If you’ve ever wondered why on earth someone would homeschool, this post may answer some questions for you. I’m not going to go through all the details of HOW we homeschool, or how I work full time and homeschool – that will have to be another post. But if you need a little push to start your own home school, or just want to get a glimpse of why I do it, keep reading…
On Monday, our homeschool group begins our school year together. I’ve been working at planning out the year all summer, buying supplies, clearing out the old, reorganizing. It’s been a lot of work! With all this preparation and activity, I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve lost the clear focus of WHY I’m doing all this. So, I’m writing for you, but also to remind myself of all the reasons why I homeschool these four beautiful children (ok, I may be biased, but who isn’t!).
When my oldest was four, my husband and I started looking into options for kindergarten. We bought our house in a neighborhood known for good schools and we didn’t really have intentions to homeschool. We paid good taxes for these schools, right? But our big girl was reading, and we knew she was very bright. I’ve felt for a long time that boredom is the enemy of intellectual curiosity, and we wanted to make sure that wherever she went, she would be challenged. So we made an appointment with a vice principal at our elementary school and went in for a tour.
When we went in to the building, we were impressed by the size of the school and the quality of the facilities. There was a nice media center, library and the building appeared well taken care of. But the tour seemed to go on and on… So I finally started asking about class size, number of kindergarten classes, number of kids in the school. I calculated that the total school was over 1000 children. My high school was only a little larger than that! I wasn’t sure how a five year old would navigate in a school that size, but I figured she could adjust. Then we started asking about gifted classes, and how and when the kids were tested, and whether kids could go into both reading and math gifted classes. We didn’t like the answers we got…
While we were considering the homeschool option, a friend was bemoaning her experience with starting her five year old in private school. She reported that while it hadn’t come up before, her child was reporting conversations with other kids at school about sex and other adult topics. We had been warned about this by others as well. An elder in our church said, “Just know this – if you send your child to school, even though you teach your kids good lessons at home, you will have to “bail the boat” when they come home. You have to learn what they are being exposed to, and help them to process it and dump the garbage part of what they’ve taken in.” Seemed like that was a tall order if we would only see them a couple of hours a day before bedtime.
Around the same time, we went to a conference with our church. During the conference, one of the classes was about homeschooling. We went out of curiosity, since we didn’t personally know many people who homeschooled. We certainly didn’t know anyone who worked and homeschooled, so we wondered if anyone there might be in our same situation (there wasn’t). We weren’t sure if we were up to the task! But during the discussion, a woman speaking about her homeschooling experience said something I’ve not forgotten. She said, “If God has put it on your heart to homeschool your children, He will make a way for you to do it.” So we stepped out into the unknown, knowing God would help us along.
Now four years later, our oldest is starting fourth grade and the twins are starting second. The three year old is reading (a little!). It’s been a challenge, but there have been incredible moments along the way. Homeschooling has been great, and for multiple reasons. Ready? Here comes the list!
Work Carrels in our “classroom”
My kids grow as fast as they need to, but not too fast.
My kids are all strong, opinionated personalities. I didn’t get one easy-going one in the bunch! But they are also very smart and can do more than they realize. I can design their schooling to push them so they keep achieving and growing. They don’t always know that they’re doing a lot, but every time they surprise me with their achievements, I can give them more to learn. I don’t have to wait for the rest of a class to learn a concept if they get it, and if they need to go back and review, we can. I also have the luxury of educating them on sensitive topics like sex at their pace, answering the questions they have at the level they can understand.
Spiritual guidance
Our school day includes bible study and children’s devotionals. We get to correct their misbehavior with scripture. We choose the media influences and quality of programming they are exposed to. We all know that there is a lot of garbage out there – but they don’t. They don’t have a filter to discern what is good and what is not. So we stand in the gap and act as their filter and interpreter for the garbage they are exposed to. Don’t get me wrong – they hear and see more than we’d like sometimes. But we catch more, faster, and help them to process what they’re getting.
Children’s bibles
Flexibility
We can let them sleep in a little if we were out at church the night before (they usually don’t!). We can add tennis lessons in the morning or a cooking class with mom (math) during the day. I take one child with me to the farmer’s market when I shop to get one-on-one time (a premium and privilege with four kids). We may add music lessons this year…
Outside time
Schools have cut physical education, recess, outside time and other opportunities for fresh air and free play. Is there any correlation between that and the rates of ADHD? I know there are more factors than that with ADHD, but it doesn’t help to have kids cooped up inside all day long! I get to send my kids outside most days, where they invent clubs and inspect bugs. I heard this week that they caught two frogs, and they died because the kids kept them in a jar (they thought they were saving them). We had a long conversation about stewardship and caring for nature after that! But isn’t that supposed to be part of childhood?
Good nourishment
Warning: I’m getting on my soapbox now (if I wasn’t already)!.
Is anyone else appalled at what is passing for food in the school cafeteria these days? I thought the cardboard pizza we ate back in the 80’s was bad, but all the fast food, packaged, processed, vending machine food is appalling. We’ve allowed the food companies to take over feeding our kids! Again, kids have no filter and will not make good choices until you train it into them. They will pick french fries over carrots almost every time. At home, I can choose what they are offered and we don’t have to battle marketing. If you’re in the position where your kids are exposed to that marketing of junk food to them every day, I feel for you. I’d probably be picketing the school and raising a ruckus about it if my kids were being marketed to by corporations. We get enough of that with commercials!
More individual attention
My classroom ratio is at the highest 1:4. There’s no doubt that teaching 4 kids allows more attention to each than one teacher with 25 kids (the number in the kindergarten classes in my local elementary school). I had a teacher friend tell me that the school told her that they could increase the number of children in the classroom to 29 without being required to hire another teacher for the room. Isn’t that a lot of kids for one human to teach well?
Day’s Assignments
We get their best hours!
I read something a while back and it stuck with me. A homeschooling parent said part of her reasoning for bringing her kids home to school was that she felt that each member of the family got the leftovers of the day from each other. They all left the house in the mornings and gave their best at work or school. So when they got home, all they had to give was what was left over. Even though I can’t be here every day, all day, I do get more of my children and their best waking hours than if I sent them out to school. These years are flying by and are precious to me. I want all of us to be able to have stored up lots of good memories of our family together. The kids get out to play with friends, go to camp, do their homeschool group,and gather with friends at church. This way, we are part of their days as well.
Education Electives
For those of you who don’t want to homeschool, or can’t for whatever reason, that’s fine. Everyone makes their own way in this world, and I make no value judgment on the decisions that work for your family. But if you have thought that you might want to homeschool and have hesitated out of fear, I wrote this post to encourage you to look for the possibility that is there for your family. And, I feel recharged and ready to take on this new year!
Math Curriculum
Have you ever wanted to homeschool your kids? What do you want to do to be more involved in your children’s education, even if you don’t homeschool?
Comments6
I’ve definitely wanted to homeschooling. I just don’t know how to get started. I’ve pinned so many things on pinterest…making everything a reality is the hard part. I know that I need to pray specifically about this.
Thank you so much for this post!!
The homeschooling option is coming to my mind a lot more. Mark doesn’t feel confident he can do anything with it, and I was wondering if there was a required amount of hours needed because of working full time. Gavin, “meets criteria” for ADHD, but he is on 11 different medications for cystic fibrosis management, and I am not adding another. He sees a therapist because of anxiety, too, which I know plays a roll. Not to mention, I do not like the lack of infection control standards and food choices! In any case, can you share where you started looking for information about this?
Role, not roll. Early morning!
There are so many ways to homeschool that the options can definitely be overwhelming! The first step is to see what requirements your state has for your homeschool. GA requirements are fairly minimal, possibly because so many have opted out of the public school system in favor of homeschooling. Second, what do you want to produce in your child? Starting with the end in mind is a big task, but it helps you craft your school experience. Third, study your child. What kind of learner is he? This step helps you to figure out what kind of curriculum you may want for him. This is something you will do over and over, not just before you start homeschooling. More and more, homeschooling kids are seen as independent learners and are welcomed in colleges, even the elite schools, so don’t be afraid – you can do it! Let me know if you want to know more specifically about what we are doing and how we got there. It has been a process, but the kids are flourishing!
Andrea, it was such a pleasure meeting you yesterday and I look forward to exploring and following your blog. I think we would be great friends!
I have considered homeschooling in the past, but I worry about my work schedule. I have to be in the office every weekday, although my exact schedule can be somewhat flexible (in terms of start and end time). We spoke a little about your particular support network, but can you tell me about how you research and/or found a “homeschooling group?” What does that mean exactly? Is this the key to making sure kids get social experiences while homeschooling?
Developing your homeschool plan is a process. It’s so dependent on your personal situation – but that’s part of what’s really great about it! You get to completely individualize what your family needs. In Georgia, there are a lot of resources because so many people choose to homeschool. The requirements are also very minimal, which is good for your freedom and flexibility. We use a program called Classical Conversations, which allows our kids to gather with other kids in the program once a week. They also have friends at their ballet and Tae Kwan Do and at church, so they get plenty of social time! You can create your “tribe” in any way that fits your life. There are also homeschool support groups so that families who are homeschooling nearby can help each other. There’s a Georgia Homeschool legal defense association that has a website with some good resources (hslda.org – go to the Georgia section). I hope this gets you started!