The Power of Knowing Why You Teach What You Teach: Homeschool With Confidence

“Why do I even have to learn this?”

If you’ve been homeschooling your kids for longer than a month (or maybe less!), I’m willing to bet you’ve heard these words. You probably remember saying them at some point when you were younger, too! Knowing WHY we are doing something is a huge part of being motivated to do it, and students deserve a good answer to this question.

After all, as homeschoolers, we’ve rejected the status quo of education – we’re not just doing what everybody else is doing. Jumping through hoops to get into college, get a good job, etc. etc. is not the same as getting a real education – an education for life.

We want to have good reasons for everything we expect our children to do. If you find yourself falling back on “because I said so”, that’s a signal to take a closer look at your choices to figure out where your expectations are coming from and whether changes should be made. Knowing why you teach and being able to communicate those reasons to your child will help you create a more effective homeschool day, with fewer headaches and more valuable learning.

Reflect on your educational experiences

The first thing I want you to do is to take some time to think about your own experience in school – the good and the bad. This will lay the groundwork for re-thinking what you are doing in your homeschool to ensure that all of your plans align with your values and your experience-based beliefs about what will set your child up for a fulfilling and effective adult life.

Accepting negative emotions

That’s right – it might not be pleasant to hear, but the fact is that no matter how great your homeschool is, sometimes your child will have negative feelings about it. We want to be accepting of all our child’s feelings (even as we enforce expectations for appropriate behaviour) because we need open communication from them in order to personalize their learning. If they start hiding their negative feelings because they think you don’t want to hear them, then you might hear less whining, but you also might miss when they don’t understand something or need extra support with a concept.

The first step to becoming more accepting of your child’s negative emotions is to remember and accept your own negative emotions about school. Reflecting on your own negative feelings can help you empathize with your child and help them to feel safe coming to you with feelings of all kinds. Your negative feelings didn’t come from laziness or wanting to cause trouble. They came from having important needs that weren’t being met, including the need to understand why you were being asked to learn or do certain things in school.

Questioning assumptions

The other reason to think back on your school experiences is that it will give you a chance to consider what you really need to teach in your homeschool, and what is simply an assumption about what “school” is and what children should have to do.

Many of us have had the experience of having our questions and negative reactions ignored, dismissed, or even punished. The message we learned from being repeatedly told to do things “Because I said so!” was that adults know what has to be done and children don’t get a say in the matter. But think back to what happened in your mind when you received this message. Did it make you more serious about learning? Or did your resentment and lack of understanding become a distraction and a hinderance to learning?

Now that we’re the adults, it’s time to ask those questions and not stop until we get a satisfactory “why”. We don’t *have* to do anything. We live in a world with exponentially more possibilities and more access to information than anything the adults could have imagined when we were children. What do our children really need to learn in order to live fulfilling and effective lives? Answering this question starts with honestly asking what we learned and how it has served us.

What motivated you then?

So, now, take some time to think about what your school experience was like. You might want to write down your thoughts in a journal or note system. What do you remember feeling motivated by in school? What sparked your interest and made you excited to learn? Did you have teachers who contributed to your experience? On the flip side, think about the moments that drained your enthusiasm and left you feeling frustrated or resentful.

Give yourself time to remember your past thoughts without judging them from an adult perspective. Your feelings at that time were very real and had an impact on the choices you made back then. Is there anything you wish had been different? What are you thankful for?

What do you think now?

Now that you’ve taken time to put yourself back in the past, think about these things from your perspective today. What have you learned since then that has changed how you think about school? What do you wish you had known back then? What do you wish you had done differently? Is there anything you learned in school that you now feel was of little value to you? Is there anything you didn’t learn in school that you wish someone had taught you?

As an adult, you likely have a broader perspective on what learning truly matters. Some of the things you felt were tedious or irrelevant at the time may now seem more useful, while other things you worked hard on may still seem like a waste of time.

By reflecting on this, you can begin to identify what you want your child to gain from their education. It’s easier to avoid filling your homeschool day with busywork when you have a clear vision of the core knowledge and skills that are truly valuable.

A principle for homeschool happiness: Foundational Learning Only

I’d like to introduce a concept that can help you as you work to figure out what’s worth teaching in your homeschool: the concept of “foundational” learning.

In my blog content, Facebook group, and my Homeschool Teacher Training membership, I teach parents to focus their homeschooling efforts of a small set of core subjects which are parent-led, and then spend the rest of their time supporting their child’s explorations and interests. Those core subjects are chosen because they teach foundational concepts and skills.

What is foundational learning?

When something is “foundational”, that means it serves as a base that other things are built on top of. Your house is built on a foundation, which keeps it standing solidly even when the ground shifts or the wind blows or you add on a new bedroom. In learning, foundational knowledge and skills are those that form the basis for all future learning.

No matter what your child goes on to do in life, they will need a base of literacy, numeracy, problem-solving, critical thinking, and knowledge about how and why the world works the way it does. These core skills are empowering! They will help your child adapt to new challenges, think independently, make informed decisions, and creatively direct their own life in a changing world.

Without a strong foundation, more advanced learning can be difficult or overwhelming. It’s like trying to build the upper floors of a house before the foundation is stable. Focusing on foundational learning in your homeschool will ensure that your child has the tools they need to engage with new subjects confidently, without having to continually go back to fill in the gaps.

Busywork: Homeschool Poison

Getting a solid foundation in math, reading, writing, history, science, and literature is plenty of work for one childhood. When we add in busywork–tasks that don’t truly serve a purpose beyond filling time or checking boxes on a curriculum–it drains your child’s energy and enthusiasm. Busywork doesn’t build skills or deepen understanding; instead, it creates a sense of drudgery that can turn learning into a chore.

Your child can feel the difference between foundational learning and busywork. In foundational learning, each lesson is strongly connected to what the child already knows and also to future topics that they only vaguely know about. They can see themselves gaining real skills with new applications every day, and they know that their efforts are adding up to something big. Busywork doesn’t have the same sense of reward or accomplishment; it feels random and useless.

In homeschooling, we have the flexibility to avoid busywork and prioritize meaningful activities. The only things you need to do in your homeschool day are those that align with your understanding of what is valuable to learn and with your child’s current developmental needs and interests. Consistently showing up to do the work within a foundational learning framework is always going to be enough–no busywork needed.

What about the rabbit holes?

One of the greatest advantages of homeschooling is the ability to see learning that happens everywhere, not just during designated “school time”. Many homeschoolers like to think of this as “learning all the time” and avoiding anything that looks like “school at home”. Personally, I think too much of an aversion to anything that looks like school can lead you down the wrong path when it comes to ensuring your child gets a solid foundational education, but it’s still true that other kinds of learning are important and that we need to create space for them in our homeschool days.

When you thought of the learning experiences that were most valuable to you as a child or teenager, it’s likely that you thought of some that didn’t fit into the core foundational subjects I listed above. Maybe you wished someone had taught you to do your taxes, fix your bike, or clean up after yourself in the kitchen. We want to make space in our homeschools to teach our kids the kind of life skills that are hard to get when most of the day is spent in a school. Fortunately, in homeschooling, we don’t have to make a tradeoff between “life” learning and academics. There is plenty of room for both.

Not all learning is “school” learning.

Your child is learning all the time, whether they’re building with Legos, digging in the garden, or lost in a book. In fact, some of the most meaningful learning happens outside the formal structure of lessons. When children are free to explore their own interests they develop self-direction, creativity, and a love of discovery. These skills are not only important on their own, they are also essential for academic learning! So, while these moments may not look like traditional school learning, they’re just as valuable.

Our children need time for both focused foundational learning and free play and exploration, as well as time spent with parents, siblings, and other adults who can teach them the many useful skills they will need in life. Fortunately, in homeschooling, we don’t need to choose between these sources of learning. We can set aside an adequate amount of time for school and still allow most of our child’s time to be unscheduled and interest-led. This provides a balance where all of our child’s important learning needs can be met–and leaves us time to do the adult things we need to get done in a day, too.

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