Guest Author - Doreen Farrar



For the second month in a row we are joined by Special Needs Homeschool Expert, Doreen Farrar. The focus of our meeting this month was to discuss the challenges she found in searching for materials for her son. If you missed our last interview with Doreen, please read Learning Despite It All.

“When you stand at the base of a mountain, it looks too large to possibly climb. You find yourself doubting that you'll be able to reach the top. Your climbing companions, who have prior experience, seem confident, but you must depend, ultimately, on your own skills. You know that others have tried...and failed. You've chosen your equipment carefully, but you won't know whether it will help you, despite its cost or endorsements, until you begin to climb.
Home schooling reminds me of mountain climbing. I enjoy climbing mountains, and I enjoy teaching my son. Just as I found that I'm better at non-technical climbing (using minimal equipment), though, I seem to be better at "non-technical" home schooling (with minimal curriculum).

“Curriculums have a place in home schooling. They are useful for teaching subjects that you've never studied, or that you don't understand. Students who are not natural readers or mathematicians may learn more easily from structured approaches to those subjects. Formal curriculums let our overseers confirm that we've covered the material that concerns them, without requiring them to make value judgments about portfolios. Some formal curriculums--Calvert, Konos, Sonlight, and Charlotte Mason, to name examples--have become so well-known that their names are used as shorthand terms to describe entire home schooling philosophies.

“We all know "ideal" home schooling families, don't we? In them, the children work diligently on lessons from a prepackaged curriculum. Mom can proceed through her busy day, guiding them as needed, confident that her children are learning all that they should know. Their mountain path is well-maintained, well-used, and relatively easy to climb. I still know many families like this, but my path is different now.

“If you read my article last month, you know that my son home schooled in first grade. We used a formal curriculum, and he easily retained the material. It was wonderful to be able to trust his learning to the curriculum writers! When he regressed (lost skills) the following year, we could no longer ignore his special needs, and our mountain path suddenly became steep and treacherous. He quickly demonstrated that his newly-increased educational needs could not be met in a classroom, or even with a standard curriculum at home. His problem wasn't willfulness or lack of discipline; he had lost the ability to retain material presented in a "typical" academic format. Since he also lost some of his motor skills that year, "hands-on" programs didn't help him, either. Instead, they fostered his belief that he was destined for failure. I think I tried every commercially-available curriculum that was within our budget during our first two years at home, but each left him either bored or perplexed.

“In my opinion, my son never lost his "intelligence," but he did lose much of his ability and desire to communicate with others. He began to respond to any new or stimulating experience with a violent outburst. We know now that these changes were due to his autism, which can mysteriously worsen in some children, although usually at a younger age, but they were seen at the time as discipline problems, or proof of my failure as a mother. The "professionals" who examined him usually recommended residential care (a lovely euphemism for commitment to an institution), but I disagreed. I knew I could reach him, but how? “

Stay tuned next month for our next installment with Doreen.

Mountain Graphic provided courtesy of Roxy's Renditions