All Year Round Homeschooling (including Summer)Yes, your children might fret about this "all year round homeschooling" also called "summer school", but there is a tremendous advantage to this. Remember the Aesop's fable "The Hare and the Tortoise"? Here it goes: "There once was a speedy hare who bragged about how fast he could run. Tired of hearing him boast, Slow and Steady, the tortoise, challenged him to a race. All the animals in the forest gathered to watch. Hare ran down the road for a while and then and paused to rest. He looked back at Slow and Steady and cried out, "How do you expect to win this race when you are walking along at your slow, slow pace?" Hare stretched himself out alongside the road and fell asleep, thinking, "There is plenty of time to relax."Slow and Steady walked and walked. He never, ever stopped until he came to the finish line.
The animals who were watching cheered so loudly for Tortoise, they woke up Hare. Hare stretched and yawned and began to run again, but it was too late. Tortoise was over the line. After that, Hare always reminded himself, "Don't brag about your lightning pace, for Slow and Steady won the race!" The lesson that we can relate to about this fable is about "how long should you be resting from school work?" Do you really need about 2 months for a school break? With the current economic recession, it is getting to be very expensive to take those month long vacations, much less a whole week. So, if you decide to stay at home, can you handle the grueling summer heat outside? Well, in the South, it gets pretty hot even in the beginning of summer. So, most families stay indoors and come out late in the afternoon to enjoy the rest of the afternoon. Thus, continuing your 6-hour school work in summer is not a big deal. It is just a matter of a change of attitude or a complete change of mindset about summer. If you think like a tortoise and just go "slow and steady" with your school work, you can accomplish a lot in the two months called "summer". The tangible advantages to our family are the following: 1. We do not lose the momentum. We do not find it hard to go from another level in a course especially in mathematics. Their brains are trained to accept any information everyday. Their body do not get sluggish from a long week of vacation. 2. The students can go to another grade level in the middle of the school year. For example, my daughter Cierra did 8th and 9th grade in one year. This keeps them motivated to move on. 3. The children learn not to be "idle". They learn to make decisions about their "free time". They are constantly working on something, either working on their school work or working at a project or extra curricular activities. 4. The children are super excited about "feasts days" in our Church and appreciate the meaning of the national holidays because it is considered a vacation day. They do not tend to take these holidays for granted. 5. For parents, we do not have to always plan or think of something to do with the summer days. We just continue with our normal school schedule. If there are funds, we take an educational field trip but still expect the children to do their school work before joining us or make up for it in another day. 6. When we get sick or there is a family emergency, we do not worry because we are always ahead of school work. 7. It instills an excellent educational philosophy that "daily learning" has tremendous value. 8. We finish high school earlier and we can begin to take college credits while in high school. One of my son completed one semester of college work and another son completed 30 college credits by the time they marched to their high school graduation ceremonies. 9. Because they have been studying all year, they do not resist any form of learning. Reading a book does not give them headaches. 10. We fulfill to keep Sunday holy. We rest on Sunday. Tremendous blessings of good health arise from this practice. All year round homeschooling works. The Robinson Curriculum advocates 6 days of studies per week. We do 5 days a week schedule. It is just a matter of planning out vacations not only in the summer but in the off-peak seasons too. |
