It helps to have a plan

This year the beginning of June rolled around and my bandwidth was gone. All but one child had completed the year’s goals. Said child was told that he wasn’t off the hook by a long shot, but seeing as the bulk of his remaining tasks were independent, I expected him to follow through while the rest of us took advantage of a reduced workload to indulge dally in hobbies such as paring down our belongings and learning the Nepali word for “napkin.”

Understandably, a fire was lit under his once-reluctant behind, and he is fast approaching the finish line.

Which leaves me just enough mental capacity to cobble together specifics to accomplish the long-term, child-specific educational objectives we’ll be focusing on in the upcoming year. Oh, and the year after. Because folks, shipping to Nepal isn’t cheap. Nor is it for the less adventurous among us. The only reliable method of receiving packages of this sort is begging visitors to prioritize some of their precious luggage space for your copy of Teaching Textbooks Algebra 2 and sixteen pairs of Hanes socks.

In other words, planning on this end is the desirable outcome. Thankfully, we’ve got a road map, of sorts, that guides our way: a prayed-over outline of where we think each child needs to be by the end of our time wearing the teacher’s caps. All we need to do is fill in the specifics, and we’re on our way. Which is why I’ve spent an unbelievable amount of time, lately, tweaking this book and that project for Mathaus, Jack, and even the littles.

Years ago, Christopher and I sat down and did a little dreaming. I call it dreaming because, at the time, a mary  Hannah was maybe 8 years old, and we had no idea how feasible our vision might prove to be, or even if it would fit our animal-loving, service-oriented, Type-A daughter. We listed all of the things we wanted her to enjoy as fruits in her life after this thing called “homeschooling” was done. Then we worked backwards, outlining the steps we thought it would take to get there.

Most of these steps, by the way, weren’t academic. Sure, they lent themselves to academics. But often, it looked more like “perseverance/upper level math.” Even then, we didn’t see education happening in a vacuum. Rather, we saw how the things that we classified as essential contributed to character, to faith, and to success. Sorry, love, but you will memorize all of the state of being verbs. Why? Because your budding neurological system is being expanded second by second, and you’re learning to solider on just the slightest bit, and oh, yes, it’ll come in quite handy in the future if you decide to learn a foreign language.

With each successive child, we dreamed again: specific to the gifting and joys of that at child. Specific to that person’s individual needs, challenges, and outlook on life.

And with each passing year, we’ve refined just the slightest bit. The best part of a personal  goal, as opposed to a prescribed Scope and Sequence, is that it belongs to you. You own it. Tweak as necessary. Scrap entirely. Reimagine at will.

 

Life is always, always handing you upheaval. Picture the perfect homeschooling year. The one where nothing ever, ever popped up. No one came to visit. No one got sick. There were no stresses, no unplanned events. Everything was just straight-forward learning, all the time.

Yeah … that year doesn’t exist, does it?

 

I say this as a Momma who has been there, and who will be there again. Six years ago, our school plans were demolished (and I do mean demolished) when Phineas joined our family. A visitation plan required that we travel 70 miles round trip, twice a week, to a city more than an hour away. Another day was eaten up with therapy appointments and social worker visits. That left two days each week in order to do anything close to “real” school with my kids, and that time was mostly spent learning the very real, very intense needs of a very fragile, very distant little boy.

Common wisdom said to shelve the plan. Which we did. What we did not shelve was the goal. While we no longer spent our days reading on the couch, plunking our way through hands-on math, and studying with our rinky-dink microscope in pursuit of those things we had called good, we found another way. With a little planning, those two days a week of travel became some of the best learning opportunities out there. We spent the first day exploring a new site: a garden, a museum, a tide pool, anything. The second day, we brought pens, paper and notebooks and hunkered down in the local library, researching rabbit trails from our adventure. The therapy day became known as project day. I invested in box after box of Thames and Kosmos kits, art supplies, and the materials to make neat “stuff” to go along with our history studies.

Later, when I was on bed rest with Birdie and immediately postpartum, we repeated the idea– I curated a long list of projects and watched as my kids grew and flourished. It was a busy season, yes. But it was not a dry one.

Even though it wasn’t what I had expected, these were days rich with learning, and not stagnant with the deer-in-headlights fear of “I can’t do it!” Why? Because we had a plan, and we could tweak our daily life around the desired outcome. Having a plan is the equivalent of knowing where you want to go. The day to day … that’s choosing the road to get there. Having a plan in place means that no matter what life throws at you, you can roll with it. Maybe without focus. Maybe a little bruised. But you can keep moving.

So I’m planning a full schedule for our life in Nepal. Maybe we’ll use it. Maybe we’ll find that it won’t work. Most likely we’ll toss pieces that don’t fit and find new, exciting ways to journey toward the target. But I know I’m not walking blind on this one. I’m heading in with a prayed-over plan, a whole lot of flexibility, and a heart that wants to give my kids the best. That, I think, will get us far.