Some school subjects, like history or nature study or religion, I like to teach on a schedule. Before the school year begins, I select the books or curriculum I'm going to use, divide the work up into thirty-six chunks (one for each week of the year), and make a spreadsheet so that at the start of every week I can copy that week's assignments into my one-week lesson plan. I keep it a high priority to stay on schedule.
Some school subjects, like math and spelling, I like to teach "at pace." I don't set a goal for the year. Rather, we do one lesson a day, most days. Sometimes we take a day off. Other times we take two days to complete a lesson. We work on these subjects year-round, which in my mind "makes up for" the fact that we sometimes skip a day here and there.
If we need to do a "light" week for some reason, I cut back on the at-pace subjects and keep up the scheduled subjects. This keeps us on schedule. I am a very schedule-oriented person, and staying on schedule makes me happy. That's why I do it that way.
An email exchange with Hannah got me thinking about how I decide which way to teach a given subject. Why do I teach math at-pace but science on-schedule? Why do I teach Latin at-pace but literature on-schedule?
I realized that I like to teach skill-oriented subjects at pace and knowledge-oriented subjects on a schedule.
With skill-oriented subjects, it is surer to master one level before going on to the next. Sticking to a schedule may be necessary when you're teaching to the average progress of a classroom of twenty, but in the home school I can teach to an individual child and go at his pace — so I do. Furthermore, skill-based subjects tend either to be optional enhancements to the well-rounded mind (music, art appreciation, foreign language), in which case it doesn't matter to me much if we go slowly; or they are measured in the annual tests (math, spelling, grammar), in which case I'm content to know that my child is performing at or above grade level.
Knowledge-based subjects seem to me well-fitted for schedules because it's sort of arbitrary what you study when. Without a goal for the year, it feels too amorphous — if I get lazy or stressed, I might not teach as much as my children want and need to learn. Having the schedule keeps me honest and on track. I can say, "Well, this year we studied medieval history, and the year before that we studied ancient history. In second grade we studied geology, and in third grade we studied anatomy and electricity."
When I set a schedule for a knowledge-based curriculum, if I find that I need to do less of it than I planned for a given week, I find that I prefer to cut back in depth (doing only part of a given lesson) rather than cutting back in breadth (skipping a lesson) or refusing to cut back (extending the length of the year or packing extra into another week to make up.) This is a trade-off, I know.
Would it be better to leave myself a way to increase the depth at the expense of the breadth, on occasion?
It occurred to me that one way I could improve my approach is to add to my schedule the flexibility to say: "Wow, you're really interested in this week's topic. Do you want to study it in more depth? I think we can spend an extra week on it if you want. Let's look at what's left of the year's plan, and decide where we can cut back a week's worth of future lessons to make room for it."
Have a plan, but be flexible is a mantra I really take to heart when it comes to schooling (really, it's good for most of life, if you ask me). I find that I'm the sort of person who needs a plan for how to be flexible about my plans!
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