Roxanne's Curriculum

Traditional school learning is very driven by curriculum. I taught 4th grade for eleven years and curriculum played a critical role in organizing and directing learning. So, in alternative educational situations, what role does curriculum play? I asked Roxann:

J: Did you purchase a boxed curriculum? R: I didn’t.

While Roxanne didn’t have a purchased curriculum, meaning an overarching curriculum that dictates learning in all subjects, she did rely on a great variety of textbooks, reading programs, and classes both online and live. Among the homeschooling families I interviewed the role played by curriculum stretched from absolutely no curriculum at all to using a purchased curriculum complete with texts, teacher manuals, CDs, lessons, assignments, grades etc.

The way Roxanne organized and directed the learning of her children was typical of many families in my study. She used a parent-built approach, putting in what is important to parents, but able to be very flexible, creating individualized approaches for each child, depending on what they want and need:

Obviously, we set what they’re going to be learning and which years and whatever… We kind of vary. I switch it up, year to year, based upon the kid and what I think that they would really be interested in learning."

My fourth and second graders are doing science together. My older ones take advantage of some online classes…once a week a live class, and then they have their assignments the rest of the week.

In math, Roxanne found a program she liked, "I’ve done that the first seven years, and every year all I have to do is buy new math workbooks. But I have the teacher books, and I have the DVDs."

In writing, however, they didn’t use any curriculum. Writing was really her husband’s bailiwick and he was in charge and was very creative in his approach:

He’s a very outside the box thinker. His strength is writing. He loves writing so he just comes up with these off the wall projects…and he’ll incorporate history into them and you know all kinds of stuff…he’ll just tell them now this is the scope, and he’ll just go through several lessons of sitting down with them and going through it…in the end it’s amazing.

Meghan and her husband believed that communication was key in life, both speech and writing:

Speaking, writing, those are key in life. They open gateways. They open doors. They speak volumes.

They used Landry Academy (which has been relaunched as Homeschool Science) as a resource. David, their oldest, became very interested in the debate club opportunities offered through Landry Academy. Public speaking is critical to communication and their children have been involved in a homeschool group where they give speeches.

While many parents don’t have the background and training of traditional teachers, they do have the benefit of a very small class size, knowing their ‘students’ very intimately, and being able to be as flexible as they need to. One example of their flexibility was when their second child seemed to be struggling. Academics came easily to their oldest child, but they sensed problems with their second child:

Sometimes we sense we’re losing a child, like Nathan, last year. He’s very different from David, he’s a struggling learner. Somehow, he doesn’t process the way the average person processes information. So, in his seventh-grade year we had to step back. Nathan didn’t have a free year, he had a repeating kind of year, where we just went over the same math concepts. Michael worked with him on writing structure a bit more. He wrote essays on topics he liked. In history we made sure he chose something he really liked.

According to Roxanne this worked very well, "He came back this year…he was just like a different person." Michael and Roxanne felt like it was an answer to prayer.

Although Michael and Roxanne didn't homeschool solely for religious reasons, they live a God-centered life and believe he is directing their schooling and their living. They have many children and have had a lot of practice planning what will happen each year in their homeschool. All their children have only been homeschooled until college.