I don't skip through the halls of homeschool conventions singing this news (for fear of being smacked, punched, or gunned down — or maybe all three!), but my children do enjoy learning. It gives them pleasure and satisfaction. They delight in their studies.
So there. I said it. I usually refrain from advertising my love-to-learn kids because I don't think people will believe my crazy claims; I don't want anyone else to feel like I'm having an I'm-better-than-you moment (because I'm not); and I don't want another mom to feel as if she's failed (because she hasn't).
I believe there are a dozen reasons why my boys find learning delightful, but two outweigh the rest. The first is that they are curious. The second is that I encourage them to spend time satisfying their interests. My boys delight in their studies because they are studying their delights.
Four or five years ago a homeschooling friend and I were chatting about Elijah and his current self-started study of eagles. She smiled and replied, "Following his interests? Oh, you must be delight directed."
I squirmed and squeaked and squealed inside. What? A homeschooling philosophy that matches mine? I've never heard of it!
So I scurried home and googled "delight-directed" and landed a few short articles. I read them and re-read them. I started planning less and allowing my son to lead more. When I saw how much he absorbed while chasing his curiosities, I started planning even less and allowing him to lead even more.
Delight directed homeschooling, for us, has included two main components:
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child-led ~ The topics studied, the activities completed, the projects created — are determined by the interests of my children. Each day my boys have required chunks of time to research, create, play, read, wonder, write, find, design, listen, discover, draw, discuss, build, and explore.
- parent facilitated ~ I see my role as stirrer of curiosity, supplier of rich resources, and giver of large doses of inspiration. I study my students (their questions, talents, interests, and passions) so I know what to provide and when to provide it.
For the remainder of this week, I'm going to discuss delight directed education. Friday's post will be a Q & A. Please post any questions you have for me in the comments section, and I will try to address them in the final post.
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Hi Colleen!
I will tackle this topic on Thursday as I discuss what I do require of my children and how I accomplish/determine “necessary learning.” š
P.S. It sounds like you have an amazing little guy on your hands! š
Hi Therese! š
Length of studies is discussed tomorrow.
I didn’t have a library for the first few years of this, so I will try to answer your resource question on Friday. Thanks for asking! š
Just for fun, I asked my four boys to give me some topics they would like to study. One refused (he is seven) and the others came back with this:
14 year old:Probabilities; endangered species; history of superheroes.
12 year old: magnetism, how to make a profit, how to make a website
9 year old: 9/11; World War 2, family history
I think I am going to start with history of superheroes……
This is certainly the way we lean too. It’s why we do homeschool share units. My son LOVES them. I tried something else, and by day two, I was dashing around for a book to do that week, because he didn’t enjoy it, and I’m not about to force my kid to do something he doesn’t enjoy. Let’s face it, how much do you remember of school from before high school? I just want my kids to enjoy learning, and we’ll worry about the facts in those last few years before college.
I don’t see childhood as preparation for adulthood, I see it as it’s own period in life. My life now is not lived “in preparation” for old age, so I think it’s ludicrous to think that my 5 year old needs to be preparing for when he’s 25. That is just not how life works. When he’s 20 he can worry about the next 5 years. Life will happen in the meantime and he will be prepared. I want him to enjoy life in the moment. I think a lot of traditional schooling is about preparing for a future that may or may not ever come. I don’t think it’s a healthy attitude for an adult to have, muchless a child. We try to live in the present, always. Always learning, but not for some future goal, but because learning is pleasurable.
We do a lot of reading chapter books, and then doing an activity based on that book if we can. If the characters go to camp, we watch camp songs on youtube. If the characters experience quicksand, we mix up some quicksand. And since it’s outside of official “school time” (well, supposedly, I still write it down!), it’s all about cultivating curiosity! I have a few questions:
1. Do you have to submit a yearly plan to your school district? We live in NY so we have a lot of paperwork to follow. We have to submit an instruction plan for the year which tells what we will cover, and then we have to report that we covered at least 80% of it. Right now, this won’t be a problem. My kids LOVE FIAR/HSS units, and it is fully my intent to do just that for elementary school. Probably beyond FIAR for middle school, so I suspect I’ll just report on that stuff and consider all the other stuff extra. It’s beautiful when you can just do things conversationally and consider them “covered”! Still, if you have to do this, I would love to hear how you do. Or if not, I’d love to hear some suggestions if you have them!
2. How does this affect your schedule for the year? I know unschoolers don’t take “breaks” because they’re just living life and learning. I see delight-directed homeschooling to be a little like that, but I still plan on taking a summer. It’s not that they won’t be learning, I just won’t be recording it, and I’ll have less structured “school time” during the day (I’m planning on keeping up with phonics, and doing some spanish, since my kids are really interested in that but I have dropped the ball this school year with it!).
3. I would love to hear about the specifics of what you do. Are you still very structured, even though you are delight-directed? Do you have curriculum for language arts, etc. or do those things just fit in with your life? As I’m heading down this path, I find myself becoming less structured, so I’m interested to see how it works for you!
Thanks for such a great series!
Sounds fabulous, Paula! Your boys have some great ideas!