Faltering in my decisions

[Bijou]

I am very much faltering in my decision for which direction to go for school this year and I am running out of time. Each year it seems that we get a few weeks in and something isn’t right and we end up switching to something new. This never bodes well and sets a horrible tone for the rest of our year. I want to avoid that this year. We are most definitely a CM family, although the last couple years we have had a hard time implementing. We went rogue and kind of did our own thing, which was fine, but I felt kind of helter skelter without some sort of plan. The problem though is that when we do have a plan and try to follow a certain schedule we end up feeling stifled and limited to whatever books that schedule uses. I share this only to give a bit of background. My question is, how do we pull our own thing together yet still have some sort of plan in place to keep me more accountable?

[Rice]

I think you need to decide what is most important to you: autonomy or sticking with a plan for a full year. There is a hump-time every year, even for those of us sticking with the same curriculum that we used the year before. There is a point at which the plans and books are no longer new and shiny, no longer hold appeal and interest due to familiarity and the fact that it starts to become work. Is it important to you to push through, to give your kids a year of stability with one program, beginning to end, no matter how *you* feel as it becomes routine? Or is it more important to have flexibility and choices (within the school year - we ALL have choices before we start ).

If you want something with stability, yet flexibility, HOD may be for you: you can choose what guide fits each child is best, most guides have choices as to which books you read for Storytime, which level of reading books (DITHOR) the kids read independently, etc. and you always have the choice of how much to expect "as written", whether to do something orally, to skip an activity or to spend "after school time" digging deeper. But, once you start it, the book packs are decided for you and it would be best to stick it out for at least one full school year/guide before deciding if something else would be a better fit, remembering that you can often finish "school" in the mornings and have afternoons/evenings left for exploration of all the things that don't happen to be scheduled that year.

However, if you want flexibility, the ability to make changes in books, in direction, in topics covered mid-year, then you need to go for something more eclectic, and make up your own. You can not have the best of both worlds when those worlds are so opposed to each other. You need to make a decision before you start, and that is a decision that no one can make for you.

I was with AO before we came to HOD. LOTS of decisions to make, my own schedules to design, etc., but it was too much (my time suffered) and it was not enough for my kids (the lack of educational instruction for me left my kids behind in some skills). HOD solved that problem for me. I could do lots of research before starting, I could make my own schedule (which subject to work on first, which child to help when), but I did not need to stress over whether we were covering all that needed covering; I did not need to worry about whether I should switch something out (it was harder to switch than to just do it), and I did not need to worry about my kids' skills: if I followed the guide, they would learn the skills they needed to prepare them for the next one.

If you're ready for some stability, I suggest talking with HOD about placement (here or by phone), and making the decision to stick with it for one year. You never know, you may fall in love!

Blessings,