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Home Education Magazine
May-June 2002 - Articles and Columns
If This Is a Staff Meeting, It Must Be Social Studies - Caryn Sobel
Like many decisions in life, our decision to home educate while I worked full-time outside the home was based on our not knowing that it "couldn't be done." I had left medical school to get married and have a family, and brought into marriage over sixty thousand dollars of medical school loans. While pregnant with our daughter Emily, I read about homeschooling (and extended breastfeeding, family bed, etc.). We knew immediately that this is how we wanted to raise our family. However, I did not want my husband Rob to be an "absentee father" while he worked to pay off that mountainous debt. My work as a paramedic allowed me, a night owl, to work night shifts, which I have done for the last twelve years. Rob works days at the same station, and Emily has commuted back and forth with us since birth.
Last month, we paid off the debt. I now see a "normal schedule" in my near future, and I have finally allowed myself to examine how working has affected our home education. Before this, I wouldn't dwell on the subject - we've all had that feeling, "If I stand still to examine this, it will all fall apart!"
During most of the last twelve years, I could list for you at a moment's notice the disadvantages of home educating while working outside the home: the time constraints, lack of controlled environments, and the inordinate amount of time Emmy has spent in the car. What I now find amazing is that these challenges have become the jumping-off point for changes that enriched our experience. In retrospect, these very problem areas have led us from the early days of tightly structured, sit-at-the-desk-all-day schedules to the flexible, autonomous learning style philosophy that we live now. I won't pretend that the disadvantages have not been difficult, or that we haven't had to give up some activities we would have liked, but perhaps that is true of all life choices. These are just some of the ways we have found that help.
We have learned to work with the constraints of an externally-imposed schedule by becoming selective in our choices of activities. Since we work twelve-hour shifts, we stack them in the first half of the week, and use the second half for regular activities and lessons. Riding lessons, track and field, Girl Scouts, playdates, etc., are some of Emily's regular weekly activities. Playdates and activities can often be combined. Our home educating group tends to reserve Mondays for field trips, so I can still take Emily on a trip before I go to work. Still, whenever one of us wants to begin a new activity, we discuss it as a family. Out of necessity, we have been able to avoid what most of us fall prey to at some point, "activity overload." We are careful to protect our family time, even if it means that sometimes we miss a fun event. If you really give some thought to how to spend your time, and give yourself permission to not belong to everything, this is not as much a hardship as it initially appears.
Another way we have found of making the most of our time is to make lessons do double-duty. We discovered this accidentally, so I can not take credit for wondrous efficiency skills! Using one topic for the study of several subjects will be known to many of you as "unit studies." I, however, was ignorant of this when I found that combining themes across disciplines could also be a great way of learning in less time. When our budding astronomer studied the solar system, we learned how to compare ratios of the distances of planets from the sun, as well as the geometry of their orbits. Emily also indulged her passion for Greek mythology by teaching me the stories of the planets' namesakes. We volunteer with our local historical society, so Emily learned Colonial American history and conservation techniques for antique textiles while experiencing the music and art of the period. This is how we prefer to study, but it sure doesn't hurt that it also is an effective use of time.
The requirements of our job is that we attend continuing education events as well as the usual staff meetings. Our co-workers, company executives, and medical directors have made it possible, and rewarding, for Emily to attend. She has gone to these events with us ever since she was a nursling in a rebozo. When she was small, she would bring a backpack of tapes to listen to, art projects, and even lessons. Now that she is older, she wants to listen sometimes to the reviews of emergency topics. Our medical director warns us if a topic is too graphic or disturbing; she and I leave the room for a few minutes, or she plugs in a tape and sings to herself. Emily has learned during these years to work in an environment where other activities are going on, and it has been an easy, gradual way to improve her concentration.
And then, there is the car. We spend over two hours per day in the car during our workweek, and it became essential to make the trip interesting. We listen to NPR for news, and check out the stock market with "Marketplace." Through Kathleen Taylor's "Word for the Wise" segment every morning, Emily has developed a love of etymology that I couldn't have drilled into her. She also loves to read in the car, despite my mother's dire warnings about ruining her vision, and she has taken us through many of her favorite books and stories (Rob and I will always associate the Anne of Green Gables series with the New York State Thruway.) Since riding in a car can have many distractions, it's probably better to stay away from studying the areas your child finds difficult. Emily will read, listen to the radio, even take a spelling quiz, in the car, but if I even mention math there, she takes on a striking resemblance to Linda Blair in The Exorcist. And there are many days where we just chat, listen to her favorite country songs, and look for exotic license plates.
Our attempts to work around and through schedules have been made possible by the support of the people around us, many of whom probably aren't even aware of how they help us. My husband, first of all, has wanted me to stop working from the beginning. "Just say the word" is a family joke. Knowing that any time I wanted to stay home I had his support was what kept me going on the days I was tempted to do just that. It has been worth all my lost sleep - and more- to see Emily and Rob have equal time for the lessons and hobbies that they share. Our close family has come to be strong advocates of home education during these years, and are always there for us, for babysitting, providing favorite books and crafts, and for living history lessons. Our coworkers have known Emily since birth, and have become an extended family for her. They make her part of their lives, share her triumphs, and commiserate with her during multiplication tables about how bossy her mom can be. And we could not have dreamed of a better home education community than our local group. They are diverse, openhearted, and talented. I have never been punished for being a "working mom," and they have made possible for Emily many events and playdates that she would otherwise have missed.
Could we have continued home education during the hard times without this kind of support? Perhaps, but our experience would lack the richness and depth it has now. If we had our choice, would we have done it this way? Probably not, because the traditional home educating image is so appealing. But there are more and more of us out here who for legitimate reasons cannot live on one salary. Home education has always been about choice and flexibility. If families are willing to be flexible, realistic, and can develop a good support network, home education can still be the best choice for families who must work outside the home.
If You Need to Work Outside the Home
1. If you need to go outside your home to find work, consider jobs that can give you shift work, or flex-time: positions at stores that stay open at night, dispatchers for police or taxi, data entry operators, etc.
2. Look for family-friendly working environments. Network within your field of interest, and don't forget to talk with other homeschooling families about potential workplaces.
3. Be flexible! Be willing to combine topics and disciplines, to study in the car, to turn real-life situations into lessons, even to change your carved-in-stone learning preferences. We do this anyway, in home education.
4. Be realistic. Your child (and yourself) will not be able to belong to every club, sport, and activity he or she wishes. Choose wisely, and re-evaluate periodically.
5. Communicate with each other! Make the time to sit down together often and find out what is working and what is not for all of you. Then see #3.
6. Become organized. I hate it, it is not natural to me, but there is no easy way around it. Life will be totally chaotic without keeping tabs on who needs to be where, for what, when.
7. Let your friends and family help. Take this from someone who tried at first to do everything without "imposing" on anyone. When they say they want to help, they mean it.
8. Reciprocate in whatever fashion you can: playdates, carpooling, paying expenses for activities that the stay-at-home families can't afford, etc. Some of your friends will have more time than you, and you may have more money. Share resources.
9. Try to leave work at work when you come home. Enough said.
10. Do not try to teach geometry, intransitive verbs, or the reasons for the Fall of Rome on less than four hours of sleep, or two cups of espresso, whichever you have access to.
11. Remember to enjoy this. Home educating and working is a lot like having a newborn in the house: you could always do with a bit more sleep, and none of you would change it for the world.
© 2002 Caryn Sobel
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May-June 2002 - Articles and Columns
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