Struggle On or Surge Forward?
Fizzle Out or Finish Strong?
Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. 2 Corinthians 8:11 (NIV)
The snow has melted; the sun is shining, and the end of the school year is in sight. Now, if only the end of the text book, the final project of the unit study or the last page of the lesson plan were also in sight, right? The effects of spring break vary from family to family. It can be the much needed break that provides just the right amount of R&R to refuel you for the rest of the school year. (This seems to be especially true if you can spend it somewhere warmer than West Michigan!) Or, it can be the realization that you are way behind in your curriculum and have a long way to go before you can take a real break.
In the sixteen years that we homeschooled, there were several years, mostly at the beginning of our journey, when I found myself among the latter group. It happens to the best of us. Busy with babies, buried in papers to grade, and behind in the curriculum, you can find yourself on the brink of burnout. It is at this point that many of us resolve to struggle on. Unfortunately, instead of helping us finish strong, this usually leads to our fizzling out.
An embarrassing example of this was the year I was head Calvinette (GEMS) counselor at our church. A special collection was taken on Calvinette Sunday in May. After church, the head deacon handed the collection to me and asked if I would give it back to him the following Wednesday evening to make sure that it was set aside for Calvinettes and not mixed in with the general collection. Happy to help, I took the collection home and counted it; at more than $400, the congregation had truly blessed the ministry. I then put it away in a safe place and completely forgot about it. Several weeks later the deacon mentioned it to me and said that church members were asking when their checks were going to be deposited. I went home to get the collection but couldn’t remember where I had put it. I searched the house high and low looking for that collection, but it was nowhere to be found. I wondered about whether our babysitter was honest, and after a report on Dateline or 20/20 fueled my fears, I worried that I might have early onset Alzheimer’s! I kept looking….all summer long. At the end of the it summer, I began organizing for the coming school year, and low and behold, there on the bookshelf, between the papers that still needed grading and my lesson planning book, was the missing collection! My homeschool burn out had been so severe that year that once the school year had ended, though I searched drawers and shelves throughout the house, I didn’t even look at the school shelf. I tell you this not because I enjoy embarrassing myself (I don’t), but to let you know that if you are there, you are not alone.
In her book, I Dare You, Joyce Meyer says “No matter how enthusiastic you once were, you can become stagnant if you don’t do your part to keep yourself stirred up,” and “Leaders (or Homeschool Parents) have an additional responsibility when it comes to this, because they not only have to keep themselves stirred up, but they have to help others stay stirred up as well.” While the first definition of stagnant has to do with motionless water that becomes stale or foul, and that is the example that Joyce Meyer uses, additional definitions include:
- Showing little or no sign of activity or advancement; not developing or progressing; inactive: a stagnant economy.
- Lacking vitality or briskness; sluggish or dull: a stagnant mind.
If you, your children or your homeschool in general are showing signs of being stagnant, it’s time to stir things up in order to surge forward and finish strong! So, what can you do to stir things up?
- Study something different.
- Connect with other families and work on something together.
- Change your curriculum. If you are a text book family do a mini-unit study instead.
- Plan an end of the year service project.
- Go on a field trip.
- Let lazy kids off the hook for a day and help them get organized. (If this is a persistent problem, consider whether they have too much going on to keep on track.)\
- Reorganize your daily schedule making sure it is flexible enough to enjoy yet structured enough to make progress in your home education.
- Remember the reasons you are homeschooling.
As winter becomes spring, this year instead of concentrating on what you haven’t completed, make a list of what you have accomplished. You might find out, as we did one year, that you can finish your school year early. Even if that doesn’t happen, set a date that the school year will end, and let it end. The books that you feel must be finished can be picked up again next fall. Either way, as you look forward, focus on the bigger picture and the long-term benefits of homeschooling.
Preparing your children for whatever God has planned in their future is not about finishing the curriculum or even getting to the curriculum every day. It is about fostering a love for learning and cultivating curiosity and creativity in our children. It is about incorporating education into our home and daily life rather than separating school from the real world. And, most importantly, it’s about our relationships with our children and our God.
Happy Spring!
Jeanne