Any search around the internet looking for homeschool/home education ‘organisation’ is probably at some stage going to lead you to discussions about workboxes. One of the best known workbox systems is that developed by Sue Patrick, and it is the e-book version of her book Sue Patrick’s Workbox System User’s Guide that I am reviewing.
While the book bills itself as a manual, it is (as many publications relating to home education invariably are) also about Patrick’s views on education. There is the inevitable opening chapter on the benefits of home education, and the next chapter is more thoughts on Patrick’s philosophies on education. It is not until the third chapter that there is an explanation of what the Workbox system is. Patrick is upfront about the workbox system being closely tied to an educational philosophy, and the remainder of the publication is a mix of both steps on setting up the system, and writing about why to homeschool, and why use this system.
Throughout the chapters Sue Patrick outlines in clear steps, illustrated with photographs, how to set up the workbox system. At its most basic, the idea is to divide the student’s work in to discrete sections, and put everything required for each lesson/section – including needed pencils, stationery, materials etc. – in to a clear box. The boxes are then organised in order on a rack. The student can then take each box in turn, work on it, and put it aside. The idea is that
- Students can work independently, rather than feeling the need to have their parent sit beside them the whole time. Patrick feels that this leads to too much talking – in her words
I find that there is way too much talking going on in homeschools. Homeschool children often develop the skill of speaking outloud every thought that enters their mind, whenever it enters it! These two issues can seem innocent and necessary with a pre-schooler, but quite aggravating and unproductive well into elementary and middle school. And the unnecessary talking by middle school can tend to be unproductive prompting and arguing by the parent.
(I don’t really agree with this personally – yes, a child who feels that it is appropriate to just voice whatever they are thinking whenever they want does get very annoying, and is very-self centred, but I am not sure it is caused for the reasons Patrick gives).
- By having the boxes on a rack, and then placing them to the side once finished, the student has a tangible sense of how much work is completed, and how much work there is to be done.
The book continues, outlining how a day progresses when following this system to the letter, including a sample day. There are suggestions for organising a curriculum, different ways of presenting information, how to specialise the learning experience for your child’s individual needs, ideas for using the workbox system in different types of home education families and ideas about products that might be worth investing in, and where to find resources.
There is a lot of good information in this book, and some really great ideas. That said, I had a few problems with it:
- The cost – at US$19 for essentially a PDF file, that is steep. I understand that the author has to cover the fact that as a PDF file there is nothing to really stop a buyer sending a copy to all and sundry, and that Patrick is entitled to some money in return for the effort that has gone in to developing her system and the ebook itself. But it is still a lot of money, and is probably putting a lot of buyers off. This is an especially relevant point when you consider how much information you can get for free about the workbox system and how people are implementing it if you just check out some blogs.
- This is not a manual about using a system, it is a publication about an educational philosophy. Now, some people might see this as an added bonus, but I didn’t want to read yet another author telling me why I should be home educating my child. I bought this to find out about her system, and I don’t think that you really need a lot of the information in this book. I feel that a lot of the non-essential information made the publication feel cluttered.
Our kinda-sorta-not really 'workbox' system
It’s been a month since I bought and read this publication. And we have started using a workbox system – of sorts. I now organise the ‘formal’ learning part of our day into sections which I then put in numbered magazine boxes. Willem works through the boxes in order, and once he has finished the boxes he is finished for the afternoon, unless we are doing something a bit more hands on, such as a science experiment. However I don’t feel the need to have the charts and ‘schedule strips’ and ‘poster tables’ Patrick writes in to her system. I don’t put the pencils and things like that in to each separate box. If Willem is meant to read something on the Kindle, I just put a card in the box that tells him what to read and to ask me for the Kindle, rather than placing the Kindle in the box (and sometimes there is a need for the Kindle for the lesson/activity of more than one box that day). So while I find the ‘bare bones’ of this approach has been been helpful for structuring our formal learning, the rest of the book was not quite applicable to our situation. That said, I am sure there are some beginner home educators that would find the ideas and detailed steps very helpful.
If you are interested in reading more about the system here are some links (note, some of these are VERY religious and really not my kind of thing!):
Sue Patrick’s Workbox System (the official site so to speak)
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