Triage Homeschool

A woman shows up in the ER by ambulance, accompanied by a slew of medical people, in the middle of a life-altering massive heart attack.

A man drives himself to the ER because he cut his hand and can't get the bleeding to stop.

A woman has her neighbor drive her to the ER, because she's 9 months pregnant and having trouble breathing.

You take your kid to the ER, because they fell off the play structure and keep wanting to fall asleep.

What do these people have in common?  When they arrive, someone looks at them, asks them questions, and figures out in the current environment of the ER, where their ailment falls on the list of important things.  This is triaging.  And man, it is a useful tool for us homeschool people.

The entire premise of triage is based on the very simple concept that reality exists.  There is not a doctor vending machine down the hall, ensuring that each person who arrives at the hospital can immediately see a physician, and therefore the limited medical resources must be alloted in a fair and life-saving manner.  The people who have the biggest crises get the first crack at the doctors.  If two identical problems show up, factors such as compounding medical issues are taken into account.  If everyone is identical, the person who got there first gets to see the doctor.  And so forth.

And that's why your child, even though they are your beautiful amazing child, or your husband, even though he is still bleeding and his hand really hurts, or your neighbor, who could be in early labour, are all going to get seen AFTER the lady currently experiencing a huge pulmonary event on the guerney.

Here's why this makes any difference to your math.

You exist in the reality you exist in, and although in some ways that reality can be changed or at least challenged, it exists, and it makes you, and your resources,  finite.  Which is to say that your hand may be weeping blood into a towel, but if there is one doctor, you will have to wait your turn.  And art history may be a very valuable topic and one you would deeply enjoy, but if your kid cannot read, then...priorities.   Triage, you see?

If you've ever worked within the confines of any sort of reality, which is a definition that applies to every sentient thing that has ever existed, then you fundementally understand this concept.  If you have a suitcase, and everything you need to pack must fit into that suitcase, then there may be things you cannot pack, and there may be substitutions that can be made, or compromises.  Not the red and the blue shoes, just the red ones.

In our own homeschool this has shown itself in multiple ways, primarily through the very beginning of a child's schooling.  Sometimes people are surprised when they ask me what my youngest children learn in school, or what math they take, or what science or whatever, and I respond that...they don't.   My youngest children do one thing: they learn to read.  That is my one and only goal for the children in their early years - to firmly understand the basics of phonics and be able to read at the level of about Frog and Toad.  That's it.  Because I have triaged our early education and the most important thing is to learn how to read.  You can't do copywork well if you can't read.  You can't read your instructions in your math book.  You can't entertain yourself so that I can help another student.  You can't do anything well.  So first, learn to read.  Then we'll worry about the rest.

Now, I mean, does my current 5yo 'do' other school?  Sure.  I don't count it as actual school or anything, but she likes to sit with her siblings and fiddle in a workbook.  I haven't enquired much but she seems to have mastered addition.   If she wants to play math she's welcome to it, but I teach...reading.  Period.

You'll notice away up there in the post that I highlighted how triaging refers in many ways to the current environment, and that's equally important.   You see, I know myself pretty well by now as a teacher.  I know how much energy I have and where my skills and weaknesses lie and what my budget is for supplies.  So I need to weigh my teaching desires against my environment,  or my reality.   Here's are two examples of how that might work for our house.

My husband is a minister, which means we're pretty swamped on Sundays.   Because of this, I know I can't plan to homeschool on that day.  If I worked outside the home Mon. - Fri., and expected to be able to utilize evenings and weekends to fit in schoolwork, that would be unrealistic.  Fortunately I do not, and therefore I have the time I have.  But I don't have unlimited time - I have family,  home, church, and personal obligations.   I'm not willing to forgo showering to fit in a geography lesson or refuse to talk to a distressed friend in order to teach the finer points of charcoal drawing.  So I have limited resources  (time is a resource, friends).

The other factor is that...who I am is another part of my reality.   I am anxious, I need a certain amount of sleep, I don't work well when I'm hungry, I need fresh air, I expect time in my day to read.  But also, I am not a fastidious housekeeper, my family is content with a simple meal, we own few things to clean, I have the luxury of staying home.  I am the sum of my strengths and weaknesses and oddities - what works for one person will perhaps not work for me.  But regardless of what the triage looks like for me compared to you, we both still exist in a 24 hr. day with all of its inherent limitations and we have to pick...what is most important ?

So here I am, with X obligations,  and Y resources.  X cannot be bigger than Y.  X must be equivalent or less than Y.  Ideally you want your obligations to be less than your resources because factoring in some margin to your life is going to ensure a much better chance of not going crazy, but at the very least,  you can't have X bigger than Y, because then we all know what happens. ..something doesn't get done.

It isn't like we can cram 25 hours of work into the 24 hour day, which is a thing that shockingly large numbers of humans seem to be unable to wrap their heads around.  You get 24 hours.  I mean, you can PLAN 25 hrs. of stuff,  but what will still happen is at the maximum 24 hrs. of stuff will get done...and 1 hr. will remain to haunt the next day.  Some people live their whole lives in this state, and enjoy it.  Some people live their whole lives in this state and dread it.  Some people triage.

You plan out the 24 hrs., and you don't plan any margin, and then something happens  (life advice!  Something always, always happens) and now you're even  more behind.  "why????" you wail "for I planned unto myself verily the perfect number of things!!!!" Ah, my sweet friend, you neglected to take into account...reality.

Reality is that when my child is 5yo, I can do...1 reading lesson a day.  Sometimes I can do other things,  but the very most important thing is one reading lesson.  If all is going well and suddenly there's more margin available then the next most important thing gets done, and so forth.

It's shocking how little we can actually realistically get done.  If you want to work well, and you want to work with multiple students at different levels, while also doing other things in life and not facing each day with dread and exhaustion,  your realistic list of school might be small enough to shock you.  For example, I can manage two outside the house things at maximum for my children.  They are already pre-decided: piano and swimming.  That's it!  My children cannot do one other thing!  This is what I have the ability to handle, and I know this.   And so when I tell myself    'I have space for two things', I know I must pick the most important things,  I can't pick the soccer lessons and drawing classes, because those are not in the first triage tier.

This all seems like something you shouldn't say, because it seems...obvious but also potentially hurtful.  At the same time, speaking from personal experience, almost every single time I've been overwhelmed by school it has been because I haven't had my priorities straight.  I've tried to put too much in one day, I haven't factored in what I need for myself, I haven't admitted that cleaning my house when it is totally destroyed from weeks of ignoring it while forcing us through some aspect of school I've deemed crucial was one thing too many.  I have refused to admit that I can only do a very little bit. 

And so I go back to the beginning  and I look over it all and I say ' Shakespeare is wonderful,  but you can't read him aloud right now, and read Beowulf.  Pick one.'

Pick.  Choose. Prioritize.  Triage.  Hard, hard reality for us all.