What to do about childrens' lack of enthusiasm

I am not sure I can answer your exact questions, but first will conclude with Suzukimom that a debriefing is a must.

Now I will share with you some things I have had to incur in our homeschool journey. When I began over 25 yrs ago , my two at that time were already in p.s. we then began hs’ing when they were in 3&5 th gr. it went real well on the whole , but by the middle of the following yr. I was ready to put them back into p.s. what I realised is I was duplicating p.s. at home. Enter CM philosophy., via magazine articles ( mind you 25 yrs ago) from someone who had discovered this and was implementing with their family, however her children were much younger than mine. I lived rural, no support group, but HS’ ing became a conviction and CM fit like a glove lin a hand. Keep in mind , this was before there was any CM designated curr. So I totally soloed it. We would just select good books the children were interested in and yes I added some I wanted them to be interested in. When we read a biography of George W. Carver, we just mapped the states as they came up in the book. So not only was I going against the tide so to speak by hs’ing, I was not using anything traditional. In time we adopted a sibling group, the youngest an infant and the other two school age. The only constant those two had was their school family. They didnt do well in school but the school didnt want to hurt their self esteem with evertpything else they were dealing with. Once we adopted them, they finished the school year out and we began hs’ing them, it was difficult b/c they never had expectations placed on them, but in time they rose to the bar we raised for them. Our best memory (theirs and ours) was reading aloud to them to the point of getting laryngitis. Granted their circumstances made them starving for familial relations and love, but that is what we did just read read read and then I taught them narration, first oral, the written, that is how we did school. They also went on to college and have done well. Now their infant sis , who is now 18 was my first child I taught to read and write, this was as I was 12 yrs into my hs’ing exp. but nonetheless my first time at doing this. It was relatively painless for us both, and she has grown with CM methods, but it wasn’t until high school before we did latch onto an actual CM curr. It proved to be disastrous for her and I both. Very cumbersome to say the least. She is in her final semester of school , and can write well, lacks in math arena, but had tenacity to take on some higher math this year, even though she has fulfilled state regs, just b/c she wants to see if she can do it. Her gifts are in the music and arts area, so she is pursuing her future towards that. We also adopted another child in 2003, he is now 11 and is very hyperactive and other things going on. So now I’ve had the exp. of teaching reading /writing, but never with a multifaceted child, , well we had to delay school for him, we did not begin till he was 8 ,but i would just sit and read , read, read . He is reading and writing quite well, is great at math, but his biggest roadblocks are his ability to focus and attention. I’ve said all this to say, I am finding I need to have something for him , to direct his attention towards something, by using SCM , he responds to the confines of its authority, and I have 5 grown children out of the house, one who was in a crisis preg and had very premature triplets and lots of bumps in the road that I had to and still have to bethere for. So I found I too needed to have something. SCM seems to contain the right amount of everything that we are in need of, without stifling him. Time is a must for this journey and I suspect that after you have allowed for their debriefing , that you have this in your heart, you will display that confidence to your children and walk with them step by step allowing yourself to eventually get out of the way as the ideas envelop their hearts and minds.

Be blessed

Kk

Hi Anneatheart,

Can certainly understand your frustrations. HS-ing should be different from p.s. in that we all feel our children should enjoy learning more with this approach. From the other great advice you recieved, I would just add that I think letting your girls learn more about topics that interest them is a great way to make “school” more engaging. They’re young enough I wouldn’t worry too much about covering the big core subjects like Ancient or Medieval history. If they love a particular subject (science, art, geography, music) then run with that. You can turn any of these subjects into a curriculum where you cover science, history, geography, literature, writing, notebooking, etc. Have them do science experiments, write essays on famous scientists, have them do geography on where the most famous scientists were born, learn vocabulary associated with science, color pictures of scientists, etc. If they have initial interest in a subject then the battle is already won. It’s just up to you to find good books or curriculum to feed this interest. I would recommend reading this article on CM and Susan Schaeffer Macaulay : http://bfbooks.com/Mason-and-Schaeffer. It might give you some ideas for making your girls readings more inspired, interesting, and engaging.

Hope this helps!

Joshua Berg

Anneatheart

I’m with you on the interest led learning as far as winging it from the hip. And with my son who is infamous for traveling rabbit trails it becomes a recipe for disaster. That is why I finally broke down and selected SCM this year I feel it will give us the balance of both worlds. In his free time he can embark upon his interests.

I am currently rereading CMs vol 3 and just yesterday read this : education isn’t aimless, CM believed children needed lots of free time alongside . She went on to write about Sir Walt Scott’s , Waverly, where Waverly was allowed to pretty much learn whatever he wanted, when he wanted, if he wanted. He seemed to want to learn, and he was able to grasp things unusually quick, so this kind of approach to education seems justified. But he was allowed to grow up wavering, so he remained like his name: Waverly. His life was marked with instability and ineffectiveness. Etc…. I thought that and what followed was a good ruminating point for me. My son needs me to raise the bar for him, respecting his potential and abilities along the way. So each year I spend much time reflecting and contemplating and praying where we need to aim next year.

Blessings

Kk