Quality over Quantity

For the first year or two of homeschooling when Punky was a preschooler, I was so focused on doing everything perfectly, and on him doing so much more than was necessary for a 3, 4 or even 5 year old.

In hindsight, I realize that I really needed to relax.

A lot.

Then we hit a major stumbling block in kindergarten when Punky started really balking at any work we did together and was really resistant to doing much of anything I asked of him, both in school time and even occasionally outside of it. Then when he was diagnosed with binocular dysfunction (two healthy eyes, both in perfect working order separately, that do not work well in coordination with one another) two months into his kindergarten career, I was forced to put the brakes on much of what I had set as priorities for our school time.

No more cramming in all of our school work in the hour window of Baby Goose’s morning nap. No more Math U See videos (actually we dropped it MUS all together for Punky – but only partly because of the eye trouble). Minimal computer time. Very short sit down and work periods, interspersed with regular breaks so his eyes could rest. And suddenly, on top of raising three small boys and homeschooling one of them, I now had to work eye exercises into the schedule four times a day for a very resistant little man who really did not want anything to do with any of it.

So we went back to basics and I eased up a ton. I dropped pretty much all bookwork for him and we just hit hard on the fun stuff (lots of books read to him and keeping with his interests more than mine). I knew at the time that it was God’s way of forcing me to slow down and back off with a little boy who was just not ready for a full academic schedule. He is a brilliant child, full of wonder, curiosity, imagination and insight – and I know that down the road he will be an excellent student. But he is just too full of life to sit and do much of anything at this point. And that is OK. There is so much for a little boy to learn that cannot be taught from any sort of workbook.

But now we’re a year and a half down the road and we’ve all learned new study and teaching techniques. We have some good patterns and routines down. Punky now knows how to eek out a couple of worksheets in a day without getting too worked up about it all. In fact he actually likes a few of them. He’s always been a math kid, but now he can do more than just oral problem solving with me – he is happy to work through his Singapore math book with no complaints at all. I don’t think that Punky would claim that much of his school work is his passion, but he does it all with a good attitude and I keep it reasonable enough that he’s not struggling to keep his attention on his work.

This year though, and most especially the last month or two, we’ve been working on a new principal though. Up until now, the goal has just been to get him to do the work, and to do it happily. I had so much backtracking to do to undo all the resistance I had unwittingly put into the child, that I took any piece of work from him as a good and finished product. The end result was a boy who was happy to do the work, but generally did it as quickly as he could with very little effort put into it.

So for now, we talk a lot about how school is his job, and how he should do the work so that he can feel proud of it. I have talked to him a bit about how much time a public school boy in first grade would spend each day writing and doing worksheets. I’ve reasoned that I am happy to give him less work, but that I do expect to see the work he does to be done to the best of his ability. I want to see those letters looking nice. It’s time to undo all the lazy writing habits that I’ve let slide for a while. I may only ask for one page in the math book, but I’d like to be able to see each number written in the book done neatly and well.

I know that he’s still not really passionate about “academic” work, and really at seven years old and still in first grade, I’m still totally fine with that. But I do feel like it’s time to start upping the expectations on the work.

So far it seems to be going well. If he writes his numbers or letters in a way that is clearly below his ability, I simply point it out, or circle it, and he needs to rewrite it properly. He never puts up a fuss about it, so that is good. And if only just for fear of having to write everything over, he is most definitely getting more careful about his numbers and his penmanship.

Now if only I could do a little better in modeling such a work ethic… I definitely tend to go with a “good enough” mentality for much of my work. But as we’ve explained to him with handwriting, we’re allowed to write it sloppily if we want, because we know how to write it nicely when we want to. That seems fair enough to me. And as soon as I see that he CAN do his work neatly and perfectly, I’ll accept a little more slack in areas that do not need such meticulous care. But for now, it’s quality over quantity for my sweet Punky Loo. I myself have a bit too much quantity in much of what I do to make quality the overriding goal in all that I accomplish in a day.

But I do still hope to make learning the fun way be the main goal of our schooling at this stage of the game. Even though Punky can and will do bookwork, I do not want to fall back on it as our main daily routine (easy as it may be...), just because I know that he does not find it satisfying, and I really do want to encourage a love of learning in all of my children.

So it's time yet again to pray and listen, and see what God has in mind for these little people I am blessed to call my children. And while I'm listening for His direction in this area, it can't hurt to make sure Punky's handwriting is neat and tidy. ;o)