Trixi’s HomeEd 2nd Anniversary

It’s hard to believe today, two years ago we took up home educating our then very frustrated, insecure 7 year old struggling to get through second grade. Although I feared we might not survive and I may kill him within weeks from bringing him home, we’re all still alive and well.

He’s really come a long way since then. Today we have a much more confident, soon to be 10 year old. He has redone his whole Grade R foundation year with Tannie Hettie last year. Since then, he’s made huge improvements in reading & writing. Although he is still very reluctant to do schoolwork, his attitude towards learning has improved tremendously. What was meant to be an interim solution to help a struggling second grader proved to make such an impact on our family relationships that school is no longer an option for us now.

If I knew then when we started, what I know now, I would have taken a totally different approach to home education. For starters I would have skipped Le-Amen, ditched all the schoolwork and allowed the de-schooling process first in order to restore their love for learning. That would have saved us a whole year of frustrations. This year’s unschooling approach went much smoother and the progress is still astonishing. Misha’s reading has improved vastly and he is slowly starting to show interest in the odd workbook here and there. He’s loving the Honey Badger Club and enjoys the online and pc based activities we’ve added. I’m happy to have stumbled across an article on learning styles that helped me trace the reason for his struggles and also assisted me in making wiser choices for learning material to address the way he learns.

Jesse will be home 2 years in January. He’s just finished his second week of school after restarting with Alpha Omega Academy  accredited online high school.

Gone are the days of nagging him to do his schoolwork. He’s free to study wherever he’s comfortable and whatever time of the day suits him best which is mostly from 4pm. Sometimes, however he’ll even work in the morning. When we had the freezing weather last week, he did it in bed. Now that’s the life…

I’m sure if I had this luxury at school, I would have aced all my subjects & not hated it as much. I probably would have remembered more of what I learned too.

The online lessons presented by the Academy teachers usually start from around 3pm our time  & these he does logging in via Webbex. There he gets to chat to the teacher and class mates. Thus far he seems to be enjoying his lessons and we have even caught him working ahead of schedule especially when he has plans for the weekend.

At this stage I’m hopeful that this trend will continue and that we’ve finally found a curriculum that will enable him to reach his full potential without the stress and frustration that they have had to endure at school.

My next challenge is to find a similarly successful curriculum for Misha by the time he gets to high school.

If they don’t learn the way you teach, then teach the way they learn.

~ Jacquie McTaggart