Curriculum: Tool or Burden?
Our English idioms baffle people learning English as a second language, but I am guessing that somewhere along your homeschooling journey you have understood these idioms all too well. Perhaps you have felt them all along the way.
I feel like I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders.
I need to get my act together.
I have missed the boat.
The ball is in my court.
I need to pull myself together.
I have dropped that ball that was in my court.
As you know, one of my major goals for Daily Encouragement for Homeschooling Mothers is to help mamas who feel those ways. It is also a major goal when we write history curriculum.
American history is especially on my mind these days. It is time to update America the Beautiful. Time marches on and a lot has happened since 2012. As I explained to a mama last weekend in St. Charles, as a mama, I would feel fine using an older version of a curriculum, but as a publisher, we feel a responsibility to cover recent events.
Like all our curriculum, A the B (as we call it around here) was a whole family effort with many individuals taking on major responsibility. Still, I wrote the daily lessons and it is my responsibility to update them. I would appreciate your prayers for this, especially since I am also involved in developing our new high school geography and our next elementary curriculum for grades 1-4.
It is important to me that America the Beautiful be a useful tool for homeschooling families — and that word tool is key. I am sad when I talk with or hear from a homeschooling mama who is burdened by a homeschooling method or curriculum she has chosen for her children. I believe that every good method or curriculum should be a tool, not a task master — and never a burden.
These are the words that I used in the introduction to America the Beautiful to try to communicate that idea to its users:
Remember that God gave you your children and your daily responsibilities. A homeschooling mother who has one child can complete more America the Beautiful activities than a homeschooling mother who has seven children and an elderly grandparent living in her home. God will use the efforts of both of these mothers. God does not expect you to do more than you can do. Be kind to yourself. He knows exactly what you and your children need this year. Remember that out of all the parents in the world to whom He could have given your children, He chose you. He is the One who put your family together. He knows what He is doing. Relax and trust in His choice. God created our beautiful country. God created you. He created your children. Relax and remember that this is the day that the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it!
Stephen of Mar Sabas lived from 725-794. I don’t know the source of his weariness and distress, but I love the hymn that he wrote about it. The prolific English hymn writer and translator John Mason Neale translated it into English in 1862. This is the first verse.
Are you weary, are you languid,
Are you sore distress’d?
“Come to me,” says One, “and, coming,
Be at rest.”
Jesus Himself spoke that invitation. For decades it has been one of my most cherished verses. It is the voice of our Savior when my heart is weary and burdened. It is His voice to every weary and burdened mama’s heart.
Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me,
for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls.
For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.
Matthew 11:28-30
Jesus condemned religious leaders who put heavy burdens on others.
. . . He said, “Woe to you lawyers as well!
For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear,
while you yourselves will not even touch
the burdens with one of your fingers.”
Luke 11:46
You want to honor God by the way you homeschool. You don’t have to walk around carrying the “weight of the world” on your shoulders to do that. Jesus said:
For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.
Matthew 11:30
In your homeschooling, you want to obey God’s commandments and teach your children to do the same. Years after Jesus ascended back to heaven, His dear friend, the apostle John, wrote:
For this is the love of God,
that we keep His commandments;
and His commandments are not burdensome.
1 John 5:3
Jesus is the One and Only Son of our Father Who has always offered to carry our burdens:
Cast your burden upon the Lord
and He will sustain you;
He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.
Psalm 55:22
“Are you weary? Are you languid? Are you sore distressed” today?
Blessed be the Lord,
who daily bears our burden,
The God who is our salvation.
Psalm 68:19