*I wrote this while on vacation with my family over Easter Vacation. (And yes, I call it Easter Vacation, because for us it still lands with Easter Sunday and we are celebrating all week long!!)
As our family hangs out in a little cabin in Twain Harte, I feel the pangs of missing homeschooling. I homeschooled my oldest through K and into 1st grade. We chose to do this for numerous good reasons, some personal. One little benefit was the flexibility it allowed our family. My husband works a 7/7. He works 7 nights in a row and then he has a week off. We would schedule camping trips on his week off and I could homeschool my girl in our RV. Honestly, it was pretty cool.
Up here in the cabin, we could do the same thing, and we were hoping to be able to do that in the future, but God brought about some changes in our life and we are here for Easter vacation instead.
I don't, at this point, feel called to share all our reasons for the choices we've made both for homeschooling and traditional classroom education. But I will tell you, my perspective on homeschooling was definitely widened now that I've done it!
Funny thing: people think that homeschool kids are not social. We were a part of an awesome homeschool co-op and I could hardly keep up with my daughter's social life. The other amazing thing about many homeschool kids is that they relate well to all ages. The older boys would grab my little boy (5 yrs younger than them) and pull him into whatever they were playing. They also interacted with adults on a regular basis and were extremely respectful and could hold a conversation with adults.
Another misconception: homeschool kids are behind in academics. Fact of the matter is that no matter how a child is educated, they are going to struggle or succeed in their own weaknesses and strengths. And in the charter school I was a part of, we had access to tutors for all subjects. And I could take a subject that interested my daughter and go as far as we wanted and learn above and beyond!
And (this I loved) we could choose what would be extra in a typical public school and use it as part of our curriculum: art lessons, music education, sports (Tae Kwon do, gymnastics, even dance), we even had a class called Messy Learning - the possibilities were endless, unless you ran out of funding.
We also had a beloved ES (Education Specialist). She was a credentialed teacher who kept tabs on our progress and made sure we were where we needed to be. I never felt alone in this whole endeavor. She helped me whenever I needed it!
Having the opportunity to homeschool also taught me a very important lesson. Academics are important, yes. I want my children to be able to function in this world and make worthwhile contributions. But more important than that, I want to raise godly children who are going to make a difference for God's kingdom while the are here on this earth. Fact is that I don't need my children to measure up to the world's definition of successful. My desire is for my children to look to God for confirmation.
I don't write all this to make a case for homeschooling your kids. That's between you and God. We, as a family, have had to put a lot of prayer and thought into our education decisions. Currently, my oldest is in a Christian school getting a great education. It is the best fit and what we felt called to do at this point in our lives. I just know there are a lot of people who knock homeschooling and perhaps have never known anything other than the old stigmas attached to homeschoolers: non-social kids getting an inferior education from their mom who only knows how to cook and clean, not educate. That's simply not the case anymore (not that there aren't any like that, but it's not the norm!)
So please be careful when you make comments about those who homeschool. Many of us have been hurt by well-meaning people who thought they should give us their opinion but end up raising our hackles about something we have felt called by God to do.
And now I will step down off my homeschooling soapbox...
KC
No comments:
Post a Comment