My 7-year-old doesn't know his months.
The first thing you might think while reading the title is, “Ha! Homeschooling leads to less educated children,” and you would be very right!
It all depends on how you measure education, which is parents' main challenge when homeschooling.
The challenge stems from being indoctrinated through the school system; for better or worse, the system has engrained a mental model of what education looks like and grade-level-based knowledge gates. If a child doesn't know their months by a certain point, they will be considered dumb or a failure. But let me ask you a question: Does it matter?
Will the child not eventually grow to be a functioning adult with finely well-balanced emotional intelligence and still not know the month of the year? Is it possible for the laziest homeschooling parent to teach that through osmosis? Which, by definition, is not an extra ay applied learning but just a function of existing? My child has dyslexia; it can present itself as ADHD, hyperactivity, or even stupidity (whether explicitly told or felt through competition and observation.
Sure, it will give him a minute to tell you that January comes after December. Still, he can also explain the laws of supply and demand, profit margins, what can be classified as a business expense, revenue streams, etc.
However, if you ask him to define it all on paper, he will seem like an absolute dunce. And here lies the problem: if you measure a Child's intelligence by their ability to read (dyslexia is harsh in that regard), then the child will fail based on your archaic system.
In the age of AI, asking the right question is more important than knowing the information. But, my ten-year-old, who is also severely dyslexic and finished grade 5 math in less than two months WITHOUT ANY INSTRUCTION, figured it out on his own, with his parents' slight pointing in the right direction. The 10-year-old will do grade 6 and grade 7 math at the same time that his school-bound peers take to eat their lunch and talk about some crudeness they heard of on TikTok.
This author wholly believes that the school system is hopelessly outdated; my next business will be a school for gifted dyslexics with no grades, just goals!
Until next time.