home·school·ing
/ˈhōmˌsko͞oliNG/
noun
I grew up homeschooled with my three other siblings. I only went to public school for grade 1, and then grades 11 and 12. So homeschooling has a special place in my heart. Fast forward years later, I was given an opportunity to help homeschool three younger kids – they were family friends of ours. When I was given this opportunity, I jumped on it. It was exciting to me to help educate these kids in the same manner that I was. Homeschool taught me so many good things – how to interact with many different ages, how to motivate myself at home, how to explore things I was passionate of... the list goes on.
For this series, I chose to document my experience homeschooling these three kids. I took pictures throughout different times of the day, several days a week. I wanted to document different moments that the kids were experiencing, and I was able to capture them from an outside perspective. Homeschooling can be a wave of different emotions. The excitement of getting to stay home, and the disappointment of missing your friends at school. The kids I’ve been homeschooling have been champions. They have done wonderfully at learning to motivate themselves and learn things at home. Homeschooling these days, has taken a slightly different turn. Due to covid-19, parents have had to make the hard decision on whether to send their children to school or homeschool them (if they were not previously). The family I am working with chose to keep their kids home and homeschool them. They attempted attending zoom calls with their teacher from school, but soon after chose to fully homeschool them and not have them on zoom calls all day long. Together the children’s mother and I have come up with different creative ideas to keep the kids interested and excited for their education. These ideas have varied from fun exciting crafts, to learning how to make a presentation, to doing someone online learning math and language games on the computer, as well as reading and writing skills. We have worked to make education at home engaging and educative.
Homeschooling is a wonderful way for your children to get education, as well as get the time they need to explore their own passions and interests. Inside of being in a classroom all day they can learn things from the world around them – from hikes and nature walks and noticing little things they did not before. It gives them the freedom to still get a proper education, but also be present in the world, and just have fun just being kids.
“Anything, everything, can be learned if you can just get yourself in a little patch of real ground, real nature, real wood, real anything … and just sit still and watch.” ~ Lauren Hutton
