Blogging is a love hate relationship I have going. Last year I began writing to the President. I emailed him the same letters you see posted on my blog. Of course he never responded but that is not why I wrote him. I needed to keep my heart soft towards this man who seemed to be an impostor. It worked but like many things I bored of it.
As a new "school year" approaches I am talking with many who are doing the same thing I am doing, homeschooling their children. I decided I would go "really" public with my homeschooling. I will let you in on my muddled, opinionated, uncertain, and oft-times completely certain views, impressions, feelings and opinions of home schooling.
I have three older children, one graduated from West Chester this spring, summa cum laude with a teaching degree in High School English. The other begins his third year in college and second year at Kutztown University majoring in music and considering music therapy, and that is still out for grabs. My third oldest is a freshman at Reading Area Community College hoping to study Nursing but presently there is a waiting list for that major.
I have Geoff, my new teenager, entering into eighth grade. Nicole my nine year old will be doing fourth grade work (whatever that means). My youngest, Jesse, I will have the privilege of teaching him to read. Out of all my children, Jesse will be doing the most important work this year. Learning to read is quintessential to learning. If approached with more excitement from the trainer than the trainee there could be potential repercussions, negative repercussions. If the trainee is not being delivered goods when they are ready, shame on the trainer. This is a big year for Jesse and I, finding the right balance.
A couple of years ago on an early morning walk I told God this,"You have to let me know if I should still home school." I was tired of the insecurity I had been plagued with though at that point I had home schooled for eighteen years. The answer I heard loud and clear in my spirit was this, "JUST DO IT." I knew what he meant. The proof,at that point, was in the pudding, two in college and one doing fine in home school high school. But insecurity is never assured by accomplishments it seems.
Why I leave asking God for assurance to the last, I will never know. With those three words, "Just do it" I knew I was doing what I should be doing.
To "Just do it" I needed to say goodbye to the standard I had been using. Sometimes we need to asses what is the standard that we are either being hounded by relentlessly or that we should be using. The educational system as we know it in the U.S.A. is what needed to go. The home school philosophy written by many veteran home schoolers such as Raymond and Dorothy Moore is what I needed to be guided by. However, it was Jesus who needed to be the main educational guide and to Him I needed to direct all my questions knowing He had all the answers.
What relief "Just Do It" has brought to our home school scene is ridiculous almost. Why had I labored so long with such misguided misconceptions? My high schooler who rarely was given math assignments because she was not cooperative with the assignments was thriving in her high school algebra class. We played math games in her elementary years and I always hung my head low from not giving her one hundred problems a day out of the Math text book. God yelled at me, "Look, all you needed to do was play math with her, remember that with your three younger children!" That almost did not seem right, but I had living proof of the results.
Surely my three younger children need to benefit from what my older children have plowed through. Tomorrow I will begin home schooling and here is one of the things I have learned. Flexibility is key and tomorrow will be no exception. My son, Chris, just asked me after church to bring him to college in the morning as opposed to his Dad bringing him today. There goes my desire to get on a schedule. Schedule/schmedule is what I hear God chanting. "But God, you are the one who introduced ORDER!" He is smirking at me. He knows I know we are not talking about order now, we are talking about priorities.
So tomorrow I will start after I return....and deal with the list of things that are occupying my mind such as; I should really do some canning, want to weed the garden, need to clean the garage, need to organize the basement, need to make sense of my room, need to order the children to clean their rooms, need to work on a website, need to plan the class I am teaching at our home school Learning Group,do I have enough breakfast fixings, what to make for lunch, what do I want to teach these three kids this year????????
This is enough to fill a number of brains, why just mine? But if you are a home schooler you know what I am talking about. We have taken on Herculean tasks and sometimes we wonder why we are trying to defy gravity and the laws of nature?! But this is what motivates me, Man I like being with my children and learning with them is extraordinary and having them want to learn with me is marvelous and.......I have three older children who managed to come out of our home school program with baggage of course but maybe we could call it "Carry On" luggage.
Tomorrow I hope to do some math, Latin, reading, and planning. I will let you know how it goes~!
I leave you with this: We are all homeschoolers even if you send your child to school. We all need to know what our children's learning style is, are they learning, what should they be learning and how can we help them. We need to be part of the process. The question for many of us to ask however is this, what truly is education?
