Why do you home educate?
This is another question that gets asked of me, sometimes with trepidation. I think people are expecting to hear a story of deeply held conviction laced with some anger and legalism. While I have developed some deep conviction over the years about why I home educate, and legalism and anger are dragons I have to slay every now and then when they rear their nasty little heads, those aren’t my why. The short answer is simply that I love the freedom we have to really learn outside of classrooms, textbooks, and standardized test. Our learning is joy-filled and life-giving. But, I’ll include the long answer if you are one who wants to know the full story.
It all started with me simply recognizing that my daughter was ready to learn academically but she wasn’t quite old enough to really start school. So, I started to teach her at home. One thing led to another, and we kept going with our second daughter.
When baby #4 came along, I was overwhelmed with trying to do a formal method of teaching at home, so we sent our oldest and her sister to public school. My oldest did great! She had a phenomenal teacher and she really enjoyed it. Child #2 hated it. She cried every morning when I woke her up. So after 10 weeks of gutting it out, I had an incredibly helpful conversation with her very kind teacher and decided to bring her home and try home education again. She loved it and so did I.
Then the following school year, my oldest started having major anxiety. She would not eat her breakfast or lunch. The joy of learning left her eyes and were surrounded instead with dark circles of stress and boredom. She was in second grade. How could she be only 7 and already disinterested in learning? Children are naturally curious and excited about learning. Instead, she would call me from her teacher’s phone almost every day upset and scared. She would go to the nurse several times a week with a stomachache. We asked her over and over what was happening at school. She always said nothing. No one was bullying. No one was hurting her. We were lost as to what was going on. We met with her teacher, the school counselor, and I talked to any mom who would listen in hopes they would have insight to share. Nothing changed.
At the Christmas break, we pulled her out. She was thrilled. Within a month, the circles around her eyes were gone, the joy of learning returned, and she was eating all of her meals, snacks, and then some!
Best. Decision. Made.
But, we knew that if we were going to take on the task of educating our children at our home, it had to be manageable. I had to find a method that worked for our family dynamic and that fit into our lifestyle and schedule. The formal and rigid method that came in the form of a boxed curriculum did not work for us.
I reevaluated everything I had been doing before in order to find a way to manage the task.
Our good friend, who also happens to be a medical professional, helped us with our dissection unit. We get our dissection kits from homesciencetools.com. They carry a variety of specimens and are reasonably priced.
I tried a lot of different routines and methods, and after several years (good things rarely happen overnight) I found what works for us. We do take it year by year, because I am fully aware that life can change in an instant, so I don’t want to have a clenched fist when it comes to our plans and methods of education. Also, high school has brought some changes, one of which is a tighter schedule. My three oldest now have part-time jobs and part of their education is learning how to manage their time so that their relationship with God, church, school, house chores, work, family time and friend time all has a place in their week. They are learning real-life stuff. I don’t set their schedule for them. I give them some boundaries, counsel and encouragement when it gets tough, but it is up to them to figure out how to make it all work together - just like they will when they are adults living on their own.
We still have a very restful rhythm to our days. We still read together and have meaningful conversations about what we are learning. One of the greatest gifts is the margin I have to really listen to their thoughts, ideas and hopes for the future. I am getting to know them more and more as real people with real ideas and it is beautiful. I never find myself regretting the time I’ve been able to have with my girls.
Yes, we have hard days, but they are only days. New days let us start fresh and try again. We slow down when a subject ignites our interests. The stuff we don’t enjoy (hello long division, I’m talking about you) we are able to slow down on that as well and take our time learning. If we don’t get it figured out today, that’s ok. Tomorrow we get to try again. And again the next day, and next week, and at times, even next month - because mastery trumps speed in our house. I’d rather hold a child back and let her build her confidence in an area than frantically push her through a subject with panic and threats just to meet a deadline. Yes, there is a time to learn how to meet deadlines, but childhood isn’t the time. Not for us. Not right now.
The result? My children love to learn. All children do until it becomes a mundane, rote, pointless practice as it so often does with traditional methods. How sad it is to see the joy of learning leave a child’s eyes! It broke my heart when I saw it leave my daughter’s eyes.
We are all born with a love of learning, because our Creator wants to be known by His creation. So, He made us curious. He designed our brain to ask questions and make connections so that we would seek, and in our seeking discover Him. This kind of learning takes time. It is slow. It takes a different shape with different personalities, giftings and temperaments. These commodities are scarce in a classroom of 25-30 where everyone has to learn the same thing at the same time in the same way, but in my homeroom of 4, we have the luxury to explore deeply in our own time and in our own way. We can ask questions and follow trains of thoughts to new ideas. We can put our paperwork away and pursue passions for a few hours. I am so grateful that we have so much freedom to learn! And learn we do.
This is why I homeschool.
Why do you homeschool? I really want to know! Share your why in the comments below (with kindness and grace, please slay your dragons before you post).