This blog post has been sitting in my Drafts file for far too long now.
Recently I find myself revising my reasons for homeschooling. When we first started out, a lot of it had to do with Chase’s positive experience with his homeschool and his travels with work.
Now however, a little over 4 years later, the schedule and expectations have all changed dramatically.
So in my head runs this broken record of reasons. I’ve gone from “One day I’ll be glad I chose to homeschool” all the way to the other end of the spectrum to “so blessed to have found this way of life!”
I know I have a lot of friends and family who think we’re a little bit mad. And trust me, there have been days when the school bus has driven by my house and it has been all I could do not to run out behind it and yell, “Wait! Come get my kids. I have 4 more for you!!!” But alas, the feeling passes much faster than I ever thought it would and I settle back down into this peaceful place of rest when we’re learning, together as a family and I am reminded again, This is where our family needs to be.
If I had to pick only a handful of reasons that we are doing what we do, there would be so many to choose from, but I’ll just focus on my top five reasons.
In the beginning, many of the reasons to homeschool were secular. I wanted to give them opportunity to learn on their own terms (we have 3 very different learners!) and I didn’t want them to feel rushed or that they didn’t match up to the status quo.
Now, however, even those reasons have fallen by the wayside. Not because they’re not important; but rather because they’re not the MOST important.
So here you go. Here are my top 5 reasons that we have chosen have been so blessed to homeschool:
Reason #1- It’s All About the Relationships.
This has been probably the most surprising to me. When I married into Chase’s family, I noticed two things very quickly. One- he had a HUGE family and TWO- they were all very close. Like skypping every week close. I recognized that immediately as something I wanted for my future family and I truly believe that homeschooling has been the avenue to produce that.
I love that the kids always have each other. They have time to not only play together everyday, but to develop lasting friendships. At the beginning of this year when we were filling out All About Me papers, the kids all filled in the names of their brothers and sister as part of their list of “best friends”.
It brings a certain spirit into our home to see them work together, serve each other and look out for one another. Now, don’t get me wrong- there are days when they can’t stand each other and those are the days where they go and play at friends’ houses or invite someone over to play in the backyard or do legos together. But in the end, they always come back to their best friends who will always be there. Fostering these life long friendships is one of our most sacred duties.
Reason #2- Learning is a Family Experience
Even though I’ve listed this as my top two reason, I still have a very difficult time with it. Confused yet? me too. Suffice it to say that teaching 4 kids on all very different levels, with a very busy 2 year old thrown in the mix is sometimes more of a circus than a classroom, but I have to remind myself that when the learning is shared, the learning is expanded.
Those times I just bite my cheek or dig my nails into my palm until it passes. And then I step back. And every day I see them teach each other. They support each other. They encourage each other. And then learning for us goes from something we HAVE to do, to something we LOVE to do TOGETHER.
There are multiple evidences of this throughout the days, but I’ll just highlight a few. Last week, I had taken some of Cash’s words he’s learned to read and wrote them on post it notes and posted them on one of the doors. So now, every time he comes to that door, he stops and reads each word out loud.
The first time he did it, the kids cheered after he read each word. It made his little face light up so bright!
Later that day, Ava wanted me to write down her words and we posted them all throughout the house. As she was practicing, Kurt ran into the other room. A few minutes later he emerged with a few folded slips of paper. He had taken some of the words Ava has learned to read and hid them throughout the front room in a little scavenger hunt. She was tickled pink and I stepped back to just watch.
Over and over he hid the words, and over and over she found the words and read them aloud. He would watch to make sure she had the right letter sounds, helping only when she needed a little extra support.
He even went around and would give her a little thumbs up when she was on the right track and a thumbs down if she was starting to make the wrong letter sound.
It’s times like these that I realize learning for us includes the whole family and it doesn’t stop when we leave our little classroom.
Reason #3- Our home and school values are rooted in faith.
Even as I write this, I know I need to move this up to number one. I guess I don’t think of it as number one because I don’t ever stop to think about it. It just happens.
Besides having time to read scriptures in the morning together without feeling rushed, the opportunity to weave in our faith throughout our learning experience is worth every sacrifice it takes to make it happen.
During our read-a-louds, their individual books, social studies, even in science- we find ourselves discussing gospel principles, highlighting opportunities to grow spiritually, and bear our testimonies about topics ranging from faith, family, baptism, to tithing, fasting and many, many others.
We take field trips during the week to the Cedar City temple open house, we visit the nearest temple visitors center (we love the videos shown there!), we even spend one whole week of Easter celebrating the last week of Jesus’ life. There is no delineation between home, school and church- because it’s all intertwined as one.
Reason #4- There’s no rush.
This is something that as a public school teacher, I often dreamed of. There’s nothing more heartbreaking for a teacher (and the kids!) to see that time just doesn’t permit one more experiment, or the extra time it takes to dive deeper into a subject you’re interested in, but sadly don’t have time for. Sure there’s after school and at-home projects, but here in our tiny corner of the world, there is no rush.
Everyone learns at their own pace and no one feels left out because someone is doing something better/faster/more than they are. Like I mentioned previously, we have 3 very different learning styles and that gives way to three very different approaches, reactions and ways they deal with school. At home, we have a peaceful approach. I’m learning to embrace more of a student led approach, with an emphasis on individual work responsibility.
It helps that if there is someone struggling with a subject or just not having a good day, we can walk away and approach it after a break.
The other day, Sis was getting very overwhelmed with her reading words. As she often does, as soon as it gets hard, she shuts down and it becomes more of a struggle between me pushing her to try and her crying because she doesn’t think she can do it.
Most of the time in the past this has resulted in one (or both) of us in tears. Me feeling like I’m failing as her teacher/mother and her feeling overwhelmed that the words she knew yesterday have escaped her and she just can’t remember them today.
I saw it in her face. I felt it in my heart. I took her by the hand, led her out of the classroom and we went to sit out on the couch. She grabbed a blanket, we turned on the fire and just watched the lights of the Christmas tree.
Sure, maybe her words stayed the same. She didn’t magically know all of the answers the next time she sat down to work on them. But now she knows that I am her biggest support. That I want her to succeed, but not at the risk of making her miserable. It was what she and I both needed to fill our bucket again before we tried to approach it again. I am so grateful that I don’t have anyone I have to answer to about where she is at this moment in reading. There is no grade level equivalent I have to measure her up to. It’s just her. Learning how she learns and doing more today than she did yesterday. That’s it!
Reason #5- Joy is our greatest teacher.
This is by far my teaching mantra with homeschool! Combining quality curriculum with highlighted activities, mixed in with the ideas they bring to the table, Joy becomes our favorite companion, and my most favorite teacher.
It’s when we come up with an idea together as a group and see it through, getting more and more excited as we dive deeper and deeper that brings out the best in all of us. Again, it’s not something that happens each and every day- every minute of the day.
While in fact, we find a lot of joy in our workbooks and meeting one on one for math and reading, when Joy joins us in the teaching process, those are the times they remember. They retain more when Joy is present. And the best part is- if the Joy isn’t there, we can take a break.
We recognize when the exact opposite is happening, and that’s when we all climb in the truck and go on an adventure. Or to the park or the library, or the children’s museum. Somewhere where Joy is.
So if I had to only wrap it up in just a few short reasons, those would be it. And while they may sound trivial to some, but to us- it means the world!
And that, my friends is why I homeschool.
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