Us-Schooling: The Customized, Magical Homeschooling Philosophy
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“Us-Schooling.” Can we just make this a thing?
I first learned of this term, “Us-Schooling,” while reading Julie Bogart’s popular homeschool book, The Brave Learner. The term truly encompasses the intent of this homeschool how-to book, a book about finding the magic in the ordinary in your own unique homeschooling life. The key to this magic is to be brave about trusting the learning process.
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There are so many different philosophies and methodologies and ideologies and…well, you get the picture - so many of everything in approaching how to homeschool - but it really just comes down to this:
Us-Schooling.
Bogart explores how to provide an enchanted education, sparking a fire of curiosity, setting a magical scene in the home, and wearing special goggles to be on the “lookout for a ‘surprise of happy’”. Seriously, could this book be any more jam-packed with inspiring ideas, hope, happiness, creativity, and celebration? If you weren’t inspired in your homeschooling, drink in this book (and listen to our podcast about it!), and be ready for the hopeful high to set in. In the midst of all of Bogart’s ideas and guidance, she repeatedly reminds us to customize the happy. The setting, the play, the activities, the academics…all of it is customizable for your unique child.
Us.
Let’s look at the “Us” part of Us-Schooling. It’s not a “me” or a “you.” It’s an “us.” You, the mom and dad are part of this. And so is your child. It’s all of you - it’s not your homeschool mom friend who has other ideas and fun that she’s doing with her kids…not the homeschool charter school teacher you check in with once a month…not the outsourced teachers and coaches giving you their input…not society or social media. The “us” is your immediate family. It’s intimate, special, and unique. And the “us” means that you get to decide, you get to choose, and you get to learn too. It also means the same goes for your child. It may not be an even balance of who does the choice-making, but the “us” means you all get to make choices to customize the educational process.
Schooling.
I love the following quote Bogart includes in her book about learning:
“Be an opener of doors.”
When schooling is focused on opening doors, there’s a paradigm shift, and passions have room to grow. Bogart includes multiple lists of activities and ideas for teaching various subjects that don’t feel like “school” and instead are opening doors to new worlds of experience and thought. She uses her decades of experience to remind us homeschool moms of what truly matters…and that what truly matters is different to each family. Ultimately though, connecting through all five of our senses in novel ways, while being present with your children respects all of our personhood. She references Charlotte Mason and how she “reminds us that children are born persons. They’re not adults-in-training. Our task is to explore all the ways children learn and grow as children while introducing them to the world at their fingertips.”
I love that. I loved a lot of it. If you were to look at my copy of Bogart’s book, almost the entire thing is underlined.
So what does “Us-Schooling” look like? Only you and your children can say for you. Whether you open your day with the dailies or a family board game, host a weekly poetry tea time, create a monthly theme day, or adventure together on an annual road trip, your schooling does not have to have labels. You do not need to say, “We __________-School,” (fill in the blank with Eclectic, Charlotte Mason, Classical, Un, etc.). You can simply say, “We Us-School.”
“It’s important to remember that we all have magic inside us.”
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