Why Homeschool when you can Gnomeschool?

To date, our educational journey has been, um, rather, um, "varied"- that's the nice way of putting it. First the neighborhood school that was full of heart and lacking considerably (I'm sorry your friends use what racial slurs on the playground everyday?- Wait- your classmate called your teacher a what? Do you know what that even means? We have got to talk.)

Then a charter that was pretty fantastic except if your child has noisy sensitivity or stimulation overload issues- or if your other child is the victim of physical and verbal bullying (I'm sorry, they threw you against the wall?!)

So, we accepted the miracle gift of a Waldorf education from a local (as in 20 mins to walk there!) Waldorf school. I volunteered as a bookkeeper, handwork teacher and storekeeper/manager and the children went to school to fill up on everything that Waldorf has to offer.

After two weeks, our 12 year old son came home singing and our house is constantly full of song- rounds and canons and more.

Unfortunately, the work load that I carry in order to assist in creating this opportunity has become overwhelming and when you have to choose between your children's needs and whether you are able to fulfill your duties outside the home, life gets extra hard. In a situation that was somewhat similar to "the dog or me" but substitute "dog" with "the school"- we had some tough decisions to make.

So, I am taking the other gift that I have- the opportunity to be a stay at home mom and we are homeschooling next year. Grades 2, 4, 6 & 7 are in the works- very much so. What I didn't mention above is that between the local school and the charter -- we homeschooled-- twice- yes- twice and both times we lasted about 2 months. So this time, the resources, information and the will had to be laid out like a firm foundation since now we have a better idea of what we are getting into and what the difficulties can be. Chucking curriculums (at least traditional ones) to the wind, we are pursuing Earth Schooling with an undercurrent of unschooling and natural, simple life rhythms in our pursuit of an authentic life on this planet and sharing that with our children.

As we shift our diet to Paleo, as we shift our lives towards simplicity and nature (except for the damn computer) we have begun to wonder whether housing the children in a building for 6 hours a day is an authentic education. If we are going to have them in a school, Waldorf is the ticket for sure- it is as close as you can come to a well rounded, natural and spiritually rounded (well mostly) education. But homeschooling (or in our case- gnomeschooling - because I am weird that way) has the appeal of living your daily life in an authentic way- following natural rhythms of nature, learning things as they come and inspiring your children (and yourself) to seek knowledge in all things.

So, our job becomes so simple in principle but I will have to get back to you about how it goes in practice: Inspire and find mentors to assist where we aren't totally up to par.

If our job isn't to study up on every little detail and become awesomely awesome at every required subject so that we can teach our children all about them--If our job isn't to cram textbooks and worksheets into our children- if we aren't designing individual main lessons (Waldorf style) for each of the four children- then what does education look like? What did education look like before we were domesticated creatures, how about after? What would it look like if you married math to farming and spelling to local plants and animals- or geography? What if you found a way to take all the subjects they teach and make them part of the breaths you take in your day? What if you wrote your biography in journal form and read about Ghandi at the same time? What if you read Ghandi and Joan of Arc together? How about adding Tarot cards to your repertoire of flashcards? What would that look like and what would we learn?................