Enthusiasm & Flexibility

So, yes, here we are, in July, "doing school", for lack of a more charming phrase. I let the boys have a vacation from math and grammar over the summer, in favor of more exciting subjects. Summer is for "fun school", my sons say. For them, fun is to be found in History, Science, Geography, Art, and Language. Often times, some of these very subjects can be seen as drudgery if approached as such, but around here, they are anything but work. After all, it is easiest to teach something when someone is eager to learn it. The trick is making it fun.

This starts with you, the teacher. You need to be excited and interested yourself. Find something in the subject that means a lot to you, and focus on conveying that, above all else, to your children. Make an effort to get a wide variety of materials to aid in teaching your subject; books, particularly ones with pictures, DVDs, CDs, the internet, flash cards, posters, coloring pages, puzzles, models, crafts, and field trips, all can be utilized to make lessons fun and interesting. The more you have, the better. Never assume your child will be bored or dislike learning. Children tend to live up, or down, to expectations. Act as though you KNOW he is going to love learning. Enthusiasm is contagious.

If, in spite of your efforts, a subject begins to feel like a chore or a bore, try to be flexible and patient. Try a new approach, or just take a break. Believe it or not, no harm will come from dropping it entirely for a few weeks, or even months if need be, to let the child (and you) recover from the (likely) "burn-out". When my one son got hung up on multiplication, and just couldn't seem to progress, he got frustrated and upset, and he began to dislike math. At first, this frustrated me as well, and for a few weeks, I struggled with getting him to focus. Then I realized that while I was wasting time trying to get him to study something he didn't want to learn, I was losing a great opportunity to turn his attention and energy elsewhere. So, I dropped mathematics entirely for 3 months while I turned his focus to fine tuning his reading skills and studying history and geography. (I had done this previously with him when he was a first grader, for a solid year, so it was no big deal to me.) At the end of that time, I bought my son a colorful math workbook (with a CD-Rom of math games), and a number of other math books - geometry, measuring, fractions, etc. - along with a pencil set with a ruler, protractor, and compass. With that, he was eagerly off and running with his math, mastering not only the multiplication he had so struggled with before, but easily conquering division, fractions, and geometry. He would complain when the school day was over, and ask to do extra pages just for fun. He progressed through 2 grade levels in a matter of a few months. I could easily have insisted that he muddle through his math while it was hard for him, imagining that one has to work hard to learn something, but my being flexible allowed him to learn it in his own time, with little effort, and much enthusiasm.