Two Peas at Opposite Ends of the Same Pod

Homeschooling is wonderful for many reasons. One of them is the ability we  parents have to free our children from cookie-cutter education.  While a school teacher is pretty much limited to treating a classroom of thirty-five students as one body, a homeschooler has the distinct advantage of molding the schedule, the curriculum, and the surroundings around each of her children's particular physical, emotional, and educational needs.  We have been doing this officially for nine years, and I am just starting to figure it out.  Does that mean the previous years were wasted because I didn't know what I was doing?  No, I don't think so.  It means that the differences in my kids' personalities are just now beginning to really show. 

My first two daughters' personalities are at opposite poles.   Alizona is afflicted with perfectionism.  At night, Alizona pulls her covers neatly and smoothly up to her chin.  No wrinkles.  She makes her bed perfectly first thing in the morning, and she can't stand to have her things out of place.  She is the cook who most definitely needs a recipe, and it had better NOT be one of those that only lists the ingredients.  She wants to know what kind of bowl to use, which ingredients are mixed when, and exactly how big you are supposed to make your cookie dough scoops.  She crocheted an afghan for herself last year, and it is beautiful -- completely square and even, with not a visible mistake.  Her goal is a perfect end-product or a 100% grade.

Booklover, on the other hand, is no perfectionist.  She doesn't even have her covers tucked in at the foot of her bed.  At bedtime she flops the blanket over herself, and nevermind if her arms and legs are sticking out.    In the morning Booklover rolls her blanket up into a ball and stuffs it into the corner at the head of the bed, along with her pile of pillows.  The bed looks neat because only the fitted sheet is showing, but it is NOT made according to Hoyle!  And as for the rest of her stuff, well, it is half-way organized chaos.  And she would be sooo happy if I would let her loose in the kitchen.  Once she experimented by mixing rice, pencil shavings, flour, food coloring, pepper, a bit of water, and a variety of herbs and spices, and cooking it for a bit.  It didn't magically turn into anything edible, but it was fun. Who needs a recipe?!  For Booklover, the process and the goal are one.  She would have a ball learning to sew something for herself without using a pattern.

So you can imagine, can't you, which of these girls likes the objective orderliness of math, and which one can't stand to be locked into one method of solving a problem?  Which one just can't stand to have to answer a question beginning with "why", and which one loves to answer the same question with a very out-of-the-box response?  Which one enjoys experimenting in the kitchen? And which one wants install more RAM in her computer? Which one is creating little felt people, and which one is organizing and re-organizing the music on her iPod? Which one studies quietly at her desk, and which one stands at the ironing board with her math book, a bottle of glue, a pair of scissors, and a little pile of fabric?

Alizona loves math.  Math has right answers that never change. There is only one right way to do it.  There are rules to follow, and no decisions to make.  She would benefit greatly from a boxed curriculum such as ACE.  With lessons being grouped in PACEs, she would be able to see her progress. She would know exactly what she must accomplish in school each day.  She would love the organization!   Give her all true-or-false, mulitple choice, or fill-in-the blank questions. She would love to have her own bedroom, a haven where she could shut out the noise of a large family, and concentrate on her work.  Alizona needs lists to survive, and, is this weird or what -- she envisions numbers and letters in different colors (for example, she'll say, "Five is yellow.") and they make orderly designs in her head. (If you don't understand this, you are not alone.)  She wakes up completely with the alarm, and she asks permission about EVERYTHING.

Booklover struggles with math.  It's too orderly.  She doesn't mind following rules if she understands why the rules are there.  (While it is important to understand the why's behind math, I admit there are some days when I just don't care if she gets the why's -- just follow the rule!  Subtract always means to add the opposite.  Period.)  And in order for her to remember the rule, she has to know why it works.  Since she can't get that subtraction rule right now, we are stuck in "undoing" algebraic problems that involve integers.  One of these days she is going to get it... but in a classroom the teacher wouldn't be able to wait for her.   Booklover flies by the seat of her pants skirt (like her mom), sleeps in,  and is haphazard about her chores and other responsibilities. Her philosophy regarding permission is basically do it and THEN ask if it's okay.

Since I have only four students, and not thirty-five, I don't see any point  OR any advantage, where their best interest is concerned, in making all of my children learn the same thing in the same way.  Alizona's school curriculum is currently made up of Rod and Staff science, Teaching Textbooks Algebra I (I quote, "I love Algebra! Teaching Textbooks is WONDERFUL, MARVELOUS, AND SUPER-DUPER GREAT!!!!!!"), What Ever Happened to Penny Candy?, Landmark's Bible Doctrines class, and some reading from The Annals of the World. (Bad choice, that word, "some".  She needs to know exactly how much!)  She is also writing a work of fiction, which I am counting for grammar and creative writing.  She feels very comfortable learning the same way most other kids do in a classroom.

Booklover, on the other hand, Hates (note the capital "H") reading from textbooks and answering questions.  She also does Teaching Textbooks for math, but she disdains the videos.  Her science lessons consists of watching Robert Krampf's Experiment of the Week, sometimes repeating it herself in my kitchen, and then writing a short report on what the experiment involved and what it demonstrated.  We started with some keyboarding software but she found it to be "soooo booooring".  I remedied that by volunteering her to type Word documents from the hand-written or typed stories that author Susan Marlow wrote in her childhood, so that "Suzy Scribbles" can post them on her blog.  Booklover is now having a blast with typing!  For history she is reading several chapters of either a book from the old Landmark History series or  the We Were There series. Her creative outlet is making something with her hands, whether it be food or fluff.  I tell you, she is having so much fun that I almost feel guilty calling this "school", but I am so happy to finally have found some ways for her to learn and enjoy herself at the same time!! 

I have two more girls coming up behind these opposites.  Hopefully they will both be somewhere in the middle, and I will not be thrown for a loop, trying to understand another extreme.  But if they do have their own extremes, I will be so thankful to have their education in my own hands.  After all, my goal is not to have them learn everything that some bureaucrat decided all kids must know, but to guide them in finding the talents and strengths that God gave each of them individually, and in the things HE wants each them to know. Sometimes that is not easy, but it's right.  (When was doing the right thing ever easy?)  I have the promise of God's guidance and his provision, and the peace of knowing I am doing the best thing for the children he loaned me.