Why We Homeschool

If you've been following my blog over the past couple weeks, then you know that I'm posting a series on homeschooling. If you are new to my blog, then I think you'll still find this post to be interesting. You can read about our path to becoming a homeschooling family in my post, Before We Homeschooled. This post is going to focus on why we choose to continue this quest to educate our children at home. If you are a homeschooler, then your reasons for doing so are likely broad and varied, as are ours. Here is a glimse into some of the reasons why we do this thing we do.

Homeschooling is a calling placed on our hearts by God...When our oldest child was just a few months old, my childhood best friend called to tell me that she was expecting her first baby. In that conversation, somehow, we started talking about education. It was in that moment that I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my fun-loving, normal, spontaneous, previously rebellious friend had fallen off her rocker. Completely. Totally. Off. Her. Rocker. Even so, God planted a seed that day. It was the first moment that I ever thought a normal person might choose to homeschool. Five years later when it was time for us to homeschool, I was hesitant. I took this homeschooling plunge because I knew God wanted us to do it having no idea what His purpose for doing so was. Since then, I have learned that God has given every parent the task of discipling our children first and educating them second. For us that means educating our children in our home. The best place to make sure that our children are learning in an environment in which their faith in God is the top priority, we educate them ourselves. We personally have no desire to delegate this responsibility and are grateful to this calling that God has given to us!

Higher quality of academics...I don't believe that most classroom teachers would argue the fact that, if you are teaching only a few students, you are able to do a better job than you are when you are teaching 25 students. As a classroom teacher, I always knew that, the smaller the class, the easier it was going to be for me to teach them. This is true in the home as well. Our kids are getting individual attention every single day.

Variety of subject matter...What a blessing it is to study subjects that are of interest to our kids! Lukas asked to study the Civil War, and so we did. Ava asked to learn about butterflies, and so we did. Of course, our children don't get to choose every subject they study, but when they do have an interest, we are able to cover it. This makes learning fun for them and shows them that learning has a life-long purpose.

Flexibility...When we began to homeschool, I never imagined how important this would be for us. All homeschooling families have to learn to be flexible as the demands of managing a household collide with the demands of academia, but, for us, this became even more real when my mom became ill last year. We were able to be so flexible that we moved to be closer to her! Since then, we have been able to take days off when she had a chemotherapy treatment or other appointment. This is one of the many blessing of homeschooling! This time spent with my mom is irreplaceable, and my kids will never forget the opportunity homeschooling allowed them to spend time with their grandmother. If our kids are going through something emotionally, like finding out just how sick their grandmother is, we can throw school out the door for a day and catch things up later. After this past school year was interrupted with chemotherapy treatments, a bout of pneumonia, and a round of bronchitis for the kids, we continued to have school through the end of June. All that matters is that the material was covered.

Ability to meet the needs of our kids where they are... We are able to carefully chose curriculum based on the individual needs and learning styles of our children and to tailor their academic program to their ability levels. Of course, there is a time and place for children to learn to adapt, but that doesn't need to be an everyday occurrence. Lukas is an auditory learner, so we have learned that Teaching Textbooks works well because he can hear the lecture as he sees examples being worked on the computer screen. Math-U-See works well for Ava because she is a kinisthetic-tactile learner who loves hands-on projects. Ava is creative, and Lukas is intuitive. Both are getting their academic needs met in our home.

World View...One thing that I love about homeschooling is the ability to weave our personal world view through our curriculum. This doesn't mean that our children aren't learning about other world views or religions; it just means that our curriculum reflects our belief system. For example, we believe that the creation story in the Bible is literal, so our science curriculum is based on that belief and actually teaches them the opposing belief of evolution so that they will know how to defend a creationism stance. Biblical standards are also woven through things like history study, hand writing, read-alouds, and more. We also study the Bible and use Bible verses as copy work, dictation, and memory work. What better resource is there?

Discipleship rather than Evangelism...I could have chosen to cover this thoroughly in a couple of the above points, but I wanted to discuss it specifically. As a homeschooler, I have heard all of the reasons why we shouldn't be doing this, mostly from fellow believers. The biggest lie that many Christians choose to believe is that our children are designed to be salt and light, just as Jesus calls us to be. This simply isn't true. Children are children. It is our job to train up our children in the way they should go, and it is our job to protect their hearts and minds. It is not their job to evangelize the local elementary school. Sure, there are times that happens, but that is rarely the case. More often, Christian kids are sucked into world views and experiences that go against scripture. There is a time and place for children to be introduced to such things, but it is the parents' responsibility to do so, not a teacher who truly barely knows our children. If an adult feels called to serve in the public school setting with the goal of being salt and light, then that is certainly what they should do, but don't use this passage of scripture as your basis for putting your children in harm's way. We disciple our children in our home and provide them opportunities to minister in our community and church. Some day, they will be able to evangelize the world, but that day is not today.

Come back next week to hear about a typical school day in our homeschool!

Before We Homeschooled

To give you a little history about me, you should first know that I loved school. Public school. I loved pleasing my teachers by getting good grades. I loved music class and art class. I loved playing in the band. I loved receiving awards for academic achievement (I realize I sorta just created the picture of a geek, but, hey, I'm way over the stereotype. I've embraced it!). I loved wasting time with friends, hanging out on the weekends with those friends, and being completely stupid with those same friends. I looked forward to Friday night football games, trips on hot buses with the band to places like Disney World and Cedar Point, and my senior prom. I certainly had a good time in high school. Academics aside, high school was a blast!

After high school, I continued my quest for information. College was the next obvious step. At my high school, smart girls were expected to go to college. I never considered that there was another option. I picked a major and got started on the next stop toward adulthood. I went to college and graduated with a degree in music education with every intention to teach. I loved being a student, so I expected that I would love being a teacher.

To say that I didn't love being a teacher would be a vast understatement. I despised teaching. My first year wasn't just bad, it was wretched. My second year was better, but I still wasn't enjoying it. God grew me through it, but what he planted in my heart was that I was not supposed to be a career classroom teacher. It wasn't His plan for me.

I share all this with you to show you that my educational background actually  made me more opposed to homeschooling than the average person. I was almost offended by homeschooling families who thought they could do the job I was trained to do better than I could. I would never have said that to them, but I most certainly thought it. And being a trained classroom teacher? In my opinion, I think it sets you up for trouble if you choose to homeschool. So many people that I know who were once classroom teachers end up burning out when they choose to homeschool because they try to replicate a classroom experience. They try to make life fit into their school plans, when it only works if you do it the other way around. There isn't one way to educate a child. This is what I had to learn, and it took me a couple years to really embrace that and to realize that there was a better way to do this thing called school.

I became a stay-at-home mom the very week that I could have been starting my third year of teaching at two elementary schools in our little upstate NY town. I had moderate success in those classrooms the previous school year, but I knew that I wanted to be at home (a calling I later learned to not take for granted). We cut our income in half, and I spent my days loving on my baby boy.

In the years that followed, we had another baby and moved to Pennsylvania. While living there, I really started thinking about this whole homeschooling thing and talking to Eric about it. While everyone in our east coast town was scrambling to get their child into "the" perfect preschool, I was spending my days happily enjoying my little ones without a thought in the world concerning formal schooling. Eventually,  I attended a homeschooling info night that was held at our church with experienced homeschoolers. Eric was already on board with this idea, and that evening got me over my hesitation. We decided to take the plunge.

Why?

Oh, we had no idea why at the time. We just knew that it was what God wanted for us, so we did it. I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to teach Lukas to read (even though he had been asking me to teach him for months). I had already tried my hand at table work with him when he was 3 and again when he was 4. Neither attempt went well. He hated to write. People kept telling me why I shouldn't homeschool. Others would say things like, "Well, it's okay for YOU to homeschool because you're a teacher, but not just anyone should be allowed to homeschool." I didn't know how to reply to that for a long time.

We moved to Ohio, and I attended a homeschooling convention. There was curriculum everywhere. Several fabulous representatives spent time telling me why their curriculum was ideal. I finally settled on an all-inclusive curriculum called Heart of Dakota, and it included a very simplistic reading instruction book. Perfect.

And so our journey began. Lukas started kindergarten in our home in August 2006.

Homeschooling Series

I recently started following the blog of a fellow homeschooling mom who lives in Texas. We attended college together, and, while we didn't really know each other in college, she did know my husband, so we do have that connection. She recently wrote a series of posts on homeschooling that got me thinking about what people think we actually do. I know that I always thought that homeschoolers were weird before I became one (and maybe for a while after too), that they kept their kids in a neat little box so that they were unblemished by the world, and, like so many people, I thought they spent their days sitting in little desks plugging away with textbooks and workbooks all day long.

I am so very glad that isn't an accurate picture of our life, so I'm kind of copying Julia's idea and telling our homeschooling story. Go read about their journey with Julia at A Nutter Experience. I think you'll enjoy her insights, not just about homeschooling, but her other thoughts as well.

Come back for my next post about what I thought about homeschooling BEFORE taking the plunge. I'm embarrassed to say that my thoughts were somewhat typical American. Crazy. Nutso. Weird. Yep. That's what I thought about homeschoolers. You too? Good. I'm glad I'm not alone in this journey.I have found that few people lack a strong opinion about homeschooling. Come along with me throughout this series to discover how this homeschooling mom's opinion has evolved over time. Check back soon for another post!

Insurmountable

Insurmountable. This is a human word. It doesn't exist in  God's vocabulary. He would never say it. He wouldn't think it. Neither should we.

My family is facing what some people might believe to be insurmountable circumstances, but we know the truth, that we serve a God who can do all things. We're not trying to do anything on our own. We are praying together and leaning on the Father. Eric and I pray together. We pray with the kids. We have had to trust them with more than the hearts of any 8 or 10 year old should have to be trusted, but this is what life is right now. They have learned hard lessons, but they have learned good lessons. God is good. All the time. He is all we need.

If I felt at liberty to reveal all that we are going through, you would be shaking your head from side to side, wondering how we're still pressing on. I wondered for a while. It felt like we were sinking, swirling out of control in a storm beyond the confines of anything we have ever experienced. The pressure was overwhelming. The decisions that lay before us were indeterminable. We were nit-picking every decision, every thought, everything we know that we know that we know about God's plan for us. 

There was emptiness. There was wondering. There was doubt in ourselves and our ability to make grown-up decisions. There was the feeling that adolescents get when they are trying to make decisions they aren't yet prepared to make, decisions for which they still need their parents. We needed Jesus. Our awareness of our need for Jesus was greater than it ever had been.

There was prayer. There was Bible study. Wisdom seeking from trusted believers. Advice taking. 

I began to pray that no matter what decisions we made, that we had unity. I knew that I needed to trust God through my husband. This has been a struggle for me in the past, but the Lord has done a mighty work in my heart. It even occurred to me that this might be part of God's purpose for me during this season. Refining my submission skills. I can't tell you what a blessing it has been for me to do so, but that is a topic for another post.

Unity. It came.

Since unity is what I asked God to provide, He did it. It wasn't that we were arguing about the choices that lay before us. It was simply that the task of making the right choices seemed to be insurmountable, as I said. Difficult doesn't begin to describe it. You know that phrase, "When life throws you lemons, make lemonade?" Well, what do you do when life throws you watermelons? That's what we had to decide. How do you make lemonade from watermelons?

I still don't know how everything is going to work out for us. We are making one decision at a time. We are praying. We are seeking God. We have dozens of people praying with us and for us, offering advice, wondering if we are off our rockers, trusting us to make right decisions. We are devoted to not wavering in our stance. God is God no matter what happens. 

God. Is. God.

What I know is limited, but what I know is this. When you pray seeking God's will for your life with an open heart willing to accept whatever God chooses to do, that is the point at which God begins a new work in your life. When you pray knowing that the answer absolutely isn't going to be exactly what you would like it to be, knowing that what you really want is what God wants for you and your loved ones, even if it might make life seem...

yeah. INSURMOUNTABLE...

That's when God works miracles. That's when God changes your heart. Changes your mind. Confirms His plan. Directs your footsteps. Clarifies. Loves. Cherishes. Holds. Teaches. Loves.

God's got this. I have a peace that passes all understanding. I truly cannot explain it. Our plan is set before us. God knows what is going to happen, and I don't. It may be that I don't like what is about to happen in our life, but I don't have to like it. I just have to grow through it. Be faithful anyway. It may be that God has to pull me through the eye of a hurricane to get me through it, but what I know that I know that I know is that...

He will.

He will pull me through if He needs to.

He will carry me.

He will push when I need it.

He will grow me.

I am learning to trust, and I am witnessing great things in my life. 

Whatever happens in your life, choose to trust. Choose to believe that God has your best in mind. 

Choose Him.

With God, all things are possible.

Nothing is insurmountable. That word? It doesn't exist in God's vocabulary.

The Story of our Wedding Part 3

After greeting our guests and thanking them for celebrating with us, we took more photos and then headed to our reception where all our guests awaited our arrival. The reception hall was lovely with pretty glass centerpieces filled with sparkling stones and floating candles. We had a lovely time celebrating, dancing, kissing whenever someone sang a song with the word "love" in it. When you have that many musicians at one wedding, you can count on them to sing many, many songs given that challenge! There was a lot of kissing!

We danced to Bryan Adams and Barbra Streisand singing "I Finally Found Someone," our song. I danced with my daddy to an Elvis tune because I grew up listening to Elvis and watching his movies with my dad. Eric danced with his mom. I can't remember the song; I just remember the interruption.

Remember the weather? It was hot, muggy, and thick all day? The sunny, scorching afternoon disappeared. Instead, the wind was whipping, the thunder was screaming, and lightning struck a near-by transformer right in the middle of Eric's dance with his mom. The lights went out, the music stopped, and everyone became silent and began looking around as prior to that moment we were mostly oblivious that the weather had taken such a turn for the worse. About 20 minutes away, a tornado actually went through the town of Dresden.

We kept partying. The lights came on in half of the recital hall. The DJ moved his equipment, and we danced some more and visited with guests. Our cake was in a dim corner with no lights, but there were a few beautiful candles on the table, and our photographer waited for the worst of the storm to pass, propped the emergency exit door open to let in some light, and you can't even tell in the cake cutting photos that the lights were out!

Around 8:00, we left. It was still raining. We headed somewhere to change so that our friends could return Eric's tux for him, and then we found our way to our hotel in Columbus. The main route to Columbus was closed due to flooding, so we went through Zanesville, which was completely out of the way, and, even then, we had to take a couple different roads due to flooding or fallen trees from the storm. We stayed at the Hyatt in downtown Columbus that night before heading to Tennessee the next morning.

It was a perfect day. Sure, there was extreme heat, humidity, sweating, flooding, lightning and rain. One bridesmaid almost passed out from a migraine. Eric's eyeglass lens fell out of his frames part-way through the ceremony, so he was half-blind until someone fixed them after the wedding. Someone ran to Walmart to purchase a new video camera 30 minutes before the ceremony because one of the cameras stopped working at just that moment (they kept that under wraps from the bride until AFTER the problem was fixed. Smart thinking). Something always happens, right?

I think that's part of the beauty of the day. It was perfect. It was everything I wanted it to be. It was one of the most special days of my life.