I have twins who are now, technically, 5th graders. It seems logical to assume that they would be doing similar things, school-wise, and on some level this is true. During our block studies, we study the same subject matter, and they are now at the same level of reading comprehension. Still, it was obvious from the start that they had completely different needs.
There is a yin yang quality to my kids that I think contributes to the harmony we usually have in our home. Left handed and right handed, left brain and right brain, organized and scattered, serious and goofy, Hermione Granger and Fred Weasley. They are both 11, but completely different humans with completely different learning styles, and figuring out how to juggle their different needs can be tough.
After reading Harry Potter for the first time my daughter became delighted by all things schooly. She worshipped Hermione and started asking me to give her homework and projects, she really wanted grades. She demanded more order to our days and that I write a daily agenda on our chalkboard. She wanted to read grade level standards and check off areas she mastered. She requested that I remedy the deficits. She is thriving as a homeschooler, but I imagine if she were my only child, this would not be our journey. She would have done fine in school, and she sometimes toys with the idea of it. We have a talk at the end of each school year to discuss this, and I give the children the option to go to school. No interest so far.
My daughter works hard at her learning partly, I believe, because she has to. Reading did not come naturally to her, and she seems destined never to know how to spell. She did not really take off with reading until she was 8, and even though my Waldorf training assured me this was normal, I worried. I even bought a supplementary reading curriculum at one point thinking we may need it. We didn’t. She started reading, voraciously, when she was ready, but her twin brother had been reading since he was 5. He was one of those children who just “got it”.
We’ve had a similar discrepancy with math. My daughter just gets numbers and my son still approaches every equation like he has never seen it before.
My son is a textbook example of a child who thrives in more of a self-directed learning environment. He does not have any interest in memorizing times tables charts or learning grammar rules. He spends HOURS lying on the floor, tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth, just drawing. His love of Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side progressed to drawing comics daily and distributing them sometimes to friends and family. During the lockdown, for whatever reason, he started focusing all his drawing efforts on airplanes. Through this obsession, he has learned so much about geography, politics, different cultures, natural resources, navigation, engineering, and history. He researches types of planes, learns about the different companies and their different flight paths, and pores over Google Maps and Google Earth to see runways and seek out areas where unused planes are stored. He knows about Japanese airports that are built entirely on the water and has learned about the Soviet era and how it related to oil shortage problems in the 70s. He recently told me he wants us to visit Nepal. Apparently, there is some epic airport in Paru, Nepal that only 45 pilots on the planet have been cleared to fly into, and that is reason enough. He is fascinated by the story of collaboration between European companies as they embarked on building the Airbus 360. He built a micro-scale Lego model of Sully’s famous landing on the Hudson River. I could go on.
My son does not care about grammatical structure or if his sources are properly punctuated. He likes text-speak. He is interested in a lot of different things and loves going down rabbit holes. He loves learning, but only when he cares about the topic. When I introduce a new subject, it is hard to catch his interest. We were recently studying the ancient civilizations of the Levant region, and he wasn’t especially excited by it, but as soon as he realized it touched on the area of modern day Lebanon he dove right in, triggered by remembering recent news of the explosion there. He wondered about the huge cedar tree demand and wanted to use satellite imagery to see if the cedar forests had all been depleted in ancient times. Not at all the direction I had thought we were heading, but awesome learning all the same.
Because he is such a successful self-directed learner, in the sense that he has no shortage of interests and readily dives into his passions, it feels almost criminal to insist that he join us for the “main lesson time” that my daughter craves, so I don’t. But he has yet to opt out. He says he does not want to miss anything. Still, it is often a slog. Unlike his sister, he finds no intrinsic value in working hard at academics, so he doesn’t. Homeschooling children with disparate learning styles has not been easy, and I have to work at it daily, reminding myself not to nag him, reminding him (and me!) that he has choices, reprioritizing…
Some of our adjustments that have worked:
Writing assignments are open-ended; my son’s assignments often turn into comics that are loosely related to the topic
Projects are always free choice: My son often uses projects as a way to further his learning about something else that he is more interested in. For example, he made Lego stop motion scenes about the California Gold Rush but the bulk of the interest was just in Lego and learning stop motion video techniques.
We separate for math. My daughter is the type who loves to be given an assignment and work on it on her own. She likes me to grade her work. My son does better when we snuggle on the couch or in bed for math and do a few problems together in a relaxed way. One of my best hacks with him, if I ever use a worksheet, is to ask him to look at the whole page and choose four problems to do, this always instantly lightens the mood and makes for a productive math time together. Also, we keep it brief; I call it “20 Minute-Math” and I have a cool old 20 minute hourglass to help us keep to that time.
Homework and grading is not something I believe in for this age, but when my daughter requests it, I try to make it meaningful by including her in the process (what kind of homework would YOU like to work on after our lesson time? What areas do you think still need some work here?) I never include my son in such discussions.
When I’m feeling frustrated, I try to catch it early and have a talk with my son about our learning time plan. Is he sure he wants to be part of it? What is and isn’t working for him? What can we tweak?
As hard as it can sometimes feel, having two very different children adds a rich layer to our learning life. My daughter keeps us organized and productive. My son stretches our minds daily and keeps us all laughing. Doing my own work to stay true to each of my children’s needs is ongoing. I have to remind myself daily that we are making the rules up as we go, to let go of the deeply ingrained expectations from my own brick and mortar school training, and to enjoy the imperfect and messy ride.
I'll leave you with this...a memorable project from our Ancient Egypt block that I'm still giggling about.
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