For Love of a Story

When I was thirteen, a friend of mine introduced me to the movie Gone With the Wind. I will never forget how I felt as we came to the end of the movie. I was shocked and devastated, as well as very tired. (I don’t think we even turned on the movie until midnight.) Another friend was also seeing the movie for the first time, and we were both blown away. We stayed up a bit longer to talk about the unfairness of the ending. The next morning, we woke up talking about it. That day, I got the book and started reading. I have read the book over twenty times now.

At the time, I was just a girl who loved a story. I read the book several times. I read about the Civil War. I paid more attention when a book, movie, or lecture was about the Civil War. I learned about the movie, voraciously reading all that I could. I learned about Margaret Mitchell. I learned about film making, casting, and screenwriters because of this book. I was excited about the book Scarlett, which came out that year. I followed the casting of Scarlett and even watched it, wallowing in all its horrible changes from the book.

My love for this one story led to many, many other learning experiences. I remember being amazed that other people didn’t even know the years that the Civil War started and ended. I never worked to memorize those dates, but I knew them because they were part of something I loved.
I attended a public school, and I was doing all this extra learning outside of class time. I was so motivated to learn all I could. When it came time to think about education for my own kids, I thought a lot about my experience with Gone With the Wind. For me, it was such a testament to true learning. I wanted that passion for knowledge for my children. I wanted them to see learning as a natural part of living.

I Never Teach

"I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn."
Albert Einstein

Ordinary Generals

Leaders are not what people think - people with huge crowds following them. Leaders are people who go their own way without caring, or even looking to see whether anyone is following them. "Leadership qualities" are not the qualities that enable people to attract followers, but those that enable them to do without them. They include, at the very least, courage, endurance, patience, humor, flexibility, resourcefulness,determination, a keen sense of reality and the ability to keep a cool and clear head even when things are going badly.

True leaders do not make people into followers, but into new leaders. The homeschooling movement is full of such people, "ordinary" people doing things that they never would have thought they could do - learning the law, questioning the experts, holding their ground against arrogant and threatening authorities, defending themselves and their convictions in the press, on TV, even in court. Seeing them, other ordinary people think they can do the same, and they do.

This is why it may be a little misleading to speak of the homeschooling "movement." Most people think of a movement as something like an army, a few generals and a great many buck privates. In the movement for home schooling, everyone is a general.

John Holt
Teach Your Own
pg (68-69)
1981

Why I Should Not Homeschool...

You should home school or you should not home school, that is the question that every thinks is their business. And honestly it is usually "You can't home school because..."

1. Your kids will be weird! (Honestly, I would rather my children be able to relate to people of all ages and be polite and respectful. They are reading instead of watching TV or playing video games. If this makes them weird, then let the weirdness begin!)

2. You can't home school because you have four children ages 6 and younger. (My son helps at home with the dishes, laundry, changes diapers, feeds the 2 month old and helps buckles his sisters into the car. I honestly don't know what I would do without his help. He is also learning responsibility besides how a family works.)

3. You need to be a professional expert in order to teach children. (I really believe that children can be inspired to learn on their own. I can become an expert in anything that I am interested in. So over time, I can mentor my child in anything they are interested in. If I am not the best mentor, I will then find my child one.)

There are a 1,000 other reason why I cannot or should not home educate my children that are told to me everyday. But I can, and I will do it. Why? Because I believe that it is the best education that my children can receive! That my husband and I are the most emotionally invested in our children's well being and therefore, you can not pay any "expert" enough to teach them any better than the people who love them and know them the best. We are the most qualified!

A Return To Love

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear
is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness,
that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually who are we not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people
won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine as children do.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And when we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

From A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson

Getting off the conveyor-belt and going alone

I currently struggle immensely with homeschooling as I must currently work outside the home and can't seem to get my spouse on board. We both believe that this is the choice for us - or that at least we must give it a good try before we decide otherwise. This however, requires changes in lifestyle for both of us that are hard. How can we both committ together to make this happen? How do we do this when we are both being pulled in various directions and struggling in various fashions as a couple & as a family right now?

Never Say Never

A few years ago when I was younger, more naive, and not married; I was dating a young man who I was quite serious with. We had discussed children numerous times and he told me that he would prefer I have them naturally. I proceeded to laugh and decide he was crazy. I later, after marrying my husband, had no choice but to deliver my stillborn son , naturally and am truly grateful I did. I proceeded to have my next two children without pain meds as well (though I did have piction with one labor to speed things up). I share this because I thought the same exact thingwhen I was introduced to the idea of homeschooling. I had met a gal - who was newly married and already reading the 5 Pillars classics & preparing herself to homeschool her children and I thought - quite frankly - she's nuts. However, she and another mutuaal friend proceeded to introduce me to A Thomas Jefferson Education and I couldn't put the book down. I finally understood for the first time ever why I was so unhappy with my schooling experience and could recall very little of what I had learned. It made me determined to make sure that my children never suffered such a fate if i could have any say in it.

I call myself a homeschooling mom now because I do all I can to provide daily learning experiences planned and othrwise for my son & daughter. I strive to make note of what works with what child, and what interests each of them. I strive to instill in them the qualities , values, & principles my parents instilled in me.

I never thought in a million year I would be one of those "homeschooling moms", but I am more than proud to wear the badge now .

The Baby IS the Lesson

I wanted to share one of the articles that helped me have the courage to home school - even with having a baby. This is by Diane Hopkins

One morning on my daily walk, I was fretting and stewing over what I could possibly do with my one-year-old during school time. I was feeling some despair with a new baby on its way. I couldn't see any end to the disruption of babies in my home school for many years to come. I was praying and scheming at the same time: I could wait until the baby's nap to teach school, I could rotate the children with baby-sitting chore away from our schoolroom, I could get a playpen, etc.: all solutions that didn't feel right--babies needs their moms!As I walked and pondered, suddenly the Lord introduced one sentence to my mind and revolutionized my mindset entirely! "The baby IS the lesson!" I thought I was trying to teach Math, but in reality I had been teaching, day by day, how an adult values the precious gift of children. My children, by watching how I deal with the frustration of a crying baby or keep a toddler happy and busy with some of his "own" pieces while we play a math game, are soaking up "the lesson". Unfortunately, I had occasionally been teaching that the baby interrupts our learning.How to be a Christlike person is the most valuable lesson a child could ever learn! The lesson is learned moment by moment; watching a parent being patient, handling frustration with kindness, pressing on for the goal in spite of numerous interruptions, valuing each child's needs regardless of inconvenience. That valuable insight--how Mother handles the baby is the real lesson--has dramatically changed how I view my home school.

I am teaching foremost my values: godly character, kindness, respect for others, individuality, sacrifice and a host of other Christlike attributes. Teaching them reading, writing, math, etc. is very important to me but my perspective has been altered. "Mimic me, follow me and I will show you the way a Christlike person acts and what he values". That is the message every parent relays to their children whether they are aware of it or not. Children try to copy everything anyway (our mannerisms, our daily activities, etc.). We must be certain that we are providing a correct pattern for them to copy, not only in our daily activities but in our attitude, our tone of voice, and our facial expression. We need to conduct our lives so that we can say "follow me". If our children are to "buy" our values, what a tremendous responsibility we have to make sure we are living our best so the lesson is clear and well learned! What more could you ask for from your homeschool than to produce Christlike people?!Teaching your children basically means getting your own personal life in order and striving daily to be the leader for them to follow. Of course, we fall short and they must look to Christ for the perfect being but they need to see daily how one acts, speaks, lives, solves problems. We are acting as a proxy, in a sense, for Christ. Since they can't have his daily role model, then he has given his children parents to be an example, to point the way. Along with lesson preparations, we need to prepare ourselves by asking: is the pattern I live the way Christ would act? Can I say today that I have marked the path for my children to follow? Children learn from seeing their parent's role model. Watching an adult make a simple mistake (such as being too punitive with a child) and go through the process of repenting is 100 times more effective than your devotional lesson on repentance. This means children must be intimately involved with you in your daily life. A few hours a day after school won't do it.Children should be involved in the adult's life rather than daily life rotating around the children.

Research has shown that children who have grown up to be productive well-adjusted adults are those who have been drawn into the parent's world; their daily activities, work, and interests; rather than having parents who centered their world on the child. When I began home schooling, I never could find the time to do the things I felt were important for my life; such as writing in my journal, corresponding with relatives, studying my scriptures, and more. Somehow, in my busy-ness of trying to teach the kids how to write in their journals, I was neglecting my own journal writing. Thankfully, we now have journal writing time in school daily, and we write letters to relatives together as a family on Sunday. Homeschool life should help parents do the daily necessities, rather than usurp the time needed for them. Home maintenance, chores, food preparation, gardening, food preservation, budgeting, clothing care (mending and sewing), planning family social relationships, caring for small children, record keeping, quilting, wallpapering, etc. are all wonderful life skills that can be done together that enhance a child's education!The parent's joyful task is to lead and guide the child into the real world--not set up a contrived pseudo-world to teach skills that the children would easily learn if they spent their time around adults who were striving to live good lives. What constitutes an adult trying to live a "good life"? Being a productive adult would constitute a full-time curriculum! Plant a garden, read good literature, serve the needy, be politically aware, keep a journal, vote for honest men, develop your talents, etc. The exciting part about leading a child into the real world is that they are self-motivated. The moment I sit down to play the piano, all my children want to play and want me to teach them to play something. No sooner than I begin typing on the computer, I have the whole family "needing" to type. My efforts at writing have, humorous to me, stimulated the production of "books" from my youngest children.

Modeling is so much more effective than lecturing. Studies show that the biggest determining factor for a child's success in reading in school is if they have seen a parent reading in the home on a regular basis. This is especially true for boys if the parent who reads is their father, rather than their mother. Somehow, the example says far more about the value of reading than endless hours in school reading groups.In every area, it takes instruction to teach skills to little people. Children need to master the basic academic skills (reading, writing, arithmetic), social manners, music competence, and a host of other abilities and that does take focused concentration and time from mother/teacher to accomplish. It isn't realized just by living in a family. But shared family life practices and contributes to those skills. Having taught my little girl the numbers and the plus, minus and equal signs and how they worked, she jumped right into figuring out how many plates she needed to set the table using her new skills: ("We have 9 and the boys are gone to college so that is minus 3, so we need six").

When we think of homeschool, sometimes we get tunnel vision, and think "academics", "keeping up to speed" and other worrisome concerns that don't really tell the whole story. Homeschool is the growing and nurturing of fine, upright people. So, how we treat and value the baby really is the lesson.Class never dismissed.—Diane Hopkins

Can I Really Do Home Schooling?

I have to admit that I in many ways am still trying to get off the conveyor belt. A part of me still wonders if Isaac, my 5-year-old son, should be getting on the bus that takes the kindergartners to school that passes our house everyday. Most of his peers whom we have known from infancy are on this bus.

When I hear the other parents talk about how wonderful their child's teacher is, or "My son is starting to read," I think to myself...Can I really do this? Isaac can't even identify every letter of the alphabet yet, let a lone phonetically sound out new words. Am I really cut out for this? Isaac can not begin to compete with what his peers can do academically.

I then remind myself that academics are not a competition. Although Isaac would much rather swing and jump on the trampoline (what 5-year-old boy wouldn't) than formally sit down and learn his letters, I believe deep inside that I can make this work. Each day, Isaac's primary curriculum is to learn: appropriate relationships, how to work, and our faith. Every once in a while he is interested in a letter that he naturally finds in his world around him.

Today I had an "OK, may-be home schooling will work" moment. As I was watching a 3-year-old little boy, Isaac asked him to come sit down so he could "read" a library book to him. Isaac preceded to tell the story in his own words to his friend, page by page. It was awesome. I was amazed at Isaac's ability to recall the story that he had only heard once, and how excited he was to share it with his friend.

I hope to someday have Isaac try to teach his younger sisters to read. I guess right now I am going to trust my instincts that he will have a desire to learn to read on his own as long as my husband and I continue to exemplify reading and learning.