Time. We all only have 24 hours in a day. No matter how long our to do list is or the number of people we need to care for or teach, our minutes are limited. You would be hard pressed to find someone who would tell you that time isn’t precious. BUT do we live our lives that way? Do we consider the cost of our actions, choices and commitments? Do we treat the time of others in our lives with the respect it deserves?
How do you treat time in your homeschooling? Is there endless practice and repetition or is work meaningful, productive and rigorous? Do you spend countless minutes teaching a topic that your child could grasp in an example or two if you sat together side by side and worked it out? Do you ask questions that are simple regurgitation of information or do you have deep conversations or require thoughtful answers that also show the depth of understanding and personhood your child has?
While it may seem that the alternative to kill and drill or endless practice books would take a lot longer, the reality is sitting together and working through ideas and concepts actually saves both of you time. You as the guide or educator saves an immense amount of time in searching out practice activities and fighting your children to actually do said activities because most children can pick out a time waster with incredible accuracy. The child saves time because they aren’t doing work that will not help them move forward as a thinker, learner and person.
Work ought to be meaningful. Work ought to give us reason to think, question, and consider.
Does this mean that we should never have our children work on things like math facts or spelling words? I would argue that isn’t at all what I am saying. Rather these things should come with purpose. We work on these things to make ourselves more capable communicators and accurate problem solvers. Does it mean that we don’t drill words or facts daily just for the sake of doing the thing that we are told we should do? ABSOLUTELY!
If time is our most precious commodity, then rigor is our best tool for using that commodity wisely. Rigor relates to the quality of the work instead of the quantity of work. In many cases, rigorous work can infuse more learning into less time with less work than the piles of “practice work” given in less rigorous classrooms. No one wants to spend extended periods of time practicing for the sake of practice. While many would gladly do something that requires a deeper amount of work and thinking because it holds purpose and focus.
Ready to check out exactly what it means to homeschool with rigor? I’ve written an eBook just for you. For now, the book is completely free and ready for you to dig in and see how you can change the way you think about learning in your home. You can find this book by clicking here.
Everything we do costs us time. Is what you are choosing to do worthy of the time you are giving it? Is it worth using that part of your life to do it? Your minutes are expensive. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Keep it smart. Keep it simple.
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