Don't Wait for Perfection

I originally wrote on this subject earlier today in my sewing blog (janimessewingadventures.blogspot.com). I realized that I've been thinking on this topic with regards to homeschooling as well, so I present here in the homeschooling context.

Under the heading of lessons learned, add...

Don't wait for perfection

As a homeschooling parent, I want to present material to my children in a well thought out, rational, logical and integrated way. With some subjects, mathematics for instance, this is a relatively straightforward process and a parent has many, many resources to do this well.

With other subjects, such as science, it is very difficult. There are very few science texts that present science from "the ground up".

It has been mentioned on this blog previously that texts in general have become very busy, with sidebars and other "extras" all over the place. This seems to be particularly so with science texts. Mix that with the fact that the material is not generally presented in a logical order, but jumps from unconnected topic to unconnected topic, and you have yourself one heck of a mess to wade through.

What's a parent to do? Check the above lesson. Don't wait for your material to be "perfect" before wading into it with your children. Do your best to prepare, but don't wait until you have all the answers, or your kids will be in grad school before you figure it out.

My DH and I were very much in danger of doing just that with science. We were hoping to figure out the "perfect" plan for presenting certain kinds of material and in the meantime, we weren't getting much science done.

After we took a step back, we realized that hey, the material wasn't presented to us in the best fashion either and we not only both managed to figure science out, we both also enjoy it. So it is possible for children to learn, even when the material isn't "perfect". It might be a bit more of a challenge, but it is doable.

That's not to say that we don't hope to do a better job than our own teachers. We do hope we can make it better for our children. What we have realized though is that with homeschooling, as with so many other things, it's better to proceed with a basic plan, knowing that it will need tweaking and fixing along the way, than to never get moving at all.