The following is a guest post from contributing writer Stef.
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| Educating Layton |
You do not have to hate public school to homeschool. We never picked homeschooling because of the organization and/or the quality of education. I have yet to step foot in one elementary school in our city to know what they do/don’t offer. We did not take our son out of school to homeschool as an alternative. Public school can be the best quality education – we’re still homeschooling.
You do not have to teach from bible based curriculum to homeschool. Don’t faint okay!?! We have done many projects and workbooks that had absolutely zero scripture to back it up and the boy was still learning. This does not mean we neglect to teach the Word – but I do not believe I have to explain we use commas because it states so in the bible. We use our bible time for character training. I think it is important to teach certain subjects with God’s Word to back up our beliefs – but 3+3=6 does not need a verse to make it more 6.
About Stef
This email made my day! It has recently been put on my heart to homeschool my 4 kids. I have all my letters printed & in their envelopes ready to be mailed to the appropriate people but I just haven’t mailed them yet. I open my email to see this so I’m taking it as a sign…..I will get everything mailed out TODAY!!
It has been on my heart to homeschool my children as well. I’m just a little scared still. I needed to see this, and read this. I have 4 children, but only 3 of them are school age as of now…this has helped! Thank you!!
VERY well said. Whatever is your reason for homeshooling, ANY kid learns more and retains it better with closer interaction (or one on one) with the teacher. Knowing your child as well as a parent does allows you to customize your curriculum choices to best suit his learning style and interests. They just dont have the time nor the inclination to do that in public school, or even in a good private school.
I love the answer you gave as to what makes you qualified to teach your child. Great post.
Great post, very motivating. Thanks!
I LOVE THIS POST! I echo Jody, above, “It made my day!” This is my first year homeschooling my three, and I’m loving it. It certainly is an adjustment in juggling one more thing, and making other things second priority that used to be first. And I’ve been bracing myself for people’s negative reaction, but mostly people have been supportive and kind. I think we have a responsibility as home educators to also define ourselves to others. Not every homeschooling family needs to look the same to be ‘doing it right’. It’s not a competition! There is incredible freedom in this for me! Thanks for posting!!!
I laughed out loud “3+3=6 does not need a verse to make it more 6.” hehehe…so true!!! And I agree, as someone with a degree in middle grades education (5-9th grades) the majority of my education classes were managing classrooms, differentiating instruction, learning styles, writing lesson plans, creating unit studies. It didn’t change whether or not I could explain to a child the process of osmosis. Anyone can teach their children. I don’t right now because our elementary school is very good, but my husband and I believe we will bring them home for middle and high school. Blessings on your school year and thanks for the laugh this morning (and the encouragement!!!)
Your childrens’ elementary school may be good, b(but define “good?” It is the same “good” in the Bible?) But there are other things they are missing, such: time with their family, making memories with their family and siblings, being in a god centered enviornment (public schools have a man centered enviornment–which is humanistic), being able to focus on their passions, the freedom from the pressure of trying to fit in, helping with chores at home during the day, reading the books you feel are best for them to read, and so much more. It involves a lot of self-sacrifice to home school mom/dad; that is what is hard on us, but we do it by God’s grace and with his help. Also, a lot of times, we do feel as if we are sacrificing because the rewards are so great and enduring. Also, keep in mind that your children are busy forming their ideas about the world, or their world view, in these formative elementary years, and their ideas, they say, get mainly “set” by age 12, which is just past elementary age. Also, relationships with their friends right now will probably not endure for a lifetime; family relationships are meant to do just that. Thus, why should they spend so much time building temporary relationships, which is time not spent on building family relationships. As of yet, I haven’t talked much about curriculum, but I will proceed to this topic now. You know your children best, and it is true that a teaching certificate means you have learned a lot about classroom management, collaboration with other teachers, writing unit studies and lesson plans, etc… It doesn’t mean that you never have to reteach yourself things you’ve long ago studied and forgotten–so that you can teach it. That is what take teachers so much time in lesson planning. (I speak from experience). Teaching has been going on for thousands of years. There is no master grade level list list out there regarding what a child should learn in each grade. It even varies from district to district, and state to state. Thus, you can teach what your children are interested in and you will be teaching in all areas. In real life, subjects are not broken up, and the home is real life. School is contrived. For example, they have to “set up” a school in the classroom; homeschoolers have the world as their classroom. Well, I only wanted to give you some things to consider, based on my experience. I love my children and I love being with them; the relationships we’re building and the life lessons they are learning, while home schooling, are very important to me. The Bible says that we reap what we sow. If we invest in our children, as the Bible commands, teaching them God’s word as we rise up, walk by the way, sit down, and lay down, we can rejoice at the time to come, like the woman in Proverbs 31. Home schooled children are isolated at home–in a good way–from a lot of the world. Yet, public schooled children are isolated too, in a negative way; they are isolated from the Word of God. Which do you prefer your children to be isolated from?
I have been praying about and considering homeschooling my 8 yr old. She is diagnosed ADHD and althought the meds help her considerably, she is still struggling with reading comprehension. Since our school system has incorporated reading comp in several subjects, she is not doing so good in subjects (like math) that she would otherwise have an A or B. My only concern is the fact that I work outside the home 3 days a week. Financially, I need to hold on to my job. Please help me pray about this.
Will do! I have found that my kiddos learn on their own schedule, but still “get there”. They get interested a topic and we focus on their choices at the time. If your daughter is struggling with reading comp., she probably has another interest at this point in time that could be focused on. Too many times our kiddos are forced to be on a schedule of learning topics that just doesn’t work for them. This leads to issues where they hate reading, math, etc. But only you and God know what is right for your child. Also, you can homeschool the 4 days a week you are at home (unless your state says otherwise). It really is a blessing
I will pray for you, and you want want to read my reply above to Brandy. I left a good paying job to home school (actually, the Lord clased that door after I had been praying and asking God that He would make a way for me to homeschool). So, I was fired due to budget problems, not because of my performance. I know it was God’s will. Long, long story short; we now live on one income, which last year was about 1/3 less than we used to make when I worked. (I made more money than him.) We have changed our lifestyle a lot! But, we are making it. My friends think I’m weird because we don’t go out to eat a lot, have the lattest gadgets, drive old cars, and for so many more reasons. We don’t have as many “needs” as we think. I would say to cut all you can cut, and then see what income you need. God will provide our needs, but not a lot of our wants. Being home will involve a lot of financial sacrifice. Here is a list of some: cut cable/satelite t.v., cut clothing budget (shop at yard sales and the Goodwill), food budget cut by 3/4 (more homemade meals and from scratch meals without using many time saving ingredients), sell a car with a high payment, buy a “get by” car, hair budget can be cut (maybe no more coloring hair, or professionial highlights. Switch to a budget friendly salon), new school clothes not needed, and the list could go on. Hope this helps. After a while, it will feel pretty good to know you’re saving so much money. When I feel sorry for myself, because of our lack of income, I try to remind myself that having a higher income would still involve sacrifes–but they would be our children. That usually gets me back on track.
This is great advice. We are considering homeschooling as an alternative to our current private school situation. Your homeschooling philosophy sounds like the way I would homeschool.
Great post! Thanks so much for sharing.
Our children are not old enough for formal homeschooling yet, though that is our plan. After tons of reading on the subject, this article certainly fit my thoughts perfectly and gave me a few chuckles too!
May I link this post to my blog? I love it! I haven’t been a “good” blogger in a long time but I want to start back blogging about homeschooling
Hi! I appreciated this post quite a bit. I’m a former Kindergarten teacher turned homeschooler, and there are definite pros and cons, mostly pros. I thought there would be more we’d be missing out on homeschooling than we really miss. It seems like one of the keys to being successful is to know your limits and what works best for you. If you’re terrible at grammar and spelling, then admit it and find an option that won’t hold your child back in the future. There are so many options now! The face of homeschooling has changed from the bloomer-wearing, live-off-the-land fundamental.
I enjoy the freedom I have to talk openly about the Lord during school. The main reason we homeschool is not to do better academically–although, you’re right…you know your child best and have the option to linger on more difficult concepts. The main reason we homeschool is to instill in our kids a Bible based philosophy of life.
love love love this post!! my first year of homeschooling!! i especially laughed at the latin thing. it seems it’s the trend to teach latin and if you don’t your child will be deplorably educationally delinquent. all that said, I am doing latin this year..lol but I don’t know if I want to keep doing latin. I want to do spanish. Because I 100% agree with you!
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Are you sure Roman Gladiator won’t move in next door?? LOL Loved this post!
Thanks for saying that about public school and curriculum. We love the Lord, but we don’t need memory verses involved in every subject.
I loveeeeeee thisssss! Awesome!
I really enjoyed your post. We are planning to homeschool our children for personal reasons (we travel a lot with my husband on business and don’t want to be confined to a school schedule), but it is frustrating because everyone *thinks* we are giving public schools the side-eye or trying to “shelter” our kids. If I wanted to shelter them, I’d send them to the same building day after day. Instead, they will be traveling the country and being exposed to all kinds of people, places, ideas, and more! Good luck to all of you!
This post is really good. I don’t homeschool and honestly cannot see myself doing it. I had a very narrow view of families that do homeschool, but I never really know anything about it (very silly really). I have been reading loads of blogs of mums who homeschool and I think it is amazing all the work you put into it. Not only that, but there is the housework and food and all that stuff as well. Whatever the reason might be to homeschool or not, each person deserves respect.
Congratulations on homeschooling your kids and thank you for being open minded about it as well. I had read another one of your posts about that and I liked, not sure why I never commented on it.
Flavia
Good post. But bad logic on the Latin comment. We don’t teach Latin so they can speak it with the natives. It’s more like unlocking a code within English that you can’t see until you study it. But true–no need to teach it if you’re not inclined.