CONVICTIONS PT.3 - HOMESCHOOLING



Years ago, when our oldest was a preschooler, we didn't have any pressure on us to send him to school. That decision was made for us because of the fact that we had only one car. There was no way he could go to preschool. We also didn't feel like it was worth the money. It was important to us that he stayed home. When it came time for kindergarten we put in an application with a local private Christian school. We had decided that our educational choices would be in this order - private, homeschool, public. I hadn't researched homeschooling at all because I assumed our children would just go to this great Christian school we'd been introduced to. Well, that decision was sort of made for us as well. When it came time to enter kindergarten my husband was in the middle of what would become 15 months of unemployment. Private school tuition was definitely out of the question. I remember the day I finally realized I would be homeschooling. I went out to the garage and cried my heart out to God. A flood of emotions came over me - fear, anxiety, and unwillingness. I didn't want to homeschool. I didn't know how to do it. At this point my conviction to homeschool had nothing to do with desire or a belief that it was the right thing to do. All I knew was that we had decided for some reason that it was better than public school. So I went to the library and got two books. One was The Field Guide to Homeschooling by Christine Field and the other was The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. The more I read the more excited I got. The formation of a conviction had started. But the initial foundation was admittedly weak. I started out committing my usual error of being a sheep. I was a Well-Trained Mind sheep. I thought I had to do everything by that book. Decisions about curriculum didn't come from a well rounded study of what was out there combined with what would work best for my son. I just got everything the Well-Trained Mind said I should get. For a couple years that was how I did it. After a while I began to flesh out my convictions and read more about the benefits of homeschooling. I saw the benefits lived out in my first son who was able to read very quickly and didn't have to be held back. I was able to correct behavioral problems immediately and I didn't have to wake him up at the ridiculous hour of 6am. I was able to skip things that were just busy work and we had the freedom to study things he was interested in. When my second son started school I started to own my convictions more. I wasn't a sheep following the Well-Trained Mind mold anymore. This was out of necessity. My second son, as you might have read in a previous post, did not take to reading right away. He did not follow the prescribed plan in the book. This is where I saw the benefits of homeschooling in a different way. He doesn't sit still and has a hard time paying attention sometimes, but I don't have to worry that I'll get a call from the school saying that he should be tested for ADD. I realized earlier in the year that we were going too fast in reading and I had to go back 30 pages in the book. I had the freedom to go faster with my first son and slower with my second. My third child followed along the same path in that she wasn't a quick reader. But again, I had the freedom to not do much phonics instruction in kindergarten. I knew she wasn't ready. And that was OK. I've come to a point where I'm not beating myself up because she's not following the prescribed timeline in the Veritas Press catalog. (Has anyone else done that?)

When I first begin to form a conviction I can be a rather obnoxious zealot. I have been this way with homeschooling. I would look at other families and privately criticize them for putting their children in public school. I would get smug when I heard another public school "horror story" like how the local high school principal was embezzling money or how a local elementary school teacher couldn't show the true progress of a friend's daughter because she was going too fast and that didn't fit the bureaucratic forms she had to fill out.

I remember when my zeal started to soften. A friend of mine had been homeschooling her daughters for a couple years but at the end of one school year she found out her father had terminal cancer. The next school year was going to be very tough and she didn't know if her father would be alive by the end of it. So she and her husband decided to put the girls in public school for a year so she could spend as much time as she could with her father. I didn't really agree with the decision, but who was I to tell her differently?? I was not going to question such a hard decision. I think it was at that point where I began to be a little less zealous and little more compassionate. Each family is different and each one is responsible for making the best decision they can regarding their children's education. I can be a homeschool advocate but it is not my job to go into each family's homes and make their decision for them.

I believe there's a wise and a foolish way to advocate for your convictions. I admit to being a fool in the past and sometimes still in the present as regards homeschooling. But I've also learned to be wise in how I speak. It's very easy as homeschoolers to bash public schools, especially when we're together. I need to watch this tendency. There are other people listening, including my children. My children can become prideful and arrogant if I'm not careful with my tongue. I don't want that to happen. The main point for me is this - do I want to win an argument and prove I'm right OR is it more important to love another person and show them compassion and understanding? Winning the argument glorifies me but treating other people with respect and compassion glorifies God.