In my opinion, there are many, many advantages of homeschooling, as I’ve dicussed here before.  However, I feel compelled to discuss what, in my opinion is the biggest advantage there is, and that is that the homeschooled child can go at their own pace.  In the beginning of this year, I taught a unit on dinosaurs for about a week and gave Meg a test at the end of the unit as I always do, and she did terrible.  She confused the plant eating dino’s and the meat eating dinos, and the little things she missed or confused went on from there.  In the public or private schools, she would have been out of luck, as there are 25 other kids in the class, who say, understood and did well on the test.  Meg and let’s say the 4 others who scored poorly becasue they didn’t understand it would be out of luck because the following Monday the teacher would be forced to move on to the next unit.

In my classroom, I have one little girl to consider.  The following week instead of moving onto a new unit, I retaught the dinosaur unit.  We did different projects, read different books and took a trip to a local dinosaur museum and when I gave her another unit test(different from the first, and in fact harder becasue we learned even more things the 2nd week) and she received an A, becasue she understood the unit.  I was confident she’d learned and understood what I had given her and therefore felt confident that she could handle a new unit the following week.

In the same way, when she excels in an area we can go with it.  She reads all the time, and reads very well for her age.  She writes sentences very well, writes poetry, short stories, and she understands the different parts of a sentence, phonics, grammar, can use a dictionary and an encyclopedia and loves writing book reports.  I can let her go with it and take it as far as I can without holding her back.  Who in their right mind would say “okay, you’re learning too fast – slow down” ?  If I get something for her and I see that it’s not developmentally appropriate, with becasue it’s too hard or too easy I try something else.  I take her lead.  She finished her history book for 2nd grade back in March, so I asked her what topic she wanted to learn and she said The Revolutionary War.  I bought a CD online with all kinds of stuff (age appropriate – it was for 3rd grade) – and it was BORING and Meg hated it.  So, I bought a different book for the 4th – 6th grades and she LOVES it.  It’s her favorite subject – next to math.

So tell me — am I pushing or following her lead?  Do we hold the bar too high, or high enough for them to find within themselves the best that they can be, while walking right there beside them every step of the way?

My daughter can be anything she wants to be.  A stay at home mom, or the president of the United States – or both – and I tell her that everyday.   In the same way, I’m doing my best to give her the tools she needs to make her dreams come true.  Yes, I hold the bar high and so far, she’s met the challenge every step of the way, and will herself push it even higher – so who am I do hold her back?

You go, girl.