homeschool, anyone?

Add us to your ‘weirdos’ list…

We’re starting homeschool this summer with Nia. It just makes sense to us as a move to Haiti is in our future.

Wow. Loved the video. Made me think about how some folks may view us…. as weird? Talk about paradigm shift. My normal is another person’s weird? Cool.

I will offer a few reasons why we homeschool. First and foremost we feel God led us to it. So we did it out of obedience.

That is really the main reason. All other things I list are things we call benefits, not reasons.

We spend 12-14 hours a day with our kids. This makes us the primary influence in our kids lives. Not someone whose values, agenda, or just plain job description may be at odds with what we know God wants our children to learn and believe.

Additionally, because we do not have to deal with the organizational issues faced by large groups, we are able to complete our “academic time” in 2-3 hours. Which ironically is about the equivalent of actual instructional time at a public facility during a 7.5 hour school day.
Note that I put quotations around academic time…. we truly feel that all day is learning time. We just use some items in a more conventional manner at certain times of the day. (workbooks, language arts stuff, etc)

This efficiency allows us the flexibility to take field trips, run errands, and serve others by being flexible and available when life happens. Also, because we do these things during the day, we have our evenings together to play games, read, and learn some more.

Our relationships at church, in our community, and other areas of life allow us to round out our children’s exposure without the risk of inappropriate information being accessible. They learn social graces (someday!), service, etc while given time to mature and grow in their walk with the Lord.

OK- sounds like we have it all together, right? Well, the long and the short of it is: Homeschooling is the greatest blessing and the hardest thing we do as parents. We feel called to it but it requires much more effort and work than public school. I do not say this to demean or offend anyone whose child attends school outside of the home. I am just stating a fact. It takes more work. Homeschooling is a lifestyle choice, not just an educational decision.

There is a ton of information I would love to share with you and CC but this post is not the place due to length and the fact that I can talk a lot faster than I can write.

Here is some links you and CC might find useful. These links of course is biased towards a homeschool mindset but will answer a lot of practical questions about the process, the options, etc.

http://nche.com/faq.html

http://www.homeedmag.com/gettingstarted.html

I leave you with the quote that is the basis of our homeschool mission statement. I will send you a copy of that mission statement via email.

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” W.B. Yeats

I would love to have lunch sometime soon and talk about this some more. Drop me a note and let me know what you have available next week. Bring CC and the Darbster so we can all talk.

Stephen,

Jeremy was homeschooled, so….. you can draw your own conclusions.

Joey

We thought about it; but we don’t really like are kids that much. Homeschooling would just mean we would have to spend more time with them. As it is, when they get home from school, they can pop in a hot pocket and a video and they’re good to go. When I get home I send them to their rooms and sit sown, relax, and read the paper in peace and quiet.

I think we had a couple of conversations about this last year, as I recall, but yeah, put me in the weird category too. Honestly I think some of the things that make me weird in hopefully a good way (individuality and creativity type things) I attribute directly to homeschooling.
I think homeschooling a child earlier in their life is a great way to ground children in the sort of principles and influences that can make them turn out to be a plain old decent human being, regardless of their spiritual maturity (although those often go together). By the time they’re approaching jr. high / high school age, I’d say I’m about 50/50 on the benefit of homeschooling - for a lot of kids public school would be very beneficial.
But as for for being socially maladjusted, that’s really more dependent on the kid, the family he or she is raised in, and the community that you’re in (and knowing your family and the homeschooling support community that exists in North Carolina, I think your kid would be just fine).
Most of my social development in adolescence came from friends at church (most of whom attended public school in high school), and a few other activities. I feel like it worked out great for me.

I miss playing with you man… also enjoying reading your worship team commandments, as I just started in a worship leading position at a church here.
Talk to you later…

Hey Stephen,

I never thought I would be homeschooln’ the kids. Never. I really wanted a posh private education for the kids no matter the cost.

Well, God redirected my heart when my oldest turned 4. Seeing his creativity, charm and outright desire not to submit to authority, Chris and I reviewed our options. We both attended the Annual homeschool conference and we made the leap then and there.

Homeschooling is a blessing to us. It is different lifestyle than most in our community and it is hard (you are never “off.”) But we are already reaping benefits of close relationships with our children ages 9-2.