This post is mostly for my benefit, because, I doubt very much that most of the people who read this blog care one way or the other about my homeschool group. Our group was formed quite awhile ago (like I think the year I was born), and it's very structured and formal. We meet a certain number of times a week, are required to participate in so many things and in so many ways (teaching classes, hosting clubs, planning/running different activities like the yearly camp out or Mom's Night Out, etc.) each year. This structure has worked well for the group for a long time, but recently the group has been struggling to gain new members and to retain current members, and there is just a general feeling of stress and burn out. But since the structure has always been what it's been, no one has dared to say anything. Well, someone finally dared bring it up at a Mom's Night Out, and low and behold, lots of moms are feeling the same way. We discussed it for awhile, and from all the talk, I gathered that people are mostly stressed about either the formality of the group, or the number of times we're required to meet each week. And I can relate. This is where I'm coming from on the issue.
I was recently asked to be part of the presidency, and I accepted. One of my jobs is to assign moms to host clubs. I sat down to put together the summer schedule, and the more people I talked to, the more people I found uninterested or unable to host summer clubs. Seeing our lack of hosts, I suggested that maybe we should have some low key activities mixed in with the formally hosted clubs for the summer. Activities where anyone that's up for it can meet up and do, like a hiking trail or a splash pad, that way people could still get together and see friends, but no one was obligated to host or plan anything, and moms with kids in multiple clubs were only driving to one location. I thought that might cut down on the stress level. I was mostly shut down for one reason or another. So now I'm in a position to try and find moms to host four different age groups of clubs once a week, and very few people who want to. What do I do? Do I "make" the four or five willing moms host every single week? Do I schedule people who don't want to be scheduled? Do I just say, Sorry Middle Girls aren't meeting this week because there's no one to host? And what's my role? I have two kids in the Little's club...I don't mind hosting, but there are about 18 kids in that club, and most of them boys. It stresses me out to have that many kids at my house at one time, but I am willing to do it for my kids' sake...except that just now I have a new born baby. What should I do? I feel obligated to host as much as possible because 1) I'm in the presidency, and 2) My specific job is to be over clubs, and if I'm not hosting I can't very well expect anyone else to. But I feel conflicted, because I don't want to host clubs as often as I need to, not because I want to slack off and let someone else do the work for me, but because right now 18 kids and a new born baby is too much chaos and unpredictability for me to deal with all at once. And I'd rather do something more laid back for clubs in the summer, like have a picnic at a park, or ride bikes in a church parking lot.
Friday Fun is kind of the same thing. I love to teach. I think preparing lessons is fun. I like to watch kids learn. But at Friday Fun I teach the Littles class and there are 18 kids (or sometimes more) in there. I don't want to teach to 18 kids ages 4-6. It's chaos. There is such a spread in ability, personality, maturity that it's almost impossible to come up with something for them to do that pleases everyone, or even most everyone. And I like to teach hands on, I like to do projects or crafts. If I'm teaching about magnets I want everyone to have a magnet to play with. If I'm teaching about plants I want to give everyone a cup with dirt and a seed so they can plant their own and watch it grow. But I don't have a budget to do that for every lesson for 18 kids. It's too much. In my ideal world, I'd teach to a group of 6 or 7 kids. But every time I bring up having smaller classes, I get the response, "We don't have enough teachers." Which is the truth, we don't have enough people willing to teach so that we can make the classes smaller. I don't know if it's just a matter of we only have so many moms and each mom has a lot of kids, so we're totally out-numbered, or if it's more of moms not wanting to teach, I don't know. What I do know is that the number of kids in my classes stresses me out. If I wanted to teach a class of 18-20 kids, I'd go teach at a public school where they would pay me to do it. One of the reasons I home school is to get out of that large group setting.
What I'd love to do, is say, "Hey, I'm going to teach a Kindergarten Science class out of my home for the next 6 weeks. We'll be studying natural science, we'll meet on Thursday afternoons for an hour and a half. The first hour will be science class that last half hour will be play time. I want 6 students, 2 of those will be my boys, so I'm looking for 4 more Kindergartners that are interested, who wants in?" But our group discourages that kind of thing, because it excludes some of the other kids in the group who are that age. They kind of have this all or nothing policy. We do everything together, or we don't do it at all. And I can see not wanting any clicks to form within the group...but on the other hand, not everyone wants to do everything all the time. And some of us just plain do better in a smaller group setting. My kids included. There are so many kids at their clubs and at their Friday Fun classes, that they don't really attach to any of them anyway...my boys just end up playing with each other. So if Lincoln and Ivan are just going to play with each other anyway, what's the point of having 16 extra kids bouncing off the walls of my house?
I'm not opposed to big group things. I think they are good and have their purpose. But I don't think everything needs to be a big group activity. A little bit ago, a mom in our group wanted to create some more socializing time for the parents. She tried to start up small dinner groups that would take turns having dinner at each other's houses. She was told that she shouldn't plan activities like that and that she should have checked with the president first before trying to organize an event. I don't think that's right. I think the group should have the freedom to allow people who are motivated to do something be able to do it. If she wants a dinner group and others want to join in with her, they should be able to. If I want a small science class for Kindergartners and am willing to do the work for it, I should be able to have one.
I also believe that every member of the group should be allowed to express their opinions. We've been having some trouble at clubs with moms dropping kids off way too early, and picking up way too late. Since I'm in charge of the reminder email, I decided to address the issue. I explained what the issue was, made a suggestion that maybe if people were going to be more than 10 minutes early or late they should prearrange it with the hosting mom, but then I said I didn't want to dictate what the group had to do, that was just my suggestion for how to solve the problem, but I wanted to know what other people's ideas were. I got an email from the president saying nicely that I was out of place, that I should have brought the problem to her and let her address it, and that I wasn't to ask people's opinions because it caused too many issues. That doesn't sit right with me. The reason most of us home school is because we have opinions. The reason we have a presidency is so that they can listen to people's opinions and make an informed decision about what's best for the group as a whole...not to be dictators. I don't want to tell people what they have to do all the time, and I'd bet a pretty penny that they don't want me (or anyone else) telling them what to do all the time.
So that's kind of where I'm coming from. Then we had the discussion at MNO. Today, the mom who started the discussion at MNO sent out an email to the whole group, basically restating everything, so that those who weren't at MNO could be aware of what was going on, and so that the presidency might provide an opportunity for everyone to get together and discuss the issue and maybe we could come up with a solution, or a better way to run things that might meet everyone's needs better and not leave people feeling so burnt out. The email was not supposed to be emotional, or pointing fingers at anyone, but merely getting the ball rolling to provide the group with an opportunity to step back and re-evaluate it's purposes and objectives a little bit, and see if we still need/want the super formal frame work, or if maybe we want to try something a little more casual, that allowed people a little more freedom. Like maybe meeting one day a week instead of two, or having more low key clubs, etc.
Well unfortunately some people took the email personally when they shouldn't have, and they got offended, and they replied in an angry manner, and now it almost feels like if we respond to the email we're picking sides....which is not the intent. There are no sides....all we really want is to figure out a way to create less stress, so that moms still want to be apart of the group....because we really do have an awesome group, with awesome people in it. I think we're just asking too much of ourselves and each other.
Anyways, so it's inevitable that at some future point in April when our president gets back from her vacation we'll have a big group meeting. But in order for the meeting to be productive, I think we're going to have to take a lot of the emotional drama out of it. I think everyone needs to sit down and decide what it is that's stressing them out, and prioritize which activities are most important to their family, etc. But, obviously, the only person I can make sit down and do this is myself. :) So I will.
What do I want out of our home school group? Right now, for the ages my kids are at and for me, I want opportunities to socialize with other home school families in a variety of settings.
What is stressing me out? After looking at it and writing it all out, I've decided it's not the number of days that's the stress, but the formality of what we do on those days. The fact that we do everything as a large group is what is causing my stress. I want smaller classes/club groups. Or, if that isn't possible, I want the freedom to create a smaller group on the side to do a specific something every now and again.
What do I love about this group? Mom's night out, and all the women mentors I have as examples. I joined the group for my kids, and I love that the kids get together and do things, but what I REALLY love is Mom's Night Out, and associating with the women. I need the other home school moms. We bounce ideas off of each other, encourage each other, and support each other. Often I leave MNO feeling excited about homeschooling again. They inspire and motivate me. Also, I love teaching. And I love that my kids have the opportunity to learn from other moms who have different passions and talents than I do, and can introduce my kids to those things. I love field trips. And I love special activities such as the camp out and the not back to school party.
Well, I'm going to go to bed now. I'll re read this in the morning and make sure it is what I want it to be. I've got until some time in April to collect my thoughts and decide what it really is that I want from this group.
