I've been a horrible blogger lately. So bad, I'm not even sure you can call me a blogger anymore. However, I'm giving it a try once again. I will have a high schooler next year (and 2 high schoolers the year after that!), so I'm feeling the need to savor every minute I have left with them. One way to do that, and to hold on to all the memories, is to blog about our adventures.
I thought I would start out by talking about the changes I am making to our homeschool next year. The biggest change is that I'm going to change to textbooks. I've thought of doing this in the past, but guilt over the lack of a living books education for my children held me back. Something I read awhile back has really stayed with me, though, and I've let go of this guilt.
What was this "something" that I read? Basically, it was said that our goal in homeschooling is to teach our children to have a heart for God. This can be done with any style of education, all the way from unschooling to traditional textbooks. Pondering this over the months has helped me realize that thinking that one educational method is the "be all and end all" is just plain wrong. I need to find what works for me and for my children. And honestly, the few textbooks we've done over the years have been very successful. I have felt comfortable with them and the kids have learned.
I made the final decision a few months ago to switch to textbooks for next year and I have never felt such peace about a curriculum choice. Even the arrival of the annual Sonlight catalog had absolutely no impact on my decision. :) I am eager to start our new adventure in the fall with textbooks.
I will be posting my list of exactly which textbooks we'll be using in another post.
1 comment:
I've been struggling with a similar issue, debating between literature-based schooling and textbook (Sonlight and BJU), so thanks for your post! I've decided to use BJU history with distance learning videos, but still want to add in as many of those enticing Sonlight books as we can. We'll see how it goes. I'm switching to BJU videos mostly for math and English right now, but have also felt guilty about using (expensive) videos instead of directly teaching them myself. However, the stress on me (I am definitely not a teacher at heart), and the ability of my kids to learn best, is my over-riding consideration. You are definitely right, though, that no one method is the best for everyone, and there are many different methods that will produce the same results in the end.
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