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Relaxed Schooling

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Wednesday, September 3, 2014

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  Back in April, I was beginning to think about the new school year when I read another mom's blog post about year-round schooling.  She had, after years of teaching from September to May, decided to try teaching year round.  Doing school without set vacation days would give her time to take off when she needed it, and allow more time to pursue topics of interest as they came up.  And, it occurred to me that there wouldn't be so much pressure to accomplish so much in one day if the school year wasn't confined to 180 days packed into nine months.

  Filled with rosy visions of quiet, productive days around the school table, I set off to plan our own school year.

  I have always been intrigued by the idea of year round schooling for many of the same reasons mentioned in that blog post.  But I had always resisted the change - after all, there is something very nice about having eight or ten weeks of complete freedom from school books.
  But this year I decided to make some changes.  I knew I wanted to take some time off when our third child is born later this fall, but I also wanted to have a definite ending point for our school year - I still want at least a few weeks to ignore the school books each summer.  I decided that we would take off all of June and slowly ease into the school year starting at the beginning of July and working a few days a week as I had time, but without totally giving up our summer freedom.
  I planned out our first semester - 85 days where every subject was covered - figuring that we would spread those days out between July 1st and mid-December. I decided to call our experiment "Relaxed Schooling"; it wasn't quite traditional, but not quite year-round either, we were just relaxing our schedule a bit.  And I was going to be relaxed about this year, not stressing about doing five full days of school each week or pushing so hard to finish everything I had written down for the day. 
  Our experiment hasn't gone quite like I planned.  We took off three weeks right at the beginning to help a sick family member.  And it was really nice - I had the time I needed, and when we did have a little time at the school table we just worked along to accomplish the next thing on the lesson plan sheet.  I was relaxed!
  Fast forward two months, and for various reasons we have not covered as many days as I thought we might have by this point.  I think our first semester - which we usually finish in December might spill over into January.  Those rosy visions of relaxed days around the school table are fading as I try to jam more school days in around doctors appointments and our other commitments.
  Still, I don't think our experiment has been an entire failure.  Overall I do feel more relaxed about how much we accomplish each day.  I am much more willing to recognize when I am trying to squeeze too much work into too little time - always a recipe for frustration and tears.  Some days we do everything on my list.  Some days we spread the list over two or more days.  Rather than dragging my kids kicking and screaming through assignments when I feel like we are running out of time, we set them aside for another day.
  So far I think our school year has lived up to its name.  The whole point of "relaxed schooling" isn't to fit school into a well-planned and rigorously scheduled box.  The point is to relax and take school one day at a time.

What about you?  Do you follow a traditional schedule?  School year round?  Unschool?  What do you do when you need a few days or weeks off school?

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