Textbooks and Kids | What I Wish I’d Known Before I Started Homeschooling
My poor kids! They were guinea pigs and my oldest got the worst of it! Back in the 80s when we started homeschooling, none of us knew what we were doing. All we knew was there had to be a better way than sending our kids off to be taught by strangers in an increasingly questionable environment. Unfortunately, the only model of education we had available to us was the 12 or more years of traditional schooling that we had endured. If I were to do it all over again, here are some of the things I wish I had known. My kids don’t have to finish a textbook. There’s nothing wrong with choosing not to finish a textbook, or to pick out parts of it and ignore other parts. Teachers in traditional schools do this all the time. Using textbooks does not prevent gaps in learning. One of my greatest fears about homeschooling was that somehow my kids would get to adulthood not knowing all they needed to know to function in society. Following the textbooks was supposed to alleviate that. It d...