Friday, November 06, 2009

My Homeschooling Expectations

For high-school:
45 minutes daily -- math
60 minutes daily -- science
60 minutes daily -- writing, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, etc
90 minutes daily -- history, political science, economics
30 minutes daily -- music practice
60 minutes daily -- chores
60 minutes daily -- literature
60 minutes daily -- foreign language
30 minutes daily -- exercise
60 minutes daily -- prayers, theology, Bible
15 minutes daily -- current events

That's not what I think is actually a proper amount of time, but a bare minimum. And that list doesn't even touch on cooking, art, fieldtrips, life skills, employment, volunteering, time with friends, goof-off down-time, and sufficient sleep.

And that list is 9.5 hours! Good grief! No wonder I never feel like I'm doing enough with the kids. We're nowhere close to that "bare minimum" and never will be.

I do believe my gut should quit making goals that my head knows to be unreasonable.

4 comments:

  1. In school they would take 6-7 hours. And part of each of those hours would be wasted with transition between classes. Chores and theology would be after school. I think some of your goals should alternate years-expect more science one year and more history the next etc.

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  2. From the studies that I've seen --and one of them done by a local high school where we used to live-- the "7 hours" in school is actually about 2 hours or less of schoolwork. I actually would've guessed a lot more than that, even though I think at least half the schoolday is wasted (in conventional schools) with announcements and roll-taking and discipline and stuff.

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  3. This is why I don't even try to make a list like that- GUILT GUILT GUILT!
    How in the world can people say, "If you just believe in yourself, YOU CAN DO IT!"???

    UGH

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  4. Lauri, I am finding comfort in this list. I guess I just always had this nagging feeling that what we were doing was not sufficient. No matter how much we worked, it never seemed enough. When I started thinking it through, and looking at what I do think might be a good start on "enough," that's where this list came from. And when it's written out like that, well, gosh, no wonder it seems like we're never accomplishing as much as I want. Now that I can see so clearly that I'm trying to achieve the impossible, it's not so frustrating when I fail. Well, duh!, of course I'm going to fail if that's what I'm aiming for!

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