The Curriculum Comfort Zone
"I'm most comfortable when I'm following the curriculum," says one mom I recently worked with.
Not an uncommon feeling with many homeschool parent-teachers. We trust the curriculum developers to have spent the time and money necessary to design a sequence of learning experiences that will lead children from A to Z in a specific subject area.
And most are designed this way. BUT they are also designed for the MASSES and based on AVERAGES.
When you are teaching a large group this is the best option a teacher has to help as many children as possible move from A to Z in understanding.
But you are teaching 1. OK maybe more than one, but typically only one per grade level. And this 1 is NOT AVERAGE. Therefore the best option to lead this child from A to Z understanding is to PERSONALIZE the learning experience.
You don't have to throw out the curriculum, but you do need to consider if it's reaching your...
Love Your Client NOT Your Content
Yesterday I was working with my social media marketing/Business coach, Caitlin Bacher, and she reminded me, "Love your CLIENT, NOT your content."
I have spent my whole life loving my students and wanting to give them the best learning experience, but somehow with my homeschooling work I focused on the wrong students. While their kids are the ones who get the ultimate benefit of my work, HOMESCHOOL PARENTS are MY students. They are my learners.
I feel re-focused on my client... as I now see them as my learner, depending on me to give them my BEST. I have a new excitement about building a community in my FREE Facebook Group, Rookie Homeschoolers. It's a place for me to find out what they need, encourage them in their journey, show them how to support each other, and help them take the best steps to be a GREAT Homeschool TEACHER.
I'm doing my first FB LIVE and I'm nervous. But when I remind myself that I've stood in front of 1000s of learners from ages...