May. 27, 2005
A Year Ago I posted these...
Over the next few days I will repost some things I wrote back in January of 2004. I will end with revising some of my thoughts and feelings on things. It seems things continually change as I go along this path called Homeschooling...
Here is installment #1
My Thoughts on Homeschooling
I am going to write this in segments because there is so much I want to share. We are coming to the end of our fourth year and there are some things I have learned that I feel are quite valuable. I will set them up in a list format and then I will move on to site, links and books that have been helpful but first I want to share our story.
Our Story
It all started when baby #1 came along ten years ago. I took one look at that little face and decided then and there that I could never submit that child to what I had experienced as a public school teacher. That child had to have more than what those other children were getting. A bit selfish maybe but God gave me that child and I was going to do what I felt God leading me to do for him no matter what. He was my responsibility and I took (and still do take) that very seriously. So the research began. I checked out every book on Hsing that I could find and began to fill my shelves with books. I asked questions of mothers in groups I was in that Hsed and began to listen to broadcasts and programs I could find in Christian radio that discussed this topic. I found a little couple in Washington state that blew me away and began to read their books. Raymond and Dorothy Moore changed my way of thinking about education. They talked about waiting to start children in formal learning. They emphasized letting children be children, reading to them daily, playing little games with them, taking walks and playing, playing, playing. I took that to heart in a big way and started buying good childrens books and taking my infant to the library for his first library card at the age of 6 weeks.
We provided great toys - not expensive and noisy toys - just great learning opportunities for him in blocks, puzzles, games, and books. The reading continued with The Big Book of Home Learning, Unschooling, Charlotte Mason and others. We found that we were continually asked where our child went to preschool. Everyone around us felt that preschool was important but I stuck to the Moores philosophy and kept mine at home and did the things they instructed and JoNathan did great. He was verbally, emotionally and intellectually ahead of most kids his age and all he did all day was play and sing. Granted he began walking at 9 months and talking in sentences by the time he was around 15 months old. He has never been an average child (quite a challenge for this mommy) but he was doing fine without formal training. JoNathan went all the way through the age of five at home.
I had Em when he was 4 ½ years old and Davy came along 2 ½ years later (baby four is due in July and JoNathan will be 10 ½ years old at that time). When I was pregnant with Davy I was very sick and we made a hard decision to put JoNathan in public school until I could get back on my feet and see how he would do. He did great academically and got along great with many of the children but began to be bored and disruptive. After a year and a half in public school we could not take it anymore and pulled him back out. The mistakes we made by putting him into public school are still being reversed. He went from a child who loved learning to a child who hated school and structure and sitting at a desk for approximately 5-6 hours a day. We had to do a great deal of unschooling once he came home. To this day he feels stiffled by workbook formats and learns best with hands-on and reading real books.
Emily is a more traditional learner but she will not get the chance to be in public school. I learned my lesson with JoNathan. We have not always had our families on board with our decisions. They somehow feel that we are insulting them by making a different choice than they made but this is a much different world that we live in today. In our area we see a great deal of gang activity, theft, violence and hardly any support for Christian values. We are not interested in subjecting our children to these things before they have to be.
We home school for many reasons, one of which is religious reasons (for lack of a better explanation). In our school we make Bible study a part of every day. We read books that encourage Christian values (no Harry Potter here - it is required reading in the public schools here with no option to say no). We memorize Scripture and attend AWANA, Cub Scouts, Upward Basketball and Swim team during the week. We surround the children with Christian families and friends in our neighborhood and church (although JoNathan heard the F word for the first time from a boy at church - AAACCCKKK:-O - btw, this is the same boy that hit J a few weeks ago). This is important to us because God calls us to be different from the world. That is not to say we never spend time with non-Christians because we do in order to have a witness and make an impact in the lost world but our children are always supervised in these situations.
We emphasis volunteerism, service and giving to others. We also study about those missionaries and others who have given their lives for the sake of Christ and we follow current day missionaries and their families and pray for them and their work around the world. We try to apply scripture to all situations that come up because we know that we cannot shelter them from all bad things in life and they need to learn to deal in a Christian manner with the world and all the bad that comes with it. We want to teach them that Christ is the reason we are who we are and His purpose for our life is the only thing that matters. This is why we make decisions we make and why we are strict about what we tolerate and accept in our homes from toys to music to television and movies. I admit we screen everything before we allow it and we let our children know that there are many things that God does not allow - not because He never wants us to have fun but because He wants the best for us and some things are less than best by a huge margin. Maybe that makes us closed minded and intolerant but that does not bother me. My job is to raise these children the way God commands and I am ultimately held responsible for how they are raised and what they are taught. That is a heavy responsibility that I do not take lightly.
