My whole life has been a close relationship with the classroom. I attended preschool, kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school, college. Then I went on to teach myself. I would say that most, if not all, of my experiences in the classroom were positive ones. (My husband, on the other hand, hated school for most of his life, but that's a different story.) We both agreed that school was the right place to send kids once they got to be a certain age. That's what we had done. That's what they would do. It made sense, right?
I am a school teacher by trade and by calling. I always knew it's what I wanted to be. I was not one of those people who chose this career so that I could get two weeks off at Christmas, a week at spring break and a couple of months in the summer. I loved teaching. It defined who I was. I wanted more than anything to be able to stay home with my babies when they were little, but after that, what I wanted more than anything was to be back in the classroom.
I love school. I love the smell of construction paper. I love the order, structure, and routine of it. I love having my own class, my own "little ducks to get in a row" every morning. I loved almost EVERYTHING about teaching, especially the CHILDREN! The only parts of school that I did NOT love were state testing, lesson plans, and documentation...but to me, those weren't part of teaching. Those were just the distracting hoops I was required to jump through for them to allow me to do the other stuff. The stuff I loved. I say all of this to tell you I was excited for my kids to go to school. I was excited for them, because I had always enjoyed school and felt that they would, too. I was also excited for me. I was probably MORE excited for me, to be honest. Anyway, the plan was for the kids to go to school. Public, private, Christian...that was the question. Those were our options.
I've explained how I've felt about school. Now, let me explain how I've always felt about homeschooling. I thought it was a bad idea. I thought this for basically all of the same reasons other people ever think that it's a bad idea....lack of socialization, they'll get behind, they'll get too far ahead, they'll be alienated, homeshooled kids are weird...I don't know where I got these ideas. I knew only a very few kids who had been homeschooled and these ideas weren't true of MOST of them. Where did I get these ideas? How does anyone form these opinions on little, if any, real experience or knowledge on the subject? Regardeless, those WERE my thoughts on the matter. What changed? Well, I think back to the defining moment when it began. The moment when God truly started working on my heart about this mission he would send me on. Rob and I had only been married for a few months. His mother and I were talking and in the context of our conversation I made the statement, "I would never homeschool my kids. I want my kids to be normal." My mother-in-law's response was, "Normal compared to what?"
She did not mean the statement to be a profound and thought-provoking one. It just was. I started thinking about what "normal" looked like in my second grade classroom. I started thinking, not about the "cream of the crop" bright, cute, kids from "good" families, but about what "normal" in my classroom really was. I realized for the first time ever that "normal" was not what I wanted my kids to be. No big deal. So I didn't want "normal." I still didn't want to homeschool my kids. What I should have said was, that I didn't want my kids to be weird. That's what homeschooled kids are, right?
This conversation took place in the fall of 2005. I didn't even have kids yet, but for the next five years, God got my attention about homeschooling in similar ways. A friend from college would post an article on facebook that would catch my eye. My brother-in-law ended up dating and eventually marrying one of those "socially stunted homeschool girls" (I can say that because she knows I'm joking ;). I would end up in random, casual conversations that would turn towards the subject for no reason at all. Through all of this, Rob and I were praying about where to send Baby Doll to school.
When we were asked the million dollar question of where she would go, we always said that we were looking at all of our options. There are two public schools in our little town, two private schools and a Christian school within driving distance that we were seriously considering. We would sometimes even casually say that we hadn't even taken homeschool off the table as an option...but, we didn't mean it.
After several years of God working on my heart and mind to adjust my views about homeschooling, He really started turning up the heat in the fall of 2010. It seemed that every day or two something else was happening to point me towards homeschooling. I started lying awake at night thinking about it. I would weigh what I thought were the pros and cons, always ending with excuses for why it was just not a good idea for us. I talked to no one about what I was going through. Not even my husband. I was terrified that once I said it out loud, I would have to do it. And I did NOT want to do this. Not at all. I wanted my kids to go to school! I wanted to chaperone field trips! I wanted to bring cupcakes on their birthdays! I wanted to be homeroom mom! (Notice, all of these sentences begin with "I wanted".) Then in April 2011 I finally broke down.
I had a full day out and about here in town and had run into several different people. These were people I didn't normally see. With every single one of them, the conversation almost immediately, for no apparent reason, shifted to homeschooling. By the time we got the kids to bed that night I was a nervous wreck. I sat down on the couch in tears and told Rob that we needed to talk. It all came spilling out. The sleepless nights, the conversations, the online research, the lists of pros and cons. Rob's response? He started on the full list of excuses of why he thought it was a bad idea. I told him he didn't need to convince me. I agreed with him. I didn't need him to talk me out of it. Here was where the problem...
We had been praying literally for years that God would lead us towards HIS plan for our children's education. We just felt really comfortable and confident that HIS plan would match up with OUR plan. Homeschooling did NOT match our plan. My concern was that for us to ask God to show us His will and then to IGNORE what He seemed to be showing us...wasn't that kind of dangerous? Were we playing with fire? We made a commitment that night to pray about homeschool specifically. That God would make it obvious to us what He wanted us to do and that He would change our hearts about it, IF homeschool WAS what He had planned for us. I also committed to learn as much as I could on the subject. Hence this collection of books. And this isn't all of them, folks!
The fact is, as soon as we started praying about this, He IMMEDIATELY started answering our prayers. It was like he had just been waiting all of this time to do that for us! It still shocks me how quickly Rob and I BOTH agreed that homeschooling was a viable option, and then our attitudes towards it changed tremendously. What I was discovering in "doing my homework" on the subject did help, but it was more than that. The head knowledge had been telling me for a long time that it was a good idea. Now my heart was believing it too. (FYI: Do a google search for "why you shouldn't homeschool" or "why homeschooling is bad". There's absolutely nothing out there, other than opinion pieces. No research. Nothing concrete. All you can find is people giving you their opinions and I've yet to find one who actually even gave an explanation as to how they even formed their opinions. It's still kind of shocking to me. ALL of the research I can find just confirms that homeschooling is a GREAT option worth considering, both academically and socially. More on this in the future. I promise!)
The closer we got to finally making an actual decision about it, the more I felt at peace that it was the right thing for us to do. However, I also became more and more nervous about what people were going to think. I didn't want to be "that family." I didn't want to be asked where my kids go to school only to see those patronizing expressions on other mothers' faces as I watched them mentally size me up as this denim jumper wearing, goat raising, homemade bread baking woman with kids who must definitely be completely socially stunted. (I DO bake, but I do NOT own a denim jumper.) I didn't want it for my kids, but if I'm completely honest I really didn't want it for ME. I told my husband about these feelings. His response..."What if we are supposed to be 'that family'? What if there are other families out there that God is calling to do this, but they aren't brave enough or bold enough to take the road less traveled? What if the sole reason He is bringing our family on this adventure is so that we can cut a path for others?" My response..."I don't want to take the road less traveled. I want to get on the interstate with everyone else I know. I want a well lit, paved road. I'm afraid of the dark and I don't like bumpy trips." Selfish? Yes. Petty? Yes. Honest? YES!!!!! This was a big fat experience of having to accept not being able to fit into the "motherhood box" that most of my friends were in. It was uncomfortable and it was scary, but for our family, we knew it was RIGHT!
The days passed. We made the final decision to homeschool and we started telling our friends and family. We met some opposition. Some of it came from people I expected to oppose our plans. The source of some of our opposition shocked me. Probably the biggest surprise was when people who barely knew me would tell me what I was doing was a horrible idea. Yes, this happened. Some people really have no filter between their brain and their mouth. Some positive reactions we received surprised me, as well. The truth is, though, the more people we told, regardless of their reaction, the more peace we felt.
So, here we are. About to finish up our first year of homeschooling. How long will we do it? Who knows!!! Some days I would tell you that I couldn't imagine ever doing anything else. Other times I say we might enroll them for third grade. Or sixth grade. Or ninth grade. Or eleventh grade. The other night I asked Rob as we were lying in bed if he thought we'd ever send them to "regular school." He said, "Well, they'll probably go to college." We both laughed. The truth is, we can't answer that question. I mean after all, if someone had asked us a few years ago we'd have told them we would never homeschool.
There will be plenty more posts about homeschooling in the future. I have so much I want to share on the subject that it was almost physically painful for me to limit this post as much as I did, even though it is incredibly long. There are so many misconceptions that people have that I desperately want to clear up....one post at a time :)
If you are interested in learning more about homeschooling here are a couple of books I highly recommend out of the TONS that I have read in the past few years, these are the ones I think are the most useful. As in
my previous posts, you can click on the images below to order these books from Amazon.
"I have used the words "home schooling" to describe the process by which
children grow and learn in the world without going, or going very much,
to schools, because those words are familiar and quickly understood.
But in one very important sense they are misleading. What is most
important and valuable about the home as a base for children's growth in
the world is not that it is a better school than the schools but that
it isn't a school at all. "
