that fact of life.