There has been a lot of discussion lately about homeschooling and how it has changed over the years.  Because of the age span between my children I have been homeschool since 1992.  Not quite long enough to be a pre-law pioneer but almost.  Further my youngest is only 6 so I have quite a few more years before I can hang up my homeschool hat.  So it got me to reflect a bit on homeschooling over the years and I thought I would share a few thoughts that crossed my mind.

I'm on the board of our local support group and it was my month to do the newsletter greeting.  I already had an outline before our board meeting Monday and it seemed that some of the discussion we had at the meeting was really in line with what my outline was so I fleshed it out and submitted it this morning. 

So I decided to share it here as well.  I'm also curious to see if other homeschoolers in other areas see or feel a similar thing.  The whole discussion got started because 1 our group started in 1990 with 8 families grew to a high in 2003 of 165 families with a slow but steady drop to 91 familes this year.  But what we have noticed was in the past at our quarterly parents meetings, monthly mom meetings, field trips, ect there has been a stead drop in the percentage of members participating.  When we had 50 members our Christmas Tea in December had over 80 attendees with about 80% of the membership plus guests.  This year 91 families we had 50 people at the tea with 32 being members which means only about 33%o of the membership.  And this same percentage numbers are playing out across the board.  Plus a lot less "grassroot" activities even being planned.  For example no one has planned a spelling bee, geography bee, international night, craft day, recognition night for the last few years. 

We talked about a lot of factors being the cause from people can connect and stay informed via the internet, less disposable income, more working moms, more variety in homeschoolers in lots of different areas, gas costing $3 plus a gallon in an area where everything is usually 10-30 miles from where you are.  Our county is bigger than the state of Delaware.  We started noticing the decline after our 2004 hurricane seasons that just left a lot of people weary so for the first few years year post Charlie/Francis/Jeanne we attributed lack of interest on people still in recovery.  But now just not so sure if that's even a factor.  Or maybe people pulled away to recover and realized they just didn't miss it so they never really plugged back in.  Anyway all that to say here's my article and I'd love to hear some feedback.

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There has been a lot of discussion lately about homeschooling and how it has changed over the years.  Because of the age span between my children I have been homeschool since 1992.  Not quite long enough to be a pre-law pioneer but almost.  Further my youngest is only 6 so I have quite a few more years before I can hang up my homeschool hat.  So it got me to reflect a bit on homeschooling over the years and I thought I would share a few thoughts that crossed my mind. 

When I started homeschooling I was one of the few that I knew that did homeschool for religious reasons.  We started because of behavior problems.  While now there seem to be as many reasons as why someone starts homeschooling are much more varied.  There has always been a variety of ways to homeschool and materials to use but these increases every year.  Homeschooling seemed to be more small grassroots and now has a more big business feel.   There is a whole lot more information and technology at our fingertips then even 10 years ago.  With this increase in technology and internet use has come new and different ways to connect with other people.  It’s pretty awesome to thing about the fact that you can interact with homeschoolers across the state, country, or even world.  The flipside of this is a less urgent need to connect with people in our own backyard. There seems to be more people shopping for what the need instead of investing with what they have to give.  More consumerism less heart in both vendors and homeschoolers.  

So is all this bad; not necessarily.  Change happens.  Some of it is wonderful, some a little bit sad for those of us who have seen it happen.   But I think the single most important thing those of us who have been around long enough would want to pass on to those who are newer is don’t take any of it for granite.  Remember that 20 years ago there was no law; 10 years ago you tried to avoid going out during the day because of questions, 5 years ago many places did not offer so many activities geared just for homeschoolers.  No matter how you stay connected – stay connected and informed.  Invest a bit now to have from having to work really hard later. 

In conclusion the best advice I have for all homeschoolers no matter how long you’ve homeschooled, what curriculum you use, your religious affiliation or lack there of, your location, your political leanings what we all hold in common is our love for our children and the desire to provide the best for them.  All homeschoolers must feel that homeschooling is what is best for our families or we wouldn’t be doing it.  So don’t let difference cause us to be so fractured as a group that we loose sight of the fact that to protect our rights as homeschoolers we must stay united on homeschooling. 

Well I had in my mind what my greeting was going to be about all year but as I was getting ready to submit it I realized that wasn’t what I was supposed to write about so here is my newly written greeting.  The topic is road blocks. 

Recently I saw the movie and documentary about the life of Vivian Thomas and his work with Dr. Blalock.  He was a young black man who saved 7 years to be able to attend college with the hope of becoming a doctor.  Weeks before he was to start college the bank folded and so did his dreams.  He was lucky to find any job so he took a job as a janitor in a medical research lab at Vanderbilt University.  There he developed a relationship with the young Dr. Blalock.  Later they went to work at John Hopkins University.  With Mr. Thomas’s help Dr. Blalock performed the first heart surgery.  Mr. Thomas went on to instruct upcoming doctors in surgical technique at a time when he could not even eat in the same dining hall with them.  What was seen as a road block in his life resulted in millions of children being saved and advancing cardiac surgery.  It also helped to open the door for many young doctors who came after him. 

We all face what seem to be road blocks in our plans.  They can be simple things like running late because we couldn’t find the keys or having to change our plans for the days because our keys got locked in the car.  They can be bigger things like sickness or major family disruptions.  We all like to have a plan, to know where we headed, or what’s coming next.  Sometimes it’s really hard to lay down our plans and to not feel frustrated when things don’t come out the way we hoped.   We might have an idea of what curriculum we will be using and suddenly it just isn’t meeting our family’s needs.  Sometimes road blocks require some humble pie because we might have to do the thing we said we’d never do.    

Sometimes we see the reason for the roadblock like passing an accident that we might have been involved in if we had left on time.  Sometimes we don’t see it for years or maybe we might never understand why things didn’t go our way.  I think we need to change our outlook.  We need to view these interruptions in our plans more as checkpoints then road blocks.  So the next time you face one of life’s check points you can stop, evaluate the situation, and follow God’s leading as you move forward again.