Haus Frau and Sensei

“Being adaptable is certainly important. "My house hasn't been clean since we started homeschooling seven years ago.”

I read this quote several months ago and I shuddered at the idea. My imagination didn’t quite go to a vision from “Hoarders”, but I did begin to feel itchy and shortly after launched into a full-on kitchen clean; rubber gloves and all. I am admittedly a recovering OCD Haus Frau and a joyful feng shui junkie, but my possible judgement (see, I said it first), lay in the notion that a messy house would be a conducive environment for learning.

Hear me out. If you went to visit your child’s classroom and saw everything in disarray, would you have issue with not only the potential health and safety of the space, but also the teacher’s ability to organize herself and model that for the students? Again, my point here is less about messy homes and disorganization (a lived in home is always better than a picture perfect one), and more about messy planning or a lack thereof and the effects it could have on home teaching and learning.

Here are a few ways you can have a clean house and a vibrant homeschool too.

1. Designate times during the week for cleaning, cooking and running home errands.
   
   
2. Wake up an hour earlier. Most teachers arrive at work at least an hour before students to plan, prep and handle any special events occurring that day, such as field trips or special presentations. Use this time for either yourself (you likely need a moment alone with such a crowded day), housework and/or homeschool planning and prep.
   
   
3. Involve your kids in set-up and tidy-up. Incorporate prepping for an activity into the activity - use it to gain prior knowledge, as front loading or merely to help out. Tidying up is a shared responsibility and encourages self-management and respect for the space. In Japan, students collectively clean the classrooms at the end of each school day. They sweep, mop, wipe down tables, and ensure that the room is as tidy and organized as it was when they entered. This is especially important if your home has multi purposes. You don’t want to serve dinner on a table littered with legos or math worksheets.
   
   
4. As with housework, designate times of the week when your child will work independently or collaboratively with siblings, other homeschoolers or a tutor. You can use this time to do some less-involved work that does not require your full attention. Meaning, you’re still available if needed.
   
   
5. Lastly, incorporate some housekeeping/homemaking chores with learning. Baking and gardening are excellent activities to unpack maths, sciences, history and even the language and visual arts. Here’s the caveat, as with any strategy, the lessons must be purposeful and relevant to the content or concepts being explored. Vary the approach and you may have smart mini helpers and a clean house too.
   

While homeschooling occurs at home, it is not a venture that can be squeezed in between laundry and dinner. Even the most hands-off approaches require prompting, interaction and at the very least, supervision. Kudos to the parent who values her children’s education over a House&Garden editorial-worthy living room. And perhaps it’s not possible, to maintain both roles simultaneously as teacher and homemaker - has anyone figured out yet how to clone themselves? Consider for a moment what the benefits of conscious planning, coordination and effort could be. And may you never have to go seven years with a messy home.

xo Lisa