I have been working in higher education for almost 20 years and I have been teaching for over 15 years. During this time, I was involved in program review, curriculum development, and course design. So, I felt pretty confident when we made the decision to home school our youngest.
But then the actual lesson planning began and a major revelation occurred. Elementary curriculum is not like college curriculum. Elementary teachers must be skilled in a number of disciplines. College professors focus on one discipline, and typically only teach a small set of courses within that discipline. This was going to be an interesting journey.
Luckily, I took a VERY windy path to academia, switching my majors and concentration areas along the way. This means that I covered a lot of different content areas over the years … except the “specials.” Art, music, physical education, and STEAM were some of my child’s favorite classes in school. Art was relaxed and calming, music was fun and exciting, phys. ed. was intense and energizing, and STEAM was just super interesting. The specials’ teachers were skilled at their crafts. I was not going to be able to match their expertise. What was I going to do? Outsource!
The first specials instructor I recruited was for STEAM. This was any easy “hire” because he was in-house. My husband agreed to set aside one lunch period a week to teach technology. However, I had to help him plan his lessons. So, with a local district’s curriculum in hand and a few great books (Workman Publishing’s Everything you need to ace computer science and coding in one big fat notebook and Tacke’s Coding for Kids Python), specials began … and then immediately went off track.
Sessions have morphed from formal lessons to in-depth conversations. The first week they spent discussing network security, encryption, and firewalls. The next week they set-up a family Spotify account and discussed artist copy rights and user responsibilities. This week they are trying various tools to communicate visually. I am thrilled. The teacher is honoring his weekly commitment and is more engaging than I expected. The class will certainly produce a “digital citizen.” But does any one remember the 1980s movie War Games????