Lesser is Bes’ser

Sometimes when I hear how much time a mom spends homeschooling her children each day, I want to scream, “Are you nuts?! That’s too much.”

I was a public school kid…it was a pretty normal school at the time. No one got shot, teachers cared and weren’t afraid to apply the board of education to the seat of the problem. But even as a fourth grader at White River Elementary school, I can remember thinking, this is a waste of time. I can remember thinking that if they took away all the ‘herding’ time, locker-time, time spent changing classes, and time spent trying to get the class under control…they could condense all the actual learning into about 15 minutes.

The truth is…school took all day because it was necessary to spend the whole day just to get in a half-hour of learning.

Here’s the problem: homeschoolers think a good homeschool means you spend as many hours as a regular school.

We’ve killed learning in our homes because we’re doing it for too long. How long is too long? I’m not going to answer that for you…but whatever you’re doing…do less.

If your kids are under 10, you should be done by mid-morning. If your kids are below high school you should be done by lunch, and even if they’re in high school,  the core subjects should not drag out into the late afternoon. And don’t even get me started on evenings, weekends, and VACATIONS!!!

And you don’t even need to worry about doing school for those under 8.  Just let them play or do pretend school, color, listen to read-alouds, and have fun.

Don’t confuse spending a long time doing a subject with more learning. It’s the opposite…plus it’s NO fun!  Besides, real learning takes place after the books close for the day. That’s not just a nice thing to say; it’s the truth!

So that formula again is this: however long you’re currently doing school….do less. And in some cases… do a LOT LESS!