No Such Thing as a “One-Size Fits All” Curriculum

When we decided to become home school parents, before the birth of our first child, I did not have a clue about how challenging it would ultimately become. I’ve always thought it is the responsibility of parents to teach their kids from the day they are born as much as they can about how the world around them works and how best to live in it. Why else do we read stories to our kids at bedtime or play number games with their fingers and toes when they are still babies? The same can be said about teaching them safety skills (i.e. don’t touch hot stoves, etc.) and other skills needed to get through every day life as they continue to grow. And, of course, aren’t our conversations peppered with facts and figures about important people and events that have shaped our lives and those of our family?

There does come a point in time in a homeschooling family’s educational process that one realizes that we need more than just our own experiences and abilities to give our children a well rounded education. This fact hit me hard when my wife and I went to our first “curriculum fair”. Boy, what an overwhelming (and dare I say wallet-draining?) experience that was!

Entering this great hall and seeing rows upon rows of publishers hawking their wares was astounding to me. I never knew so many companies printed so many books, pamphlets, magazines, maps, print-outs, handouts, videos, cassettes, newspapers, bookmarks, toys, learning puppets, and every other conceivable device known to modern educators. I knew not where to begin and almost turned and ran screaming from the room.

Before I went to the fair I had the preconceived notion that my daughter was going to learn her academics through a single curriculum (i.e. Alpha Omega, Rod & Staff, A Beka, or some other trusted company that gives you lesson books for every subject under the sun). My plan was to purchase the entire package and that is what she was going to learn from. No ifs, ands or buts. I did not want her lessons to be culled from a hodgepodge of books that come in different shapes and sizes and do not look nice on the bookshelf when stacked together. At this point I had no clue about learning styles and the host of other things that help decide what is the most appropriate curriculum for any given child.

I think what first brought this thinking to a screeching halt was the price of every single box of new curriculum I saw. Now, don’t misunderstand me, home school parents make great sacrifices to give their kids the opportunity to be homeschooled. We’ve been a single-income family for over 16 years because of our decision to home school and have to do without a lot of things two-income families can enjoy. Thus, every dollar counts. So, when I saw the prices of some of these packages I began to sweat. Of course I wanted the best for my daughter, but my wife pointed out that what would happen if our little darling was not able to learn things the way this particular curriculum lays things out. As I wiped my brow and perused the almost endless options laid out in this “fair,” I quickly decided that perhaps buying the whole kit-and-caboodle at one time wasn’t such a cool idea after all.

“Perhaps we could just try one of these math books first and see if this works,” my wife suggested, sensing my reluctance to remove my wallet from my back pocket.

“That makes sense,” I agreed enthusiastically.

“ And we can try one of these grammar books over here and one of these history books over on that table…” she continued and before I knew it we had a load of books all of different shapes and sizes loaded up and ready to take home and put to use.

Having three kids has taught me that there is no “one-size-fits-all” curriculum for homeschoolers. My two daughters have different learning styles than each other. My son has his own way of taking in information as well. What works for one doesn’t always work for another. I have to admit it has taken me 16 years to come to grips with this understanding, even though I occasionally stray and wish that we did have the entire curriculum from one or another publisher. After all, they would look so much nicer on the book shelf than does the hodge-podge of books, all of different shapes and sizes that are stacked together right now.