A Homeschool Vocabulary: A-Z with the OnlySchoolers: OnlySchoolers, #1

By Gina Prosch and Christyn Edwards

Collecting nearly two dozen information-packed transcripts from the 2021 season of the OnlySchoolers Podcast, hosted by Gina Prosch and Christyn Edwards, this exciting vocabulary will expand the way you think and talk about home education.

Join Gina and Christyn as they discuss the joy of homeschooling, the goals, the challenges, and the things that tempt homeschool parents to throw in the towel.

Whether you're just beginning your homeschool journey or further down the trail, go A-Z with the OnlySchoolers and A Homeschool Vocabulary.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lohman Hills Creative LLC
• Release date: Apr 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201324254

Book preview

A Homeschool Vocabulary

Praise for The OnlySchoolers Podcast

I really enjoy the Onlyschoolers Podcast because they hit on real topics that home educators face. They have great humor and provide practical application for me to apply in my own homeschool. Their confidence shines through and gives encouragement to me and others that home educating is about relationship, learning with your kids, and always looking for ways to build upon what you already know.

~Christina Carpenter, Creator of Bloom and Blossom Home Education Conference

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Listening to Gina and Christyn is like sitting down with two friends. As a long-time homeschooler myself, I find I can relate on so many levels. Tuning into Onlyschoolers is a welcome boost to my day.

~Cari Rogers, OnlySchoolers Listener

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It's like we're sitting at the rink and having a chat! I always come away feeling enriched and better for it!

~Sarah Rothermich, OnlySchoolers Listener

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A Homeschool Vocabulary

A-Z with the OnlySchoolers

Gina Prosch

Christyn Edwards

OnlySchoolers Limited

Copyright © 2022 by Gina Prosch & Christyn Edwards.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Design by Gina Prosch & Christyn Edwards

Published By OnlySchoolers Limited

First Edition

Visit the OnlySchoolers podcast at www.OnlySchoolers.com

Contents

Introduction

Autonomy and Attention

Bravery and Belonging

Common Sense and Connection

Disappointment and Doubt

Empowerment and Encouragement

Faith and Frustration

Growth and Grace

Human Nature and Humor

Imagination and Individuality

Jealousy and Joy

Keeping and Kleptomania

Labels and Listening

Moodiness and Mystery

Narration and Noise

Ordinary and Opportunity

Paradigms and Perseverance

Rebellion and Regret

Satisfactory and Substantial

Tradition and Trailblazing

Unafraid and Vulnerable

Wonderful and Zeitgeist

Visit the OnlySchoolers Online

About the Authors

For September and Wyatt

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Best. Pancakes. Ever.

Introduction

Gina: Hey there…I'm Gina Prosch and hanging out here with me (in print!) as always is my co-host, Christyn Edwards.

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Christyn: I usually say, Welcome to the show today but this time it’s Welcome to our new book!—A Homeschool Vocabulary: A-Z with the OnlySchoolers—which collects our transcripts from the 2021 season of the OnlySchoolers Podcast. Looking back at these transcripts, we’re proud of the way this homeschool vocabulary expanded the way we think and talk about home education on the show.

Gina: During 2021 we talked about the good—the great!—things about homeschooling, but we didn’t skip over some of the hard bits, the things that have us questioning everything we’re doing, or maybe even throwing in the towel.

Christyn: One of the things we committed to when we started the podcast was this: Gina and I would tell it like it is and be honest with you about our homeschool journeys.

Gina: Like the old opening sequence to ABC’s Wide World of Sports—with the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

Christyn: Only it’s the OnlySchoolers Wide World of Homeschooling.

Gina: Indeed it is! Our 2021 homeschool vocabulary began with A, ended with Z, and covered a whole lot of territory in between.

Christyn: During our first season of the OnlySchoolers podcast in the spring of 2020, we focused on our best homeschool advice. Since it ended up being the start of a global pandemic, it turned out to be fortuitous because many new families took on the challenge and joy of homeschooling.

Our hope and goal have always been that conversations between two moms of only children from the Midwest could be encouraging to homeschooling families—and it turned out, we were! Your support and feedback have been awesome!

Gina: But during Season 2, we decided to take a deeper dive into homeschooling and the nitty-gritty of living this extraordinary lifestyle. Each of our 22 episodes focused on a couple of themes that we explored through the lens of home education.

Those are the episodes we’ve collected here: our conversations about homeschooling as we relate to various themes such as doubt or mystery or perseverance or satisfactory.

Christyn: I remember being excited about this way of framing our conversations, but I don’t think either of us imagined at the time just how many opportunities it would provide for diving deep into the homeschool lifestyle and thinking about how our homeschool journey has changed and enriched our lives.

Gina: Before you jump in, we want to give everyone a little heads up about a few things we refer to in the book. The first is: our only pancakes!

Christyn: In one of the episodes from first season, we made a comparison between making pancakes and raising kids. With making pancakes the first pancake is for practice and the rest of the pancakes are for eating. But with only children, there is no second chance: they are our only pancakes so we want to get this right.

Gina: Next off, in a short five-minute episode in January 2021, we mentioned that I had chosen a word to serve as my guiding theme for the year and Christyn had chosen a quotation.

During the course of the year, we referred back to those ideas a few times, too.

Christyn: Anyone who knows me knows I’m a huge Jane Austen fan. So when I started thinking about how I want to approach 2021, I immediately thought of this line from one of her novels:

Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint.

Obviously, it has a literal translation—stay on your feet!—but I thought Jane wanted me to go a little deeper with that line, so my interpretation was this: Go have adventure, do some crazy stuff, just keep on living.

But more than that was the message to endure—to keep going, don’t give up, don’t get discouraged.

So, yeah…run mad, do not faint—that was my goal for 2021. And (thankfully!) little did I know at the beginning the year how appropriate that advice would be!

In that short opening podcast, I said I needed to embroider it on a pillow or something…and I was right!

Gina: Each year I pick a word that’s both a noun and a verb, so my word for 2021 was flourish. It seemed ideal for where I was at the time.

Flourish has lots of different meanings like a curlicue or a bit of ornamentation or maybe a sudden spurt of positive activity like an athlete who finishes with a flourish. And as a verb, flourish is all about prospering and growing in a healthy way, like the way a plant flourishes when it gets just the right amount of water, fertilizer, and sun.

And on with the show—or, in this case, the book!

Christyn: We’re starting at the very beginning, which everyone knows is a very fine place to start, with the letter A.

Autonomy and Attention

January 21, 2021

Learning to find the ability to act on your own values and beliefs as you home educate—claiming your autonomy—is a powerful step in shaping the education that is best for your child. Attention to yourself and your child plays a huge role in developing this homeschool autonomy.

Gina: Hey there! This is the OnlySchoolers podcast. I'm Gina Prosch and hanging out here with me as always is my co-host Christyn Edwards.

Christyn: Yep, as always! Hello and welcome to the show today! It’s kind of exciting with the official start of Season 2!

We popped in a couple of weeks ago to wish everyone a happy new year and tell you how we approach the official turning of the calendar.

So, Gina, going back to our New Year’s guiding thoughts.

I haven’t really done any running mad yet this year—give me time!—but how about you? Anything to report on the flourish front?

Gina: Here’s one thing that occurred to me since our last episode as I’ve moved into 2021 with Flourish as my focus word.

In mid-December, I had an idea for what I thought was a really fun project for 2021, and I started doing some ground-laying work over Christmas break, but the more I got to thinking about it and planning for it, the more I realized exactly how much work it would actually entail. I made notes and did a little more research to figure out exactly how much time it might take each week—time I’d need to carve out of my current schedule.

And the more I did all that, the more I started wondering if it this amazing idea of mine was really a good idea or not.

So I axed it!

Now putting the kibosh on something may see like the opposite of flourishing because I’m deliberately cutting off an opportunity, right?

But hang on with me for a moment because here’s the reason I ditched it.

I got to thinking about my petunias last summer, and when they’d gotten kinda gangly and leggy they just weren’t growing well. I decided they weren’t flourishing, so I nipped them back, way back.

They had such a buzz cut, they looked like they’d joined the US Army and were in the middle of basic training. They did look sad for a week or so, but before too long they really came back and flourished, and they grew like crazy for the rest of the summer.

In fact, I still had a couple of blossoms all the way to the first of November, when I finally pulled them all out of the potted plants.

Christyn: So, I think what you’re getting at here is sometimes what you opt not to do is as important as what you decide you will do when it comes times to flourish.

Gina: Exactly right, and that can be a big issue for homeschool families—learning how to say no to some things so other things can flourish.

This year, what I’m really looking to see flourish for our OnlySchoolers listeners is a deeper understanding of what home education really looks like.

And I think this season’s focus—framing each of our conversations around a couple of themes—is going to be very revealing. I mean, I’m almost at the end of my homeschooling years and you’re not too far behind, but I still think, with these deep dives into themes, we’re going to discover some interesting stuff.

We will definitely circle back to things we talk about all the time. Got any bets on how long it takes one of us to mention ownership of education?

Christyn: I’m going with less than the 30 minutes or so it takes to finish recording this podcast!

Gina: I bet you’re right. But I think also along the way we will uncover more than a few beliefs we didn’t necessarily know we had. Essential ideas that have moved us forward during our homeschool journey. New things we’d like to explore or learn more about.

Christyn: Oh, for sure. We say it all the time, but we’re really not just spouting lifelong learning as a hashtag. I know even in our rink walks—and those usually begin pretty casually with what we’ve been doing since we saw each other last—but we always end up uncovering some pretty big truths about what home educating is.

Gina: You’re right about that! No matter what age you are or where you are in life, if you think you’ve got something figured out…don’t bet on it, because there’s always a different perspective to consider or a new way to think about something.

That’s how we’re going to approach this season, with the idea of thinking about all these different themes as they relate to homeschooling our kids.

So, what are we going to be talking about today?

Christyn: Well, let’s just get straight to two of the biggest of the big themes of homeschooling, shall we?

Ok, so we’re here at the start of a new year. Today is January 21 st, which means we’re 21 days into 2021.

Gina: Do you suppose that means something? 21 days into 2021?

Christyn: I don’t know…but it sounded good just now.

And I think that one of the reasons we all make resolutions or guiding principles or whatever is that we want to believe we can use those to make a difference in the way we live our year. We’re looking for a way to frame it, to write our own story, so to speak.

The perfect words for that new start—and the ones we want to think about today—are Autonomy and Attention.

Gina: Absolutely! I was thrilled when we started looking at our list of possible themes and those were at the top. I mean, yes, we are taking an alphabetical approach to the themes this season—because honestly, how else would an English teacher and a librarian decide to do it?!

But those two words embrace everything we think about when the calendar changes from one year to the next.

Christyn: Word nerds to the end…that’s us! My librarian instincts kick in far too often, I think!

But, yeah, it couldn’t have worked out more perfectly.

Okay, so when I think autonomy, my first thought goes to just having the ability to act on my own values and beliefs, right? To be my own person and live according to my own reasons and motives. As I said earlier, to write my own story.

And when it comes to homeschooling, I want autonomy not only for me, in the decisions I make relative to what every other homeschooler is doing, but I also want that for my daughter.

What do you think?

Gina: I really like your definition of autonomy: acting on my own values and beliefs, being self-governed, having a sense of moral independence. It’s doing what I think is right, even if others might believe differently.

And since this is the OnlySchoolers Podcast, I must say that I believe being an only child affected my sense of autonomy.

Growing up, I had no siblings to do things with, my first cousins were all a good bit younger than me, and because I lived in the country with no close neighbors other than my grandparents, I was on my own a good bit of the time.

Autonomy was kind of a natural fit.

It’s continued into my professional life as I left a more group-oriented job in academics to follow a more autonomous call. My husband and I are entrepreneurs who own our own small business.

So while we work with others and for others, it’s important for us to act on our own values and have faith it will all work out right in the end.

It’s the same thing with homeschooling. We have to create the kind of homeschooling environment that works for us, even if what we do wouldn’t work for a single other family.

Definitely, staying true to yourself can be a bumpy road. There have been many times I’ve been filled with self-doubts and second guesses, but in the end, we’ve discovered it’s the best answer for our family.

So what about you? How hard is it for you to feel autonomous as a homeschooler? Do you have to work at it?

Christyn: Yeah, I do. As we’ve said before, we’re living this extraordinary life, right? We’ve declared our freedom to make the educational choices we think are best for our kids, so that checks a box for autonomy.

But I think when we get down to the daily ins-and-outs, there’s some pressure to, I don’t want to say conform necessarily, but definitely some pressure to fit in and do what everyone else is doing. We’ve talked about that before.

Make sure you’re making the choices that are best for you, not because it’s the choice your best homeschooling parent friend makes.

Gina: Yes! Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery…but you can’t imitate someone else’s autonomy. That won’t work at all.

Like Dr. Seuss says, Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is You-er than You.

As the you that is each of us, we have to choose the daily routine, the break (or no break) schedule, the cafeteria menu, the curriculum and what have you which works best for our own particular situations.

It’s not always easy or instantly clear what we should do.

Christyn: Exactly. It turns out that although Math-U-See is a great fit for both of our homeschool visions, Brave Writer is not! But we each explored our choices and acted in our best interests.

But that’s hard, sometimes.

I remember when I started homeschooling September. I felt vulnerable. I was just breaking away from the traditional education system, and I wanted to feel less alone. And my husband died just four months later, so I was feeling really, desperately alone. I was looking for a connection.

And seeking connection is absolutely fine! I just needed to be sure I didn’t lose my autonomy. Either as a widow working to find a new normal or as a homeschooling mother trying to educate my kid. There’s a lot of pressure in both roles, and I needed to stay true to myself so I could be my best for me and my daughter.

All homeschool families have their own reasons for choosing to home educate. Hang on to those. Those reasons will guide you as you create your own unique homeschool based on your own values and beliefs.

Here’s another example: when you look at our homeschool philosophies, Gina, you’ve landed on a more unschool-y approach while I tend to lean more traditional.

Gina: And look at us!!!! We’re still friends!

Christyn: Yes, we are! And that’s because we each have a pretty darn good sense of self-respect for ourselves and respect for one another. We know the motives we have for the homeschooling choices we make. We’re doing what’s best for our kids, and since our kids are different, it just follows that our approaches are, too.

For me, having homeschool autonomy is about knowing I have all those choices and knowing I have the freedom to choose the best for me.

That kind of leads to our next thing to consider for this theme: if we want the freedom to act in our own interests, it just follows we want to offer that same autonomy to our kids.

Wyatt’s a pretty self-respecting guy–how does autonomy play a part in his education?

Gina: Again, with the only child thing and growing up in the country. He’s had to find his own fun, and he’s also had plenty of time to be outside in nature—which I think is incredibly important to kids, at least to my kid. It’s given him the time to think his own thoughts, to figure out how the world works and what he believes about the world as he interacts with it.

Plus, from the time he was small we encouraged him to be autonomous. Do you want to do this or that? What color do you want to paint your bedroom? What books do you want to read? What do you want to study?

Maybe everyone doesn’t see it this way, but because we value autonomy for ourselves so highly, then it would be a terrible wrong take his autonomy away.

Now, does that create problems? Absolutely!

Having a kid who cut his teeth on autonomous thought means he’s not an easy kid. If you’re looking for someone who is going to go along in order get along…Wyatt is not your guy.

Now he’s not contentious or a jerk—he doesn’t always have to have his way—but he’s not going to sit back and accept things, particularly things he sees as unfair or an injustice, simply because a so-called authority figure happens to say so, no matter who the someone in charge happens to be.

He’s not one to acquiesce, do what he’s told, or blindly follow along…which means his long-time skating coach has had some fun times along the way.

He is absolutely as stubborn as his mother, and he’s much more willing than I am to stand up for himself and what he believes is right rather than just get along.

What about September? The first time I saw a photo of her in sunglasses looking for all the world like a pint-sized Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, I thought she has an absolute aura of autonomy about her!

Christyn: You’re not kidding! She’s always had an independent thing going on!

But, yeah, I would say making sure she knows she has the freedom to make her own choices has always been a priority for me. Can I say it just one more time? Ownership of education!

Gina: Ding! Ding! Ding! We got a winner with Ownership of Education!!

Christyn: Oh geez—and I wasn’t even trying to, it just kind of slipped out. But talk about deeply held beliefs we share: ownership of education is absolutely integral to each of our homeschools.

Anyway—this past fall, when September started working through the Psychology course I’d selected, I respected her voice when she said she didn’t like it. She told me why, I listened to her reasons (which were valid) and we changed course. She knew what she wanted from her studies, and she acted on those motives.

She knew I’d be okay with her asserting her autonomy because that’s how we roll. I’ve given her choices since she was just a tiny thing. I want her to have some agency—which is actually another great A theme we could’ve added today!

I want her to know she’s capable of making decisions that directly affect her. And she deserves to have her voice heard, which honestly, I think is a hard concept for some adults to grasp: we need to value our kids’ voices.

The decisions she gets to make might have been small at first, but as she grows, so has her autonomy. First, it’s a choice of candy, then a choice in education, now it’s driving (gulp!), then on to the big choices of job and lifestyle and on and on. It’s so important to me that she knows she can write her own life story.

Gina: It’s one of the best aspects of homeschooling, isn’t it? Helping our kids find their own path, in their own time.

I believe this so deeply, I actually wrote a very short book available on my ginaprosch.com web site called How to Read and Understand the Story of Your Life. Telling your own life’s story is hugely important—and being the hero in your story, and not a bit player in someone else’s story is something that takes time and focused attention to figure out.

Which brings up the next theme we wanted to discuss today, which is Attention.

Christyn: Right, because if we’re not paying attention to what’s happening in our homeschools—to our needs and our kids’ needs—all the autonomy in the world won’t help when things go really wrong, really fast.

Gina: This idea of attention is what we want to think about next.

When I say we’ll look at homeschooling through the lens of attention, what are your thoughts?

Christyn: Well, the teacher in me starts thinking about what defines the word itself. So, in that respect, I’m thinking about attention being taking notice of something, fixing my mind on something, like it caught my attention.

But it’s also taking action, like giving something my full attention to make a change, you know?

Both of those definitions are so critical to homeschooling, especially for me at this time of year.

Gina: Oh, don’t I know it! I was having a great time over the Christmas break: the Christmas lights were on, I was all cozy under the quilt I’m currently hand quilting, and I was totally caught up in Season 4 of The Crown, which I’d saved to watch over the holidays. I loved it!!

And now it’s time to turn my attention back to what we’re doing for school? What I’m doing for work? What we’re doing for this podcast?

Christyn: Exactly!

We’re coming off of a break, and sometimes it’s hard to get back in the groove. Especially when the weather’s cold and all I really want to do is curl up by the fireplace with a good book. So, yeah, I definitely need to pay attention to that inclination just so I don’t get distracted by it.

In the same way, though, I want to take notice of the fact that I do need that downtime and figure out the best way to fit it into my schedule, while also getting us going again. I’m not at my best when I’m running on empty.

Attention for me right now as far as homeschooling means I’m taking notice of where we are in the year. How do the hours look? Where do we need to focus more effort? Where and how can I honor September’s autonomy as we move into the second half of the school year?

But I am taking action, too. Like literally. Real action. I’ve noticed in the past that we have this need to change up things a bit in January, so I gave my full attention to making that happen this year: I found a Great Courses class Understanding and Applying Self-Defense Strategies–cool, right?

Fits right into our binge-watching of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. There are always some defensive action scenes, so we thought it would be a kick (pun intended!) to start off the year with this new course.

So, what about you? Where does attention fit into your homeschool?

Gina: I am totally cracking up over here, because we’ve never talked about this, but the woman who hosts the Great Courses class you mentioned—Tammy Yard McCracken—is part of an amazing group of violence dynamics experts I’ve followed on Facebook for years now.

Rich and I are doing her Great Courses class ourselves, and it’s really terrific!

Christyn: You’re kidding me?

Gina: Nope! We will definitely have something new to talk about when as we’re rink walking on Monday. Maybe practice our meat puzzles together!

But back to putting my attention on our discussion of attention...

You’re exactly right about the where are we in the school year attention issue. Here in Missouri, by law, our school year runs from July 1 thru June 30, so on January 1, we’re halfway through, at least as far as the calendar is concerned.

Back when we were logging hours (before Wyatt turned 16), the first of the year was always a