Good Endeavors

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Educational Approaches

There are some basic approaches to education, explained below. They can be used with fidelity, for instance, you can teach using only pure Project-Based or Academic-Focused curricula. You also can pick out parts you like from several, and combine them. The parts can also be integrated with a purchased curriculum, to enrich it or customize it to better suit your child and his or her interests.

Each has its pros and cons, and it may take trial and error to learn which ones are best for your child and program. Some of them have little to no direct instruction and others lean heavily on direct instruction. Research has shown that direct instruction can help children learn content faster, within a play or project-based program and it is easy to add to any of the systems that usually do not rely upon direct instruction. The important thing is to offer experiential activities that reinforce the direct instruction lesson concepts, letting your child practice and play with the ideas and skills.

When I worked with families as a teacher, a common problem homeschool parents had was in getting their children to do the work. The kids would refuse or fight them, and not be motivated to do the work. As a teacher, I learned to create lessons that engaged the kids. If they were engaged, they were motivated to do the work. If a lesson didn’t engage them, I could hold out the reward of a session of play or a project or game they loved, that they could do after finishing their dreaded worksheet or studies. If the work was too difficult because the child could not yet understand the content, waiting a few weeks or months to reintroduce it, can do wonders. If your child has a chronic bad attitude about working on schoolwork, the curriculum could be a bad fit. Find something they look forward to doing each day, where there’s no battles to get them to do it. There are many products, companies, books, methods, and you can even go your own way and design something that is tailor made for your children.

The other thing that helped me was using “Love and Logic” methods of discipline with them. My students related well to this and it cut down on the resistance and behavior problems. Kids are expected to own their lives with “Love and Logic” and to be their own bosses, follow rules, maintain healthy boundaries. The key to success with “Love and Logic” is to have a playful tone, to show empathy, to not show anger or disappointment, and to ensure there are logical consequences, positive and negative, for every action. Have rules, high expectations, and follow through every time, no exceptions.