Homeschooling a Square Peg

Ever tried to hammer a square peg into a round hole?  It can be done.  Not easily, and certainly not without damaging the peg, and likely the hole as well, but it is possible. 

Ever heard of a child referred to as a square peg?  I have.  In fact, I’m homeschooling one.  Now, my seven-year-old is not square, and he is not made of wood, so what exactly is meant when we refer to a child as a square peg?  Most often, we’re referring to a child who does not fit the standard expectations for a given situation, usually in regards to school.  A square peg is a child who does not learn in a way that makes them easy to teach using the traditional methods.

Children learn differently, and yet so often we expect them to all learn and perform in the same manner.  We teach, talking at them while they sit, following along in a book or frantically taking notes.  When a student has difficulty sitting still, listening, and taking notes, we say he has a learning disability, or he’s ADHD, or maybe he’s just plain disruptive.   

A few years back, I enrolled Connor in a preschool class at our local nature center.  Each week, the naturalist set out carpet squares for the children to sit on during story and discussion time.  Some of the children sat “criss-cross-applesauce, spoons in the bowl,” never moving from their carpet squares.  Others, like Connor, were a whirlwind of motion the entire time.  No matter how often I reminded him to sit, or how close I sat to him, Connor just couldn’t sit quietly on that carpet square to listen.  I know this frustrated the naturalist and more than once I considered removing Connor from the class “until he was ready to sit,” but he enjoyed the class, and he was learning from the class, and so we persisted.

One week, Connor was “bronco-bucking” around his carpet square during the discussion time.  You know, hands on the carpet square, feet in the air.  The naturalist was asking the children questions about things they had learned in earlier weeks, and Connor was answering EVERY SINGLE QUESTION.  The naturalist asked the questions, and Connor fired off the answers, one after another, until she paused, smiled, and said, “I fed him the answers before class.  He’s being paid for this performance.”

It was an eye-opening moment for the naturalist… and for me.  She had realized that Connor wasn’t just plain disruptive, that he was interested in the class, and that he was learning.  I realized that Connor needs to move to learn.  When he is sitting quietly in a chair, all of his energy is focused on sitting in that chair, there is nothing left for listening or learning.  When Connor is moving, his brain is firing:  he’s attending, he’s processing, and he’s learning.

Since that time, I’ve tried to keep this in mind when working with Connor.  We sing, and dance, and make up hand movements to go with our history and science facts.  We use a hands-on spelling curriculum.  We play academic video games and board games.  We crunch on tortilla chips, and work with music on in the background.  We move from place to place as we learn throughout the day, and we take frequent movement breaks.

Now, I will admit, educating a square peg is not easy, even in a homeschool.  It takes energy, and thought, and a great deal of patience.  I am a traditional learner.  I don’t need to move around to learn; in fact, I find it distracting, but as I said earlier, each of us learns differently, and Connor needs to move to learn.   We still work on sitting for short periods of time – because there are times when he will need to know how to sit – but Connor, as each of us, does his best work when allowed to do what works best for him, even when it seems a bit odd to me.