Part 1: What to study? Coming up with a vision!

I think that one of the most overwhelming thing for any homeschooling parent, veteran or newbie, is to determine the area of study for a year, a month or even a day.   If there is an overall framework it makes the decisions easier:
--if there is a theme for the year, the month's reinforce that
--if there is a theme for the month, the day's plans more easily fall into place

Often, I feel that God is asking us, "What do you want to teach your children?" and then when I have the plan, BOOM!!  He starts opening the floodgates of heaven to rain down resources.

However, maybe many of you are in the same boat I have been in for years: what to do, where to begin, how to cover everything?

I think I just realized over these past few months that this is one of the problems of the stress I have had behind my homeschooling. I am always so worried about what I am not teaching my children that I have a problem focusing and enjoying what we are learning!!

Look at any one of us who are products of the great and majestic public school program.  We were "on track" to get everything we "need": from ancient to modern history, from addition to calculus.  How many of us remember or even covered "all" the information? Anyone?  Anyone??  Then why do we beat ourselves up as homeschoolers to do the same!

I have a new mantra:

The goal of my homeschooling is not to cover "everything." (As if this were even possible!!!) The goal of my homeschooling is to create thinking, responsible and compassionate adults who know how to learn, know how to work and know how to serve.

If that is my objective, my planning is going to be a lot different each year.  If your objective is to have your child know everything in Hirsch's grade-level series or what is in different programs, you know where to look.  That is fantastic!! They are great programs and your children will be brilliant!

Just decide. :)

Having had two emerge now from my home and realizing how much they don't know, I have had to come to terms with that.  Am I proud of them?  Did they learn what they need to learn?  The answer to the first is a resounding YES.  The answer to the second is a heavenly-sent YES.  Did they learn everything I tried to teach them? NO. :)  Laughable.  I have learned so much, though, and in the process the above has become my mantra for my family.  So why not focus on that for now, and not stress about Hirsch's series unless it fits within that mantra?

So back to the question: what to teach my children?

Hicks, in his book "Norms and Nobility," captures in just the preface, prologue and chapter 1 what I want for my children.  It is a dry read at times, but completely worth it.  Here are some tantalizing quotes from it:

The supreme task of education is the cultivation of the human spirit: to teach the young to know what is good, to serve it above self, to reproduce it, and to recognize that in knowledge lies this responsibility.

TO be a little lower than the angels was not so much a dream as a high calling to hard service.  Man served the state or he served himself; he served his higher nature or he served his lower nature; he served God or he served Mammon. His freedom was often defined as a fraction, with service in the numerator.

  service   = freedom

self                  

For those who don't love math as I do, the higher the top part of the fraction, the bigger the answer.  The smaller the bottom half, the bigger the answer.  More service, less self = more freedom.  Truth.  The purpose of math.  The purpose of education.

Charlotte Mason and others echo this goal of nobility in education.

So where to start?  If your goal is similar to mine, read on!!!  

If not, find your own goal and believe in it!!