Western life serves as an allegory for homeschooling to me since I am a bit of a Louis L’Amour fan.  My dad owns every book and during long summer days and cold Alaskan nights I would read them with him.  The images of cowboys and pioneers taking on the hard challenges of the west are seared into my mind.  Adventurous and inspiring, these westerners left behind the familiar and comfortable in hopes of staking a new claim and making a better life for themselves and their families.    

Homeschooling is a little like heading west.  We choose to be beholden to no one by disconnecting from the public educational sector. Only a few brave souls join us in our trek.  We seek new terrain, claim a patch of territory that is our own and make it distinctive and different.  We know it won’t be easy but we expectantly hope for the glorious end of the trail.  Louis L’Amour often wrote of those who started the journey but failed to finish the trip for lack of planning and perseverance.  I felt sorry for them because those who stuck with it to the end saw the “promised land.”  The great west was worth the trip.  As we climb back into the homeschool saddle this year, how can we set our selves up for a successful and good journey?

1.  Pioneers have a different mindset.  We all walk with paradigms in our heads of what education looks like.  For me it was little desks, backpacks, bells between classes, and red marks on test papers.  But as pioneers we need to stop and set those ideas aside.  What is the true aim and goal of education?  What is worth taking on the journey and what is just extra weight we will discard when the trip gets rough.    This isn’t something that comes easily on the fly.  We need to set time aside to pray, ponder and plan.  Just as families coming west spent months or even years planning, you too need to set aside time thinking out your homeschool.  What is your vision for your homeschool?  What is your spouse’s vision?  Take extra time to pray and ask God for a verse to cling to this school year. Hang it over your kitchen sink as a daily reminder that you have a plan and a goal.  This journey isn’t pointless it has purpose.

One of the wisest pieces of advice we received when we started our homeschool trail was to make a family vision statement.  When the road gets rough it reminds us why we are taking this journey.  Having good short and long term visions is like laying out your map and marking your intended trail.  Knowing where you aim to land and what you aim to accomplish ahead of time will guide your.  Any good cowboy will tell you that you better “aim for something otherwise you hit nothing.”

2.  Get a good guide.  Pioneers knew that trailblazers had much to share to make their journey easier.  No need to fall into caverns and potholes someone can warn you away from them.  Remember you don’t have to do this alone. Pioneer women hung together tightly on their journeys, forming communities based on needs and common interests rather than family and class status.  Plug into a support group of other pioneering folks who can get you some good tips.  Read books, go online for information. 

3.  Schedule yourself for success.  Pioneers knew travel was easiest across the west during certain times of the year and times of the day.  They arranged their schedules accordingly.  My husband is a tax accountant.  During tax season we get a lot of school done and plan to take breaks during the off season with dad around.  Children do much better if they know what is expected of them.  Pioneers lived by, early to bed, early to rise because that suited the life they lived.  What schedule suits your life?  Does daddy work swing shift?  Then your sleeping schedule will probably be different as you make extra time for him with the kids and you will start school later in the day than others.  You don’t have to have the same schedule as anyone else.  Do what works for your family.

4.  Settle in slowly.  A whole homestead isn’t made in one day.

Introduce one subject at a time, or just a couple over a series of weeks.  Then your children will have a chance to figure one thing out well before moving on ahead. 

5.  Use your resources wisely.  Clutter and chaos are contentment killers.  Clean surfaces and tidy workspaces encourage children to spend time there.  Ever clean a child’s room and notice that suddenly they are playing in it non stop.  Or if chaos is all over how it seems just too daunting to do anything.

6.  Expect the unexpected:  Indians and cholera were something the pioneers knew might be coming but it was always unexpected.  In-laws and colds will come and mess up your great schedules you have in place but don’t give up!  Knowing the unexpected can happen makes it easier to deal with.  Having backup plans in place to manage through the struggles.

Happy Trails to you all.  An adventure awaits.

Recently, I was stopped at a curriculum fair and asked this question by someone who was considering homeschooling.  Life at our house had been insane for months, and it was a bit of a rough ride.  When she asked me, I knew what she was looking for.  She wanted the basics, the simple answer.  She wanted the legal requirements, the scope and sequence suggestions, the tips for curriculum and the directions to support groups.  But she had caught me on an off day and the answer I bluntly delivered was, “Everything.” 

It takes everything to homeschool.  It takes your time, almost every minute of it.  That time as you stand in the grocery store surrounded by magazines becomes current event discussions for middle school social studies.   During those hours as you wash dishes at the sink and your little boy clings to your leg, you will find yourself teaching elementary physics of water and bubbles.  Those minutes at the end of the day are no longer yours, when your teenager finally comes to discuss the meaning and nature of man from the poetry assignment you gave him that morning.  Seconds as you hide in the bathroom are claimed as little voices ask from under the door, “Mom, what is 2/3 divided by 5?” 

It takes your money. Gone is the cushion of two incomes.  Money takes on new priorities.  Lavish vacations and spendy toys are bygones. Every extra dollar is suddenly viewed as a way to buy music lessons, purchase that curriculum that might help your kinesthetic son learn his phonics, or find that expensive science kit used online.  While your church friends go out to coffee and spa days during school hours, you are busy and broke.  “Me” time and “me” money no longer exists.

It takes your energy.  All of it.  Physically and emotionally homeschooling is draining, for long days are often required where the many hats of teacher, mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend and support group leader/member are juggled.  You will suddenly be misunderstood by friends and family because you homeschool.  They will become confrontational and judgmental of you as a parent and as a person. You will not be able to share your successes with them, for they will not value them.  That confidence that you wear so easily now, will fray at times and if you do not turn to God for refilling daily it will unravel.

Spiritually you will be tested in ways you never knew existed.  For those children you spend the day with are little mirrors that show you very clearly what fruits of the spirit you most need to work on.  Daily you will wrestle with the spiritual attack that you are not “good” enough for the job set before you.  You will have new things to pray about unceasingly. For truthfully, when you homeschool your entire life changes. 

Homeschooling really is discipleship.  It is the daily laying down of your own life for the benefit of others and for the growth of God’s kingdom, one child at a time.  As Dr. Voddie Baucham said during the conference, we begin to build multigenerational lines of faithfulness that affect the whole world around us.  Homeschooling is ministry work, hard and labored with its swells of ups and downs.  It is not for the faint of heart or the weak willed for they quickly fall by the sidelines when the difficult bits come, and they will come.

“But…” I said taking a deep breath, “The rewards are worth it.”  The joy of watching your oldest son share the gospel easily with anyone he meets because he is not peer dependent is worth it.  The pleasure of hearing the child who struggled with reading, read God’s word aloud with understanding and meaning, is worth it.  The happiness of knowing that the strong wills and hearts of those you most cherish are directed toward God first, is worth it.  The rewards are far beyond the sacrifices.  But do not go into this blind or unaware and thus be ill equipped to persevere. Jesus knew that discipleship was costly and He forewarned us all.  Being salt and light to our children and making them bright and flavorful is work worth doing, but count the cost.  It will cost you everything.

“But don’t begin until you count the cost.  For who would begin construction of a building without first getting estimates and then checking to see if there is enough money to pay the bills?  Otherwise you might complete only the foundation before running out of funds.  And then how everyone would laugh at you!  They would say, “There’s the person who started that building and ran out of money before it was finished!....So no one can become my disciple without giving up everything for me.”

           Luke 14: 28-34 NLT

I love school breaks.  Breaks release us to take a step back and see where we really are.  How good it is set aside our pencils and books and just practice “being” together.  Our first day of Spring Break this year was wonderful.  Freed from the constraints of any schedule my kids took the morning to plan and ponder their plan of attack for the next few days.  My littlest pulled out games that had been tucked away for months. Within an hour my oldest sons were cleaning out the workshop that they felt needed reorganizing for Dad.  No one asked them to do this; they came up with it on their own as a love gift for their dad, who as a tax accountant is in his busiest season.  How proud they were when it was all neat and tidy. 

While they were working another plan had formulated in their heads.  This one was pure fun.  “Mom” they asked, “Can we build a boat to float in the pond at the park?”  Working in the shop organizing tools had inspired them.  In no time they collected their younger siblings and began creating.  Taking an old purple dinosaur sandbox, PVC pipe, duct tape and liquid nails, they made a floating contraption with pop bottle pontoons.  In an hour they had a boat they were ready to try.  A spot of sun shone out the window and despite the temp of 45 degrees we loaded the boat and oars into the back of our beat up van and we headed out. 

What a sight we made trooping up to the pond. I noticed a few heads turn as joggers went by us.  Excitedly the kids put the boat in the pond and it floated.  I have to admit I wondered if it could really hold up a 6’ 1” boy, and was mentally planning on bringing home sodden kids.  One by one, each of my four got into the boat and floated around the pond.  They were ecstatic.  The oldest two realized they had to balance their weight just so or the boat would fill with water, but it did not sink.  When all were sufficiently wet and cold enough we loaded the boat back into the van and headed home for hot chocolate.  Everyone chatted about improvements to make the boat more stable for the future.  My seven year old son envisioned plans of adding motor.  My 10 year old daughter was ready to get out the paint brushes and decorate the ship more appropriately.  I could see in that moment how the strengths of each child were allowed to flourish in this small endeavor.  Teamwork, ingenuity, spontaneity, genuine love and concern for each other were displayed.  School work shows me only a snapshot of all I really want to teach my children.  Break times show me another.

While I fight the constant temptation each break to fill it with schoolish things, I hold tight to the joy that comes from letting my kids “be”.  I’ll never be an unschooler, or one who could go too long without a schedule, but I see the value in it.  In closing, the highlight of this break was my oldest son giving me a hug and saying, “I’m so glad I have a mother who understands that boys need to have adventures.”  Truth is, so do moms.