Way back in December 2000, I graduated from college with a degree in Early Childhood Education. I was certified to teach grades K-8. I spent half a year subbing in all of the schools in my area – K-12. It gave me a taste of the different age levels, but I knew I’d go wherever I was offered a job. In August of 2001, I started teaching third grade at the elementary school I attended as a child. The following year, after an out-of-state move, I taught fourth grade science and social studies.
At the end of my second year of teaching, we were moving out of state again. Homeschooling had long been on my heart. I begged my husband to let me homeschool my kids. Let me just “give it a try” and see if it works. I was a certified teacher, for goodness sake, how hard could it be!
How My Teaching Degree Hurt My Homeschool
Wow! That first year was tougher than I ever imagined! I didn’t fully research our curriculum options. Instead, I used what someone blessed me with. I proceeded to replicate my classroom experience in my basement. We started at 9AM. We had a snack and lunch break. We finished at 2:30PM. My little guy sat at his desk and ‘did school’ all day long.
Ugh! It took me the entire year to realize what a disservice I was doing to him – and to me. We were missing out on so much that the freedom of homeschooling has to offer. If my lesson plan said write, he wrote. If my lesson plan said do 35 math problems today, he did 35 math problems that day.
I was inflexible. I stuck to the school calendar, because it’s what I was used to. I used text books for everything, because it’s what I was used to. It’s what he was used to, as well.
Thankfully, after that rocky first year, I learned to lighten up a bit. I realized school didn’t have to always look like ‘school’. I had to get all that classroom training out of my system so that I could meet Logan where he was and move forward with the freedom that homeschooling gave us.
We started having fun. We started doing more hands-on projects and taking more field trips. We joined a homeschool PE class at our local YMCA and began attending story time at the library for Isaac.
I sifted through all that I had learned in college and in my classroom. I kept what was useful and pertinent to our new academic journey. I put away all the fillers I needed to keep a classroom running smoothly. I began to enjoy homeschooling in the way that was best for our family.
Here I am in my 14th year, and I am down to my last student. We’re navigating the middle school years together, and it has absolutely nothing to do with my teaching degree!
Your turn:
Do you have a teaching degree? Has it been a help or a hindrance in your homeschool?
I have felt this way for a while (and have only been homeschooling for five years).
I feel that having my teacher certification has hindered me in many ways regarding my homeschooling methods. I had the illusion of re-creating what I had known for so long in the classroom into my homeschool routine.
I’m so glad I have seen the light and am going with the flow- flexibility is SO important and I plan for each day but also take my children’s lead.
Thanks for posting this….I can totally relate. 😉
I can SO relate! I didn’t research either, so I picked a curriculum that was familiar to me – and looked/felt exactly like what I had used while teaching in a public school. People assume that a teaching degree helps, but the kids and I could only tolerate my ‘perfect’ schedule & curriculum for about the first year-and-a-half and then we ALL burned out! I extensively researched curriculum and, 3 years in, we’re all happier for it. My teaching courses taught me how to teach curriculum, not how to teach children. Once I focused on our family’s needs, life got a whole lot better. 😉
Yes. I have my degree in Early Childhood Ed and proceeded to teach my children he same way you did our first year of homeschooling. After that I realized that I was really seeking approval from my peers at my old job. Would they approve of my strict classroom teaching style that I had been trained in all the years I taught? The following year all that went out the window and we did a lot of fun things in addition to our regular school stuff. well my daughter graduated from high school and college no worse for the wear and my son is due to graduate from college in the next 6 months.
Congrats on your grads!
I’m so glad you found your groove!
I’m glad to know I’m not the only one… 😉
I homeschool my 6&8 year old and have such a hard time with this! I think it’s a combination of my personality and my teaching degree. I have such a hard time being flexible and leaving the lesson plan! It’s like I NEED to check the box that we did a reading lesson and a math lesson and a — lesson EVERY day. How did you all get past this? I WANT to be flexible, I just don’t know how 🙁
I have a B.Ed and Public/Private school experience and it has definitely made homeschooling more difficult. I find it so hard to get out of the formal school mind set and the feeling of being behind that it can really mess our days/weeks/months up. Thankfully we have a great support group and I’m able to let go of those feelings/expectations and actually enjoy this adventure we’re on. Thank you for your post–nice to know it’s not just me! 🙂
This is such an interesting read for those of us who DON’T have a teaching degree. There seems to be a belief that parents can’t teach their kids because they aren’t qualified, but it sounds like even parents who are “qualified” find homeschooling to be so entirely different from regular school that the certification doesn’t matter anyway! Thanks for sharing.
Oh yes! I have my masters in ECE and spent a few years doing long term subbing and working in daycare. I always have people tell me “well, it’s OK for you to homeschool you’re a teacher!” and I always tell them that it has hurt more than it has helped. It made it so much harder to give up that public school mindset and has made me more rigid than I probably would have been if I was “just a mom.”
I have seen this too in the mums I have tried to help in their homeschooling – the teachers have the biggest jump! Ironic my son is training to become a teacher – and when asked about the seeming conflict there – a homeschool student becoming a teacher – his answer is – I love learning and want other kids to as well. It will be interesting to see if he has a jump to make when he becomes a parent. Not that he will necessarily be a homeschooler – but it will be interesting to see how being a teacher will affect his thinking.
No, I do not have a Degree and so I am not sure if it would help or hinder us. But since we just started Homeschooling and most of the time I feel like I am sinking it might have made things easier for us.
I’ve often wondered how different this journey would have been if I had not been trained as a teacher to start…
I don’t have a teaching degree, but for the first couple of years we home schooled, and admittedly up until probably last year, I structured our home school days as a “class”. It didn’t work out. We all got burnt out. Now, I give a little when it comes to their work and try to find more interesting things to do that have to do with the topic they are learning.
Thanks for sharing this!
I really enjoyed this.
My baby isn’t even a year old yet, but I like reading articles and perspectives about homeschooling because it’s something I’d really like to do. The freedom that comes with homeschooling is something that really attracts me, and it’s really nice to see you taking advantage of that. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences <3
Thanks for sharing with us at Merry Monday.
I can’t say that I’m totally past it, honestly. It’s still a very real struggle, but it helps that my daughter is old enough to gently remind me. 🙂
I am so glad to see this post! So many homeschool moms who were never teachers struggle to create school-at-home thinking it is the only way to educate children. There is such a wide world out there to explore and kids miss out if they are stuck at a desk filling out workbooks.