Step 1 - Define Your Homeschool Vision
You are today where yesterday’s thoughts have brought you
And will be tomorrow where today’s thoughts take you.
by Elmer G Letterman
Vision is about shaping your thoughts today to take you where you want to be tomorrow!
Vision – a picture of where you want to end – will not just exist automatically. You must define it, in order to see it happen.
Vision is the first step in the 7-step process as it provides the ‘something’ to measure against. Vision requires thinking, observation, discussion and some more thinking…it takes some time.
Typically we do not define vision, so be different and make time to think about it, observe and develop your personal homeschool vision.
Remember to write it down as it will become a tool to measure progress.
What Is It About?
Vision is about having a picture of where you want to be when you have done the homeschooling thing.
The picture will be described in words, probable lots of words, but the idea should always be to have a PICTURE in your mind of what and where you and your children must look like/end up/be like after a period of time.
This period can be longterm: when you envision your young adult leaving home (how should he/she be like by then?),
or shortterm: when you envision what your child should have learnt by the end of the year/quarter or even week.
Vision is missing if you are not happy with where you are now.
Some questions to help the thinking process get going:
- What do you think a well educated child means or should mean?
- What did you like about school and what not? Also ask your spouse.
- What type of relationships do you want for your family? What types don’t you want? Why and why not?
- What sort of character traits do you envision for your children? How do you think you’ll achieve that? What traits don’t you want to end up with?
- What type of home do you want to have while homeschooling? What type of home will you not be comfortable with? Why and why not?
- What should a typical day look like? What will frustrate you and what not? Why?
For an even better understanding, read Chris and Ellyn Davis' excellent e-book (available for FREE) called
DEVELOPING A STRONG ENOUGH WHY, which emphasizes the importance of clarifying the real motivation for homeschooling.
The intro reads as follows....
"In home schooling your children, if you have a strong enough WHY, the HOWs will take care of themselves. Most problems with home schooling tend to occur because parents get hung up over the HOWs of home schooling. And the reason is, they don’t have a strong enough WHY. Here are the six strongest reasons why we chose to home school our children."
To read the rest of the e-book, please click here.
For Actions to take and Templates to use...
Get the
Homeschooling Guide on The 7-Step Process to Improve Your Homeschool
FREE for complete info on each step including templates for your use
For an example of what we have done Go to Step 1 Vision personal
For more information on the steps click on the relevant link:
Back to 7 Steps process overview
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