I'm a fan of year-round home education.
After
all, plenty of learning happens in homeschools even when the books are closed.
Additionally, there are a good many reasons for all children to continue with year-round formal academics
– and all the more so for home-educated kids since (unlike with institutional
schools) we generally face few real barriers to it. And besides all that, I
resonate with the idea of purposely being different from traditional schools in
any way I can – just because I can!
In
early 2012, my family and I “went rogue” by changing our official academic
calendar from the typical northern hemisphere approach (i.e., a “school year”
that runs from September through May) to the southern hemisphere way of doing
things. In other words, we run an academic term (or “school year”) from
January through December. And we go year-round.
So
for record-keeping purposes we start a “new year” in early January and study
for six weeks before taking a one-week hiatus in mid-February. Then we study
for roughly six more weeks and take another break in late March or early April,
adjusting as necessary each year so our vacation week coincides with our desire
to take a break around Easter. We take a third week off in mid-May and then
study through the end of June before taking our summer vacation for all of
July.
We
start up again in early August, but extend our study weeks to seven or eight in
a row so that, in addition to a week off in late September, we get to take off
during Thanksgiving week, too. Then, depending on when Thanksgiving falls, we
study for a week or two more before breaking for most of December as our winter
vacation.
All
in all, such a schedule amounts to about 190 official “school days,” though we
log closer to 200 when counting field trips and other incidental educational
activities that occur during our hiatus weeks and on some weekends. And it
works really well for a variety of reasons.
First, it motivates my children. I aim to make their bookwork as engaging as possible, but the fact
remains that all kids enjoy free time. So when my daughters realize they get a
vacation every six (or seven or eight) weeks, they more readily focus on their
lessons. Second, having shorter vacations enhances learning
and memory because my kids never
take more than a few weeks at a time away from their formal academics. And third, it prevents boredom. Our longest hiatus is four or five weeks long, and for at least
two of those weeks, my kids are occupied with church camp and our annual family
lake vacation. They readily occupy their time during the remaining weeks and
never reach the point of feeling they have “nothing to do.”
Additionally,
it eases my workload – I plan in
six-week increments instead of feeling the need to organize a semester or even
a whole year ahead of time – thus eliminating the potential for burnout. It
also makes homeschool budgeting much easier because we don’t have an artificially-set “first day of the
year” for which I need to buy all new materials all at one time; instead, the
year-round system creates an atmosphere of continuous learning so we simply buy
new books for each content area whenever we need them all throughout the year. Finally,
it illustrates truth for my sphere of influence – i.e., that there is nothing sacred or magical about the typical public school calendar. In
fact, the way things are done today is very different from public school
calendars in earlier eras (i.e., not so long ago, kids went to school in winter
and summer but stayed home in the
fall and spring in keeping with their families’ need for extra help on their
homesteads). So by being different, we demonstrate that today’s typical school
calendar is simply one option, not the one-and-only way to do things.
Some
question our system, suggesting that it limits my kids’ free time during the
fleeting summer months. But – even though I live in Wisconsin, where our
summers are, indeed, too short – I haven’t found that to be a problem in
practice. In June and August, I do decrease our daily workload a tad – though
not by much – to make room for summer activities. Thus, I insure that we finish
our bookwork by lunch so our afternoons remain open to summer fun, and that
usually works perfectly well. However, I also feel free to make other
adjustments – i.e., taking off for a morning instead of an afternoon or even
setting aside one day’s planned lessons entirely – when spontaneous activities
present themselves. As homeschoolers, we’re not slaves to a schedule; we make our
schedule work for us. We can do that in summer just as we do during the rest of
the year instead of feeling that summer “requires” us to completely abstain
from formal lessons.
One
beauty – among so many – in homeschooling is that each of us has the freedom to
do what makes sense for our particular family. When the “norm” is not our
preference, we can do something different. We can go against the flow.
What about you? Have you considered
customizing your family’s home learning calendar even if that means it runs
counter to the status quo? Why or why not?
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