finding our niche

I haven't written much here about our schooling methods. There are several reasons for that, but probably the biggest reason is that we have been in a state of flux for the last six months. I have been homeschooling since January of 2005. One would think I would have had it together long ago. But alas, not so much.

We began our journey wholly immersed in the Well Trained Mind method of classical education. It fit my then eighth grader beautifully, and since his younger sister was only of kindergarten age that year, she floated right along with him. Then my son went back to public school and all of the extra-curricular stuff he thrives on. That fits him - if not academically, then through the avenues of athletics, music, and social interaction.

When my daughter was of first grade age we radically unschooled or possibly gently deschooled for six months. Although that was very relaxing, I felt I became too relaxed. I'm not a good radically unschooling mom and after awhile, my gentleness begins to wane. I need more structure than that. I didn't do a good job of recognizing and making the most of learning opportunities. I knew we had to make a change. And change we did.

Now that I only had my precocious "first grader" at home as well as her pre-school aged sister, I sought out a gentler, sweeter, yet still challenging method. Charlotte Mason with all her beauty, grace, and twaddle free direction stepped into my life and made a true believer out of me. Ambleside Online made the transition inexpensive if not easy. I thought I had truly found what we needed. However after about 12 weeks, the parsed readings and use of curriculum that I found unnecessary took their toll on me.

This is where things became clearly difficult for us. I had a "gifted" non-reader. I had never heard of such a child. She refused to read, but was light years ahead of the fifteen minute lessons we had adopted with CM. We struggled through our reader and phonics program every single day. By the time we got to history and math and science and geography and anything else you can name, I was so exhausted by the trial of just making it through reading, that I didn't want to recognize the exceptional stuff my daughter was doing right before my eyes. For months, I failed her. I stuck with the program for the program's sake and because life was just plain difficult for us during that time. Sticking with our schooling choices was at least something we could count on, so on that score, I have no regrets.

So months went flying by as they have a habit of doing. I found myself lurking at some wonderful message boards and blogs, just trying to find someone somewhere who could relate to our circumstances. Then I realized, like a thunderbolt, that we are not any other family. Nobody, nowhere needs the exact same things we need. It's up to me to create what our learning life will be, and after spending years teaching privately as well as in the public schools, I should be up to the task for pity sake. But still - yikes!

My inspiration has come in many forms from varied voices - all beautiful - all singing out their own journeys. The three years that I have homeschooled my children has been the greatest education I have received to date. More than anything, I've learned to trust myself and my children to find our own path to our learning style. I'm not certain of our label, but labels are a tricky business at best. We seem to be heading toward a life mixed with classical education in a somewhat unschoolish setting. Does that make us classical unschoolers?

I'm just beginning the task of trying to put my finger on this "giftedness" (oh, but I shy from that label) of my daughter, but that is another post. For now, we are bravely going where we have not yet been, and we are pretty excited about the trip!