Educating the Tortoise and the Hare

This post first appeared on  www.theycallmeblessed.org.

I really struggled in school, I’m a dyslexic artist and musician who is terrible with math. Now, I wasn’t great in school but was really good at faking it. I would pretend to read books, I can recall “reading” the Animorph books in elementary school but really I would just flip through the corner images. If you have read the series you know what I’m talking about. No one (including me) even knew I was dyslexic until 10th grade! I felt dumb. I lacked confidence in myself in all areas except one. Music. I would spend 5-6 hours a night practicing my clarinet or piano. My mom actually started to pay me to STOP practicing. I rarely did my homework because all my time was spent doing what I loved. It was the one area that I excelled in. I was first chair, got scholarships, won awards, and played all over the states. I think that I excelled for three reasons. Firstly, I was interested in music. Secondly, the information was given to me in away that just clicked and made innate sense. Finally, it was because I was going at MY pace and not being pushed or held back by others.

Education at the child’s pace

Isn’t it crazy that my 20+ years in music can be shrunk into 12 images?

Flash forward to my own children, I never planned on homeschooling and it didn’t even occur to me. That was until our first child was preschool age. The thought of sending him to preschool to learn his letters when he already knew them and was starting to read didn’t sit well in my heart. You can read more about how and why we starting homeschooling here.

Slow down or speed up – take it subject by subject

So my first son, completely the opposite of me, started reading at two and was reading at a first grade level at age three. He consumes books so fast I can’t keep up. You can learn how we taught him to read here. He also is very inclined to learn things math related. He learned the 100’s place values and addition also at age three. I can tell from teaching him that he learns very differently than I did. I never push him, but I also never hold him back if he is interested. I let him explore. Currently he wants to know everything there is to know about the piano, and I happily teach him. If you are interested in how I teach music you can sign up for my FREE music education e-course. It gives you the knowledge to teach music even without a background in music!

It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized I’m not really dumb or stupid. I just learn differently and have different talents. Everyone is unique and homeschooling allows us to educate our children at a pace that works for them. Some subjects we can fly through and others we can slow way down.