Lisa, idea-haver-extraordinairre, shared something amazing she saw on TikTok, and I have been working on mine ever since: it’s a Personal Curriculum, self-built, self-directed, and self-focused, with the sole purpose of advancing one’s own personal knowledge. When she shared the idea with Lorajean and me, our immediate thought was, HELL YES, THIS IS EVERYTHING!
I’ve started one component of mine already, and/but have been kind of slowly working on the rest of it, but wanted to share a bit about what this whole thing looks like for me, and give a bit of context for how I’m doing it. The how, when, and why is definitely something that will differ for each of us, but maybe this will help you build your own curriculum, or even just inspire you to deep dive on something you’ve been interested in. And, if you want to chat about yours, I’ll be starting a channel in our Discord group, so please do join us!
How I think I’m going to structure mine is to have seasonal curriculums (lots of folks on tiktok were doing monthly ones, but I like the stretch of being able to do it in a full season). Fall Curriculum for me will likely be September through the end of the year. I have a few different overarching subjects on my curriculum list (and yes, I do have a curriculum-specific notebook, thank you very much), and I’m modeling my subjects on school subjects, so right now, I have:
- Physical Education: get 30 minutes of exercise each day.
- Home Ec: repair/fix clothing, especially me-made clothing that need small fixes to be wearable; house cleaning/organization/setting up a gallery wall of mini quilts & embroidery pieces; getting back into some of my more homestead’y pursuits; trying different recipes…
- Art: ceramics/wheel throwing 101; tapestry weaving (I have an online course I purchased and started years ago, as well as the cutest little tapestry loom and yarn, so I need to re-start and finish!); sketchbook/art practice (I’m currently doing a 30-day “Back to Art School” challenge, hosted by @abbypainterart on Instagram, and it’s so much fun so far! I highly recommend doing a 30-day challenge if you are interested in getting into some sort of making/art practice – there are so many available!)
- Reading & Writing: bookish creativity; correspondence (we have a spreadsheet to share mailing addresses in our Discord, and if you want to be pen pals but don’t want to join our Discord, email your mailing address to me at shannonsq@gmail.com); penmanship.
I also have oodles of wonderful notebooks, pens, highlighters, sketchbooks, etc, so I am excited to be putting them to use in my planning and execution of a Personal Fall Curriculum.
What do you think? Is a Personal Curriculum something you are drawn to? What will or would you put on yours?