Two years ago when I decided to begin the adventure of schooling my children at home I had some worrisome and common concerns. The biggest of those being that I would miss something important and my children would have large gaps in their education. Then a very wise and wonderful Sister-in-law, professional educator and home school mom extraordinaire, said to me "Mary, do you want to know the secret?" "Yes" I said. "Please, please share with me the secret!" To which she replied... "Mary, EVERYBODY has gaps!" After that I felt much better and mustered up the courage to move forward. Well, it's a little over two years later and as we embark on a new phase of our home school experience I am discovering how very right my sister-in-law was.
You see, for the last 2 years my children have been attending a public (state funded) charter school. This charter school just so happens to be an online, virtual academy so all the work is done at home. Well this year we have decided to graduate to becoming a traditional home school family. (Except for our high schooler, but that's another post.) I have been researching curriculum and have put together what I feel is what I want to accomplish with my children. I am nervous, but the structure of the virtual school gave me confidence. I think I can do this.
As the new curriculum materials have been arriving I have been so excited! Delving into them like a starving person. But as I have been reading and preparing to teach my boys I have discovered something rather disturbing. I not only have gaps in my education, I have GAPS. Huge, deep, CHASMS in my brain. The Grand Canyon is but a ditch compared to what I don't know.
Get this, I am 44 years old, reading a grammar text written in 1889 and discovering why a vowel is a vowel. When I was in school I learned that the vowels were a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y. I also learned that the consonants were all the other letters. But I never knew WHY vowels were vowels and consonants were consonants. Well guess what, the reason vowels and consonants are separated because of the sound that they make when they are spoken! Who knew! Nirvana! Here is what I read:
"If the voice thus produced comes out through the open mouth, a class of sounds is formed which we call vowel sounds. But, if the voice is held back by your palate, tongue, teeth, or lips, one kind of consonant sounds is made. If the breath is driven out without voice, and is held back by these same parts of the mouth, the other kind of consonant sounds is formed." (from Graded Lessons in English by Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg. 1901 edition, page 11)
Knowing this somehow opened my mind to language in a whole new way. It gave me an understanding of WHY I had been spitting out the rule "the vowels are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y" all these years. Perhaps I am the only one who didn't know this (maybe I was absent that day), but knowing it has set me free. Knowledge really is power!
I believe that education is something we live, it's what we do, it's who we are, it's why we're here. Graduation from school is not the end of learning, it is the beginning. Hopefully at some point we have learned how to read, to think, to reason, and how to learn. If you know how to think, you will always be learning and discovering new things and always moving forward. The human brain is not designed to collect and store ALL the knowledge and then access it when it is needed. We are a work in progress and the potential for that progress is endless.
So instead of grieving about the myriad of gaps in my education I am going to celebrate them! Just look at all the wonderful and exciting things I have left to learn! And I have a lifetime to learn them! Building bridges over those gaps is not the answer. You have to be like my father-in-law when he hikes a slot canyon, believe you can do it, stick with it, accomplish it, and find so much joy in the journey that you are always coming back for more!
