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Our Decision To Homeschool
Up until my early high school years, the idea of Homeschooling came straight out of the prairie with the Wilders. It was otherwise, an entirely new concept for me. Through the family grapevine, I heard that my Aunt was about to begin home teaching her family. I remember thinking she must have fallen off her rocker!
Aunt Marie had her teaching degree and several years of experience, successfully teaching at her local Christian School. But still. “Those poor kids,” I thought! “Who in their right mind would do that?!” …Isn’t life funny that way?
Round about the time our first son was three years old, he was exposed to an unmentionably graphic chalk drawing out on the sidewalk with a slightly older playmate. There were several children in my care at the time, though I missed the actual drawing of such.
The child artist, too young to understand, was in his first year or two of public school. He came from a loving, respectful and safe home where we still absolutely assume he would not have seen such things. Because of our own childhood school experiences, we believed the child gained such knowledge from schoolmates.
Quite a matter of fact, our search began for something different. There were, of course, other issues we wanted to address. Stache had a third-grade teacher mock him in front of the class, which sent his yet to be diagnosed struggles with dyslexia, deep ‘underground.’
Young Stache ‘self-solved’ that little problem of teacher misconduct, by becoming a class clown. His parents were none the wiser. He didn’t tell them. Stache was so effective with his solution that his dyslexia didn’t get addressed until his senior year in high school.
For myself, my mediocre survival through school was because my head was in the clouds. At the time, I had no love for learning. My only interest in life as far back as I can remember was boys and romance. Schooling choices were unlikely to resolve that problem, -but I digress.
Within the year that we began researching schooling options for our family, Stache got a new job that required a major move. We found ourselves in entirely new circumstances and a new community. Our nearest neighbors and coworkers just happened to be, homeschoolers.
I was able to spend time observing our new friends. They were exemplary, credible homeschoolers. Stache and I were able to gain a vision of what this new lifestyle could look like for us. I began researching home teaching, voraciously.
Eventually, our son turned five, and we took the leap. Once we stepped off into this new adventure, we never turned back. It never made sense for us to make a different choice, and we never regretted the decision. We eventually taught all five of our children from kindergarten through high school.
That’s not to say everything was peachy perfect. It wasn’t. We recognize every schooling choice has its positives and negatives. We had both, and we learned what we could from ours. We appreciated the various opportunities that came our way. We are grateful for the choice of homeschooling.
Because home education became our long-term lifestyle, you will find it positively referred to and encouraged here. However, let me clearly affirm, whether public, private or home-schooled, we know of great, God-honoring success stories from every schooling option.
Are you facing decisions with schooling options? Those of you with decisions made, are you pleased with your choice? Would you be willing to share successes or struggles? I’d love to hear from you!
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