On the Job Training

As homeschoolers, we have the opportunity to learn right along with our kids. That's a benefit to homeschooling. So it's a little odd to me when people suggest homeschooling falls apart when the student reaches a point in, say, math that the teacher never encountered in school.

We can learn a subject we need to teach.

Granted, we don't have to. There are many resources available to homeschooling parents who don't feel comfortable tackling Calculus, Chemistry, or Cuneiform. And that is yet another benefit of homeschooling: We can reach outside our "district" for resources to better educate our children.

But back to the topic at hand: I don't remember much of anything from my high school Calculus class. But given 10 years of math review and a solid math program, I'm sure I could figure it out with my kid. And there's something fun about figuring it out together. Just this last week, I was helping one of my college friends with Physics. I was the first to realize that the closest the two vehicles would get to each other was the moment before car #2 reached the velocity of car #1.

It was fun!

With homeschooling, we get to learn (and relearn) right along with our children. We get on the job training.

And, really, that's not much different from professional teachers. The best professional educators tend to be the ones who have been doing it for a while. They've had a chance to go through years of on the job training to get to where they are today. And if we, say, start homeschooling when our children are three or four years of age, we'll have plenty of years under our belt by the time they bump into something currently over our heads.

What's something you've enjoyed (re)learning with your children?

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Empty Nester