The reasons why we are Homeschooling

OH, NO! I've turned into one of those radical moms that homeschool and the transformation has only taken 2 weeks!

I wrote this email in response to my sweet sister in-law who wrote to say she was concerned about our decision to homeschool and the age old question - socialization. I didn't even know I thought some of this stuff until I started writing it. Hopefully it doesn't bore you to death! I made a few edits...so hear goes.

I appreciate what you are saying about the home schooling thing [the worry of being socially inept]. The truth is the education part of it is not the real reason we are taking the kids from school. ---She had suggested augmenting school and still allowing them to go for socialization purposes--- It is a portion but not all.

In Abby's class after moving here, on a daily basis (I am not exaggerating, I asked Abby before I wrote this) there were physical altercations in class...in 3rd grade. Abby had to sit next to a problem girl that licked her. Gross...is this how I want to socialize my children? No thanks..... When in any other time of their life will 30 people all the exact same age and various levels of intelligence be forced to spend 6 hours a day together, playing together, eating together, being taught the exact same information even though they are capable (or not) of doing much greater work? Is the education of my child equal to his/her potential?

I know my children, I know what their strengths and their weaknesses are. I LOVE them and I am invested in them succeeding. Their elementary teacher may or may not even like them. The only goal they have is making sure they meet a set of requirements for that grade. It cannot be their goal to help a child meet his/her potential. It may be a wish of the teacher's to have this as a goal, but it is simply not feasible when there are 30 other children to teach and make sure they are all on track.

Which leads me to Caleb. He reminds me a lot of my Dad, he has so many skills with his hands, building, creating, taking apart and putting things back together; however, he has never had an interest in academic things. I have stewed over the fact that it is all day kindergarten here, mainly for the purpose of saving parents childcare costs. I don't want to send him into an environment that he is not going to feel successful for 6.5 hours a day (the bus comes at 7:30 in the morning!). I distinctly remember something my Dad told me about himself. He always thought that he was dumb until he was in college and realized he wasn't. My reasoning is because in normal academic school they didn't teach to my Dad's strengths so he never felt successful. I KNOW that this school will definitely not teach to my son's strengths, but I can and will.

Luckily, I have several friends that have home schooled their children and they are bright, articulate, mature, educated children. It is to these friends that I have gone to and asked for advice on curriculum and the how tos of home schooling. The plus is that we know that this is the right choice for us and Heavenly Father is blessing us and guiding us. I love the fact that the curriculum I am using for spelling (from the 1800's) has fill in the blanks from the Bible, Milton and other famous authors. Abby does copy work everyday and has now memorized all the Articles of Faith and has moved on to quotes from Shakespeare. We will be working on scripture mastery as well. We have just started reading Treasure Island with Abby, and Pinocchio with all the kids. The kids love it and want more. Abby is becoming self guided (moving onto the next subject without being prompted) and can go as quickly or as slowly as she needs to. She is unlearning some of the things from public school. Like looking for what she believes I, as her teacher, am looking for. I want her to think for herself - To read material for the things she finds important or interesting. The first day I asked her to read from a book and choose questions to ask as if she were the teacher. She had the most difficult time, asking over and over what I wanted. I kept telling her, "You are the teacher. You decide." This kind of instruction was so difficult for her because she has learned to not think for herself in school. That is what they teach you, you must think about what the teacher wants and that is the right answer - even if you have a different answer that is just as valid. I want to encourage creativity, leadership, and entrepreneurship that is so lacking in public school. Yesterday we had a new list of spelling words. After today she was ready to take the test. Why should she have to wait a whole week to take it and do busywork in between? Let's move on and learn more new words!

Caleb has an aptitude for math. He's never been taught math and is easily adding things within days of starting school. In kindergarten, they wouldn't be adding until months from now, they'd be reviewing colors and shapes. A plus for me is I see him starting to sound things out and adding things up and see the joy on his face when he accomplishes sounding out a word or getting a hard math answer. If he wasn't here with me, I'd miss it! It's like missing his first steps!

Josh and Mimi get in on the action, too. They love little art projects and tracing letters. Mimi loves "school" and feeling like one of the big kids. Josh will still be attending preschool, as will Mimi next year.

As for the stresses my mother had, unfortunately, it is something I deal with regardless of whether the children are at home for school or not. For one week out of the month I am unhappy with life. I am learning to control it better with eating and hopefully with a more ordered life (necessitated by home schooling) I will be going to work out daily for some "me" time. I have also found when I feel "connected" to my children, daily invested in teaching them, loving them, listening to them, I am far more patient with them. I also have a husband that is an integral part of the parenting and care of our home. He frequently is the one to cook dinner, do laundry or dishes, and gets the children to bed, etc. He brings me great peace and helps me to be a better mother.

There is a large home school support group here, over 50 families. They have special days twice a month to go swimming for just the homeschoolers. Separate activities are planned to allow the children to socialize with each other. Field trips and group classes are also planned. Abby and Caleb are playing soccer this year, and I will be signing them up for 4-H groups. Abby will be taking group piano lessons and hopefully some singing lessons, too. She has friends at church as well. I happen to be the activity day leader and teacher on Sunday, too. They are a good group of kids and I really like teaching them.

I also like the fact that I can leave with the children anytime. We can go on a month long vacation and not worry about missing school. We can go out and ride in the huge seeders when it comes time to seed the wheat and not have to wait till after school. We can go to calving or branding in the spring. If we want to go fishing and learn about science, it can be done anytime of day. School takes place all day when we are together. I have a completely different mind set now. I am awakened to the world around me and I want to learn and share as much of it as I can with my children. We are anticipating fun trips to Calgary (the closest metropolitan city) where we can expose the children to lots of cultural things.

Now that we have made a shift in our thinking it is like we have the blinders taken off and can see all the possibilities to what this can be versus how difficult it is. I don't know for how long we will do home school as long as it feels right I guess. I'm just having faith in the Lord because this was something I NEVER thought I would ever want or be able to handle. So far it's going better than planned and we are already enjoying the fruits of our labor! I'm loving learning all the things right along with the kids, I've never read several of the "classics" that we will be reading.

And finally, public school does not even want my children to talk about church or scriptures or their beliefs because it might hurt other people's feelings. So at a young age do I want my children to compartmentalize their faith? It's okay to discuss God here, but not there? Isn't that a First Amendment right? If someone is offended by my faith then they need not listen, but do I want others teaching my children that somehow speaking of their beliefs is bad or only accepted in certain realms? So when they get out of public school will they magically say, "Wow, I've waited all these years, now I can freely say what is on my mind?" Of course not, it will be so deeply ingrained, they will have to overcome it for years to come. I don't want my children taught that homosexuality is natural, yet it is allowed in the schools. Discussions of Jesus Christ and His divinity, however, are not welcome there. I don't have a problem with exposing my children to different views but adding one and disallowing another is remiss, all thoughts should be made available and allowed to be heard, discussed, and then one can make an educated or spiritual decision. Interesting....By default our children, as Christians, are taught as young students to not be politically active because it "might hurt someone's feelings". Yet, liberalism runs amok and is celebrated as being tolerant of everyone and everything, yet this is truly not the case. Tolerant of everything, except anything having to do with religion and God. How against the Plan of Happiness is that?

Wow, I didn't know all these thoughts were rolling around in my head until I started typing and just how strongly I feel about these things. Some of my friends told me some of these exact same things when they talked about their reasons for home schooling and I couldn't really understand the importance of what they said until I experienced it for myself. I can't believe it's only been two weeks since we started! Thanks for being concerned though, but as you can tell, I'm liking being with my kids too much to send them off now!