2. Paper hoarding
What is really in the Permanent Record?
Most home school parents have never been teachers in the Official School System. As such, a lot of folks who are new to the process can get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of paperwork home schooling can generate. After all, their experience with being elementary school students involved bringing the papers home, taking back the ones that needed to be signed or finished, then bringing some more home the next day.
But what happened to all of those finished math worksheets, grammar exercises, and science papers that came home every day?
I don't know either. And that's the point.
Early on in our home schooling career, we knew we should keep records. Attendance? Of course. Report cards? Sure -- both on the computer and paper back-ups.
Beyond that, we read that we should keep a "representative sample" of our kids' work. Year 1 that meant keeping one out of every 100 pieces of paper our kids generated in their Student Notebook. But even that was too much, so year 2 we decided that we would either keep it forever, or throw it away. And when the "Keep forever" folder got too thick, we pared it down again. This happened about once every six weeks.
Year 3 we got even stricter. One paper or project per subject per nine weeks. If you want to keep this one, you have to throw the other away. No exceptions. What was amazing was that a) we didn't feel any nostalgia at all for a random Wednesday in February's multiplication drills, b) the paper flow is much easier to manage, and c) now that we've gotten into the habit of throwing school papers away, it's much easier to get rid of other stuff we don't need anymore.
Now to be fair, we haven't had any kids apply to college yet, so we haven't seen the full impact of throwing away all of those 3rd Grade Easy Grammar assignments. But I for one am willing to take the chance that it won't come up on a daughter's application to Vanderbilt.
The trash can is your friend. And he's hungry. Feed him well, and everybody's life will be happier.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
Things That Ought Not Be -- Part 1
Now that a new school year is starting, it's time to get back into blogging mode. Now this blog is primarily for dads, but moms are occasionally welcome to listen in. Mostly it's me running my mouth, or posting notes for classes I teach. This fall it'll be Creative Writing, Story of the World Part 3, SAT/ACT prep, and Microeconomics.
But before we get to what is and what will be, I feel compelled to mention some things that exist, but shouldn't.
1. Home school scrapbooks. Memo to home school mom -- You have enough to do. Between teaching, planning lessons, grading papers, and -- especially is you have high school kids -- learning the stuff you have to turn around and teach, just the academic stuff is a 20+-hour per week job by itself. And that's not including all the activities kids tend to be involved in that demand Mom's time behind the wheel of a car. Then throw in your local home school group (and yes, you need them and they need you), and pretty soon a schedule gets so full it will explode.
Yet in many home schooling magazines, I see articles about scrap booking.
Seriously.
Stop it. Just stop it. If you're going to survive as a home school parent -- let alone thrive -- the first and most important thing you have to know is your own limits. Know what you can do, do what needs to be done, then start telling things no.
I know you can do this. Good home school moms tell their kids "No" all the time. And you know what to do when they get all sad-faced at you.
Now is the time to take what you've learned and use it on the sad-faced person in the mirror.
Be as organized as you need to be to stay sane. Keep as many records as you need to keep so that those who need to look at them later can see what you've done. If you want to include scrapbook pages as part of your kids' "make your own yearbook" assignment, go for it.
But don't get so caught up in preserving memories that you lose the capacity to make new ones.
Get some rest, Mom. You've earned it.
But before we get to what is and what will be, I feel compelled to mention some things that exist, but shouldn't.
1. Home school scrapbooks. Memo to home school mom -- You have enough to do. Between teaching, planning lessons, grading papers, and -- especially is you have high school kids -- learning the stuff you have to turn around and teach, just the academic stuff is a 20+-hour per week job by itself. And that's not including all the activities kids tend to be involved in that demand Mom's time behind the wheel of a car. Then throw in your local home school group (and yes, you need them and they need you), and pretty soon a schedule gets so full it will explode.
Yet in many home schooling magazines, I see articles about scrap booking.
Seriously.
Stop it. Just stop it. If you're going to survive as a home school parent -- let alone thrive -- the first and most important thing you have to know is your own limits. Know what you can do, do what needs to be done, then start telling things no.
I know you can do this. Good home school moms tell their kids "No" all the time. And you know what to do when they get all sad-faced at you.
Now is the time to take what you've learned and use it on the sad-faced person in the mirror.
Be as organized as you need to be to stay sane. Keep as many records as you need to keep so that those who need to look at them later can see what you've done. If you want to include scrapbook pages as part of your kids' "make your own yearbook" assignment, go for it.
But don't get so caught up in preserving memories that you lose the capacity to make new ones.
Get some rest, Mom. You've earned it.
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