When we think of homeschool planning, most of us imagine stacks of curriculum in front of us, a planner of some style, colored pens or highlighters, and that intimidating blank page. Planning a year’s worth of learning for multiple kids in different grades is daunting, I don’t care how many years you’ve been doing it. But planning your homeschool doesn’t start with curriculum or even with the lesson plan. It doesn’t start by calculating days and weeks or blocking out vacations. The planning starts by identifying your homeschool values, those core principles or ideas that are most important to you.
3 Tips for Identifying your Homeschool Values
The process of identifying the core values for your life is all over the internet. Google it and you will find tons of resources. The process below is very similar to nearly everything else you will find. The difference is that we are applying it directly to our homeschool, to our child’s education. There might be some overlap with your life, but then there might be some values that are very specific to your homeschool and your child’s learning experience. With that said, here’s the general process of finding your core homeschool values.
1. Brain dump. Write down everything you enjoy, everything that’s important to you:
- in life
- in parenting
- in relationships
- in your home and homeschool
If you’ve never homeschooled before, think through the things that were missing in your child’s previous educational experience (or in your own). Write out the things that are important to you in your current relationship with your child or what you would like to see in the future. Who is your future child? Brainstorm a list of character traits or values you would like to see in your adult child one day. There is no right or wrong here; list out every single idea that comes to mind. List nature walks and field trips, specific books or topics, favorite memories you cherish or places you’ve visited, people that have influenced you, areas of learning that are most important to you.
Turn off your internal censor: it does not matter if your thoughts are grammatically correct or parallel or connected in any way. It’s called a brain dump, and the goal is to fill that blank page.
2. Look for connections. Go through your list with highlighters or colored pens. Circle, draw lines and arrows, make connections. Ask yourself, “what do these things share in common?” The goal here is to try to create a few different categories. Most likely, you have more than one value. By creating categories from your brain dump, you are on your way toward narrowing these categories into specific values. One idea may fit into multiple categories, and that’s okay too. This isn’t a nice, neat process. Embrace the mess and work through the chaos to our final goal. Then, try to label the categories with a word or phrase.
3. Ask “why.” Keep asking “why.” Then ask “why” once more. Continue asking, like a persistent toddler, until you’ve uncovered the value. Here’s an example of the process. As I look at my brain dump, I like nature walks, read-alouds, and learning all together. I see the word “together” and make that my category title.
- Q: Why do I like these things?
- A: I like for us to have shared memories and things to talk about together.
- Q: Why are shared memories and conversations important to me?
- A: Because I value connection.
Your process may be longer or shorter than this. Maybe the answer comes right away, and maybe it comes after a couple of days of mulling it over.
If you need a little more help, here are a couple of great resources that list several words for potential values you might have. I think it helps to do the brain work of knowing what came out of your heart and mind first, but if you get stumped, I’ve created a homeschool values worksheet that might help.
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Homeschool Values Guide your Decisions
What’s the big deal about starting with values? Homeschool values guide the decisions you have to make, narrowing the options and bringing clarity.
- Curriculum: Homeschool values help you to determine which curriculum options will leave you most frustrated or most satisfied. No curriculum is perfect. But if I know that I value the connection that comes through reading together, then a workbook-based curriculum that doesn’t allow time for what I value will be a frustrating path forward. Or, if my value involves shared experiences and family conversation, I don’t want to choose a curriculum that has everyone off learning different things by themselves all day.
- Routines and Schedules: Even if I have the most ideal curriculum, if I schedule our days with no margin for my value of exploration and adventure, then I’m going to feel like our year was unfulfilling (even if all the assignments were completed.) Knowing my values ahead of time allows me to make time for them, to schedule things intentionally, and to protect the time I need to achieve these values.
- The “bare-bones” days: We all have the days when life sets off a grenade, and we have to think about the “bare necessities” that have to get done for the day. We make decisions on these days about what to cut from the schedule. We could choose what stays in the schedule based on our fears (what if we get behind in math? what if we miss the important phonics lesson?) Or, we make those decisions based on our values (This day is hard enough. Let’s enjoy something valuable together.)
Knowing your core homeschool values keeps you from reacting to the next thing, and instead helps guide your decisions to protect and integrate those things most important to you.
Homeschool Values help you determine what to let go of (and what to hold onto.)
We explored this a little bit with the “bare-bones” days, but on a larger scale, as you evaluate your year, how do you know when something needs to change? No matter how beautifully you’ve planned your homeschool year, there will be adjustments. How do you know what to scratch out from your plan? How do you know something else might not be better? It’s not the well-laid plan or the neat column of checkboxes that you hold onto. It’s not the 5-star curriculum that everyone else is raving about that you immediately reach for.
- If something isn’t working, go back to your values and try to identify what’s missing.
- If your child wants a change, don’t be defensive and dismissive. Instead, investigate what values you share and what values might be different. Is there a way to honor both? Reach a compromise that honors both of your values. (Pst! Valuing playtime is not necessarily a bad thing.)
Homeschool Values define your success.
We’ve all gotten to the end of a particularly busy day or season of life and wondered, what have I been doing all this time? Where did the time go, and what did I actually get done? Innately, we know that being busy and productive does not necessarily equal success and satisfaction. I can be busy and feel like I’m getting nowhere. Why? I’ve neglected my values. We recognize success and satisfaction, not necessarily when the workbooks get all filled out, or when our child scores high enough on an assessment. We feel the satisfaction of success when what is accomplished connects directly to a value.
How do you know at the end of a school year if it was a “good” year? Knowing your homeschool values makes answering that question a whole lot easier.
Knowing your homeschool values may not help you know how many math lessons to complete each week to be done by the end of the year, but it is an important part of the planning process. Those homeschool values will shape your year, guide your decisions, and define your success. Ultimately, your homeschool values help you determine your target and whether or not you hit the mark.
Don’t forget your Homeschool Values Worksheet!
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