A few days ago I talked about getting ready for the start of the new school year, albeit a bit early by most folk's standards. Well, it appears to be paying off in little ways that I hope will add up to something bigger.

For starters, I popped into our local bookstore while on a trip to the mall with my son. He watched me buy two new curriculum worksheet books, one for Grade Three (which he is currently in) and one for Grade Four. We also picked up a pack of multiplication flash cards and a set for division. To my surprise, my son pulled out the books and cards on the way home. He began talking about feeling excited about the coming "year." Out of the blue, he came up with a reward system for completing lessons, which led to a helpful discussion about goals and rewards for his schooling.

I've set up our work space (two adjoining desks in the living room) where we now keep our laptops up and running. I also brought home a couple of books and videos from the library, much like the kind we get during the school year. For now, I'm just leaving them lying on the coffee table, hoping they will help my son get back in a school frame-of-mind without putting on any pressure.

Other things are happening as well.  I'm beginning each day with our school schedule in mind, rather than my own projects. Seems like a minor thing but when we homeschool, I sometimes find it difficult to keep house and school activities separate.  I often find myself thinking, "Gee, why don't I just wash up those dishes while my son's watching that video" or "Wonder if I have any new emails?"  Next thing I know, we've deviated from our school routine altogether and it can be nearly impossible to get my son back on track.  I've learned the hard way that my son takes his cues from me as far as our priorities are concerned.

Come to think of it, the truth of this "getting back to school" business may have more to do with me making the transition rather than my son...

This past week marked the official start of "Back to School" at our house. 

Back to school starts early for us because our son has some neurological issues that make learning challenging for him.  For now, "back to school" simply means an occasional, gentle reminder that we'll be starting school again in a few weeks.  He's a bit nervous, yes.  Applying himself to academic tasks doesn't come easily.  But, he's also glad--relieved, may be a better word--that we've decided to homeschool again this year.

Last year marked our first year as a homeschool family with a special needs student. The decision to homeschool didn't come easily.  In fact, we maintain our son's IEP with the local school district. But after two years of watching him struggle in traditional classrooms (despite having the IEP and a well-meaning support team), my husband and I came to the conclusion that it would be much less stressful and potentially more productive to keep our son at home.

The change has been remarkable. His stomachaches went away. He's been the healthiest he's been since before his preschool days. There is room in his day for the tics, obsessions, and compulsions that annoy him and the flexibility to make sure he gets the food, exercise, and rest he needs to keep them at bay. His curriculum comes in a package that plays to his strengths--computer and auditory based--while we use his intense interests to practice skills that are more difficult (e.g., composition). We are able to minimize sensory distractions and take frequent breaks.

Even with these supports, school can be difficult for our son. He's a bright kid but his brain won't allow him to focus like a neurologically-typical kid. A large part of our work this past year has centered on teaching him how to recognize when he needs a break, how to take the break, and then how to get right back to work--instead of acting out. We've also been working on how to recognize when his vocal tics and behavioral compulsions are getting out of control and how to take a break from social situations when this happens. Then we go right back in and try again.

Similarly (and this is for those readers who fear we're limiting our son socially by keeping him out of a mainstream classroom), we work constantly on social skills.  Every moment of every day is a lesson in social skills for our son. He is with an adult at all times who works constantly to build up his social skill repetoire one small step at a time, across a range of social situations. An interesting discovery this past year has been that he actually has a fairly respectable set of basic social skills. They are masked by his tics and obsessions which, unfortunately, are aggravated by the stress of social situations.

For now, back to school means we are getting ready for the coming change. I've decided this year to try reintroducing school gradually, starting with an hour or so a day a couple of weeks before Labor Day. We can build from there.

Someone once used the phrase KISS--Keep It Simple Sweetheart. That's exactly what I intend to do.

I just got back from spending a couple of days swatting itsy-bitsy ghost gnats at a county campground. No computer for over 24 hours. Thought my computer-addict son would go nuts. Instead, he spent his time filling up sandwich baggies with water to see what would happen when he threw them up in the air and let them come crashing down to earth. (No, they didn't always explode on impact. Go figure.)

The time away led to an epiphany on my part as well.  I recently spent some time searching through the research literature to see what had been done in the way of homeschoolers and instructional design. Well, there doesn't seem to be much out there (on any topic related to homeschooling, actually) and I started to ask myself why. 

I suppose one reason is that there probably isn't much funding for a topic like this--after all, it runs counter to the conventional wisdom that all kids are better off in traditional classrooms with licensed teachers.  Another reason may be that homeschooling has tended to be seen as the province of ideologues who choose to homeschool out of religious conviction or a profound distrust of public institutions (see Lange, C. & Liu, K., 1999. Homeschooling: Parents' reasons for transfer and the implications for educational policy (Research Report No. 29), National Center on Educational Outcomes, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN).

I thought a little bit more and realized that times are changing fast--more and more parents are choosing to pull their kids out of established venues for education and instead school from home, either one-family-at-a-time or in co-ops of like-minded parents. How could this be happening?

In a word:  technology. (See Isenberg, E. J., 2007. What have we learned about homeschooling? Peabody Journal of Education, 82(2-3), 387–409).

We can now access the kinds of information and resources via the internet that only a few short years ago required intensive time and training to obtain. One example is Time4Learning.com, an internet-based curriculum that presents mathematics, language arts, science, and social studies in short, targeted lessons, complete with frequent assessments and a comprehensive tracking system for Kindergarten through 8th grade.

The epiphany came when I realized (cue slap to forehead) that what I thought was a focus on homeschooling as a legitimate and powerful option for special needs kids may, in fact, be a broader issue of individualized instruction for all. Technology (the internet, in particular) is the key.

Think about it. Our whole world is about individualized choice these days.  I can walk into my neighborhood Caribou Coffee and ask for a small half-decaf/half-whatever’s freshest with “this much room” for 2%. What if they looked at me and said, “We’re sorry, no-can-do.  We only serve a large regular coffee straight-up. Looks like you have special needs. Let’s run some tests to see how we can help you learn to drink your coffee black and in large quantities.  And, if you can’t handle the caffeine, maybe you should try meds.”

Instead, when I place my rather complicated order at Caribou, I’m greeted with a smile, offered friendly banter, and given a cuppa Joe exactly how I want it. Everyone wins--they get my money (repeatedly, actually) and I get coffee the way it tastes good to me.

What if education came the same way? Think of the possibilities! We could spend more time focusing on helping learners learn. We could (gasp!) broaden our notion of education from an 8:15AM-to-3:15PM-daily-during-the-school-year enterprise to an every day-every way kind of adventure.

Yeah, I know--I’m dreaming. But, I’m not the only one (see Levine, M. The classroom revisited. Psychology Today, June/August, 2002).  I just wonder how the world could be different (for typical kids and especially for special needs kids) if we explored ways of customizing education to the individual student, rather than trying to customize the student to our current standard of education. We’ve got the tools. We can learn to use them.