How Maya Angelou Informs our Homeschool to Value Solitude

We rarely experience solitude and hardly know its benefits, so we certainly don’t think to teach it to our children.

How does Maya Angelou informs our homeschool about solitude in our lives or solitude in our homeschool?

Our western culture teaches us…

• to love public attention, and naturally, our ego appreciates that, until it doesn’t get it.
• that extroversion is favourable, even necessary, healthy, and normal.
• that constant activity equals importance, value, and purpose.
• that we should search for meaning outside of ourselves, preferably in crowds of others.

How does Maya Angelou teach us to value solitude in our homeschool?

Maya Angelou informs our homeschool to wield solitude.

---

---

---

Maya Angelou writes, “In the biblical story, the prodigal son risked, and for a time, lost everything he had because of an uncontrollable hunger for company.

First, he asked for and received his inheritance, not caring that his father, from whom he would normally inherit, was still alive; not considering that by demanding his portion, he might be endangering the family’s financial position.

The parable relates that after he took his fortune, he went off into a far country and there he found company.

Wasteful living conquered his loneliness and riotous companions, conquered his restlessness.

For a while, he was fulfilled, but he lost favour in the eyes of his friends. As his money began to disappear, he began to slip down that steep road to social oblivion.

His condition became so reduced that he began to have to feed the hogs. Then it further worsened until he began to eat with the hogs. It is never lonesome in Babylon.

Of course, one needs to examine who–or in the prodigal son’s case, what–he has for company.”

---

---

---

“Many believe that they need company at any cost, and certainly if a thing is desired at any cost, then it will be obtained at any cost,” says Maya Angelou.

She also says, “We need to remember and to teach our children that solitude can be a much-to-be-desired condition. Not only is it acceptable to be alone, but at times it is positively to be wished for. It is in the interludes between being in company that we talk to ourselves. In the silence, we listen to ourselves. Then we ask questions of ourselves. We describe ourselves to ourselves, and in the quietude, we may even hear the voice of God.” (From Maya Angelou’s book, Even the Stars Look Lonesome)

---

Homeschooling certainly offers solitude and all its benefits, if we allow it.

A few tips on encouraging solitude:

• Limit extracurricular activities. (You know how many are too many).
• Enact a communal quiet time. After lunch for an hour perhaps?
• Enable an hour of quiet before lights are out at bedtime.
• Expect each of the kids to take the dog for a walk, assuming it’s age-appropriate.
• Don’t schedule every day.
• Intentionally schedule a quiet day.
• Go hiking, canoeing, kayaking, walking, biking, climbing, or anything else that could be done outdoors.
• Make Sundays quiet days.

We can wield, teach, and model, the freedoms we have in homeschool solitude.

---

---

People also ask:

• If you need a little solitude, take a mini-retreat here: the Homeschool Mama Retreat.
• How can I join other homeschool moms in a virtual book club?
• 7 ways to find quiet, build boundaries & handle overwhelm
• Maya Angelou’s encouragement for the misunderstood homeschool mama
• What Brene Brown teaches us in our homeschool lives.
• Do you do one-on-one homeschool coaching? Why, yes I do!

---