Many homeschooling parents start out with a school-at-home mindset. They start hunting for a Grade 4 curriculum package, for example, which will provide them with all the text books and workbooks they think they will need, just like the kids in Grade 4 in school.
Sadly, some find such packages and stick with them and seem to have very little freedom in their homeschooling journeys, as they pace themselves to keep up with the demands of the programme.
Others, soon discover, or hear from other homeschooling parents, that there is a great variety of different types of homeschool curricula and they start trying out different options, until they find the products and programmes that suit their family best.
As their children mature and are able to work more independently, many parents find that they transition from teachers to mere facilitators and co-learners. Many take great delight in learning along with their children, revisiting subjects which they did not enjoy during their own institutional school careers.
As a home educating parent, it is thrilling to find curriculum authors /creators who are passionate about their field of expertise and who want to share their delight with the learners who use their products.
For example, instead of a text book, written by a panel of pedagogues, we have as one of our curriculum authors, an experienced Maths teacher, who is also a homeschooling dad. He wants children to ‘see’ Maths and shares his love for his subject in our home each week, via a series of lessons on DVD, which accompany the series of workbooks and manipulatives he has created.
Then for Science, we learn from a university professor who wants homeschoolers to cope easily with physics, chemistry and other sciences at university level. His passion for his subject is also contagious.
Recently, we discovered an expressive writing programme, also created by a homeschooler and ex-teacher. He hated writing so much as a school boy that he has found a way to teach the required skills, so that even the most reluctant writers find the lessons and instructional DVDs engaging and they become effective communicators, who excel in their writing skills at college level!
There are numerous other experts, who have also ‘taught’ in our home. It is indeed a privilege to be able to be eclectic* and to be able to select some of the best homeschooling curricula of the world to use in our schoolrooms at home.
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*In March 2011, the Pretoria High Court ruled that homeschoolers and private schools are not required to follow the national curriculum.