A good friend of mine just left my house after visiting all morning and letting our kids play. She has been interested in learning more about homeschooling and is considering home educating her children as well. I felt so inspired by our conversation today and I want to write down my thoughts before they escape me.
Why do I homeschool? Let me count the reasons!
1.
Family. Family. Family. Our family relationships are the most important relationships we have. Friendships come and go but families are forever! Our church leaders have repeatedly emphasized the importance of families. "The family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children"
(See The Family: A Proclamation to the World). I have been taught this and believed it for as long as I can remember, but have recently grown a deeper understanding of this message. I believe that the family is not only the perfect environment to nurture one another in, but also the perfect environment to gain an education in everything which pertains to our eternal destiny. I don't just mean teaching them the gospel, which I will address in a minute, but earthly knowledge as well -- since earthly knowledge is also spiritual knowledge.
"All things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me" (Moses 6:63)
By divine destiny, our children were given to US. As their parents, we have more capacity to love, to teach, and to receive inspiration for our children than anyone else in this world. As a homeschooling family, we have the privilege of spending the vast majority our time together, nurturing our relationships and learning what it means to love and serve one another unconditionally. At the same time we are working to create a learning environment where seeking knowledge is part of life and not just something that's done at school. The purpose of education in our home becomes not only a means to get a good job so you can make money, but a life-long pursuit to grow and stretch and refine your whole being so that, when the time comes, you will be worthy to return to the presence of the Lord.
2. Time. You've heard it said that love is spelled T-I-M-E? Well we've got plenty of it! :) In order to accomplish everything I just spoke of, we need all the time we can get! I was so sad when my oldest daughter, Beetle, started first grade at our local public school. I felt wrong about sending her away ALL DAY. She was so young. I knew I needed so much more time to help her learn everything she needed to know to live responsibly in this world, and yet here I was handing over my influence to an unknown teacher and a classroom full of 6-year-olds, whom she would be spending 30 hours a week with. Indeed, the school had more quality time with her than I did. Once she got home, it was homework (don't even get me started) making dinner, eating dinner, and rushing everyone off to bed so they could be awake in time for school the next morning. It was very difficult to find the time to read scriptures and have quality conversations together when we were scurrying to do everything that school and everyday life requires. I remember Beetle telling her younger brother Tony how lucky he was that he got to stay home with the baby all day. Oh she missed her baby sister when she went to school! She was so sad to be leaving the family. One of my favorite things that happened after I pulled her out of school was that her then 2-year-old brother, HooDoo, became so attached to her. They'd hardly had time to spend together when she was going to school, but now that she was home every day the first thing HooDoo would do when he woke up from his nap was stand in the hallway and call his big sister's name. Nothing warms a mother's heart like seeing her children loving each other.
I have discovered that the most useful time, our prime time if you will, when my children are most receptive to learning, is in the morning. After a restful night of sleep and a good breakfast, they are energetic and ready to work and learn. Bedtime is good for stories but subjects that require more concentration and discipline are always best when done in the mornings.
3.
Socialization. Yes, you read that right. This is most often used as an argument against homeschooling but I beg to differ. I've heard young children compared to sponges, absorbing everything they see and hear. That's a good one but I have another... MONKEYS! You know -- monkey see, monkey do? :) I would venture to say that being in a classroom, surrounded by 20-30 other children just as young and immature as they are, for 30 hours a week has no social benefit to the child whatsoever when the alternative is being in a loving home with siblings of various ages and parents who are deliberate, law-abiding, hard-working people. Children will learn to emulate the behavior of those they socialize with daily. Would you rather have your 6-year-old learning what they deem to be socially appropriate behaviors from a classroom full of other 6-year-olds, or from you? Or, to put it this way, would you rather spend time trying to combat all the social behaviors they learn from school or have the freedom to spend time showing them how a mature adult (which is, after all, what you are raising them to be) should behave? I loved this article I read last month in the TJEd newsletter called
What Are We Socializing Them For? Here's a small excerpt written by a homeschooling father who attended public school in his youth:
Here’s what public school taught me about socialization:
- It’s okay — encouraged, even — to make fun of anyone “different” than you and your core group of friends, particularly the weak, weird, mentally and physically disabled, and poor.
- Within an “acceptable” range, everyone should dress, act, and think like everyone else, and those in any way and to the slightest degree outside of the norm should expect to be mocked mercilessly.
- Appearances are everything.
- You should only interact with those in your grade. Those in higher grades are cooler than you (and are therefore entitled to bully you and everyone else younger than them), and those in lower grades are less than you.
- You should compare yourself to and militantly compete with others.
- What your peers think of you is far more important than what you think of yourself, or what God thinks of you. Sacrifice everything for popularity.
- Don’t question authority; teachers and other authority figures know best. Stay in line. There’s an established, “right” way for everything — don’t deviate.
“The idea of learning acceptable social skills in a school is as absurd to me as learning nutrition from a grocery store.” -Lisa Russell
As far as providing opportunities to socially interact with other children and build friendships, we have so much time to do this it's exciting! Once the neighborhood kids are out of school they can play until dinner time nearly every day, since they have no homework to do. Every Sunday we attend church where they go to Sunday School classes with other children for 2 hours. Beginning at age 8 there are mid-week church activities offered as well. There are hundreds of other homeschooling families in our area and we have online forums we use to coordinate field trips and get-togethers. Nearly every Friday we meet other homeschooling families at the park or someone's home. There are opportunities to form co-ops with other homeschooling families and so many opportunities for day-time music/art/drama classes. Then there are art museums, history museums, science museums, parks, soup kitchens, zoos, farms and anything else you want to do! When they're teenagers they can do their school work early in the morning and then go work on an internship to get some experience in their field on interest. Can you see how the whole world is open to you when you're not trapped in a school building all day?
The fabulous thing is, you (as the divinely inspired parent!) get to decide how much social interaction and what kind of social interaction is best for your child while they are young.
I <3 this.
4. Personalized Education. Oh, this is fun. We mature at different rates. One baby may walk at 11 months of age, while another may not walk until 16 months. Both are normal! We learn to speak at different times and we learn everything else in different ways and at different times as well. Likewise, we each have different personalities, interests and strengths. There is no cookie cutter to make a human being. As well-adjusted adults we rejoice in our differences and see the need for varying interests and capacities. Why is it then, that we believe that all children should be taught the same concepts at the same age and everyone should excel or be dubbed a failure? "I'm sorry, your daughter is not reading at grade level. Something must be done soon or she will really fall behind!"
I could go on about the damage done to a child's love of learning when they are forced to endure lectures in a subject they are not prepared to learn yet, and so they struggle and are caused to feel stupid. As a result they think they are not good at reading or math or whatever the subject at hand is. The excitement and hunger for learning which they began with is squashed! If only they had been allowed to learn at their own pace and not pressured to stay at "grade level" and to learn everything at the same time as their peers! Their self-confidence would have remained intact and their love for learning would have blossomed!
On the other hand, what happens to a child who is more advanced than his peers in a certain subject? At the very least he is bored and not learning anything new. In his case, what a waste of time! Wouldn't he be better off learning at his own pace and devouring information on his favorite subject as fast as he desires? What if he has a unique interest in a subject not offered at his school? When can he find the time to harness his talent to its fullest? It's possible, but difficult when his schedule it already so full. I LOVE the freedom home education allows for a personalized education.
5. Religion. Scripture study is part of our daily curriculum. It is not its own category, separated from "secular" learning. Every subject we learn can be taught in the light of the gospel. It goes back to the scripture I already quoted above, all things bear testimony of Him. Another scripture that speaks to me is this one, speaking of the Lord's commandments we read:
"And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." (Deuteronomy 6:7)
This approach to religious education is not possible in a public school setting. In a public school, teachers are not allowed to incorporate God in any way.
Along these same lines, I love a point Michelle Stone stone made in her lecture about "
Celestial Education" (which is 160 minutes long and well worth your time, especially if you are LDS). This idea sounded so logical to me, I wondered why I hadn't thought of it myself. Why must we wait until the age of 8 to get baptized and become a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints? Because this is the age when we become accountable for our choices. Why are we accountable? Because we are finally capable of understanding right from wrong, gaining a testimony, and make the choice to get baptized or not for ourselves. Following baptism, a child will be confirmed and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. This means they will now have the Holy Ghost as their constant companion, to help them understand truths, to help them discern right from wrong, and to comfort them. If you are LDS, I have not told you anything new.
Here is the part that was an ah-ha moment for me: That means that before the age of 8 they are not mature enough to always understand right from wrong, and they do not have the Holy Ghost as their constant companion, although it is possible for them to feel the Spirit at times. So why are we sending them off to school at age 5, or sooner? It is a beautiful idea to imagine that we, their mothers, are somehow filling the role of the Holy Ghost in their lives until that point. Obviously this is not doctrine I'm quoting here but we do protect them, comfort them, teach them, and help them discern truths. In this light, it makes no sense to me to send a child younger than 8 away from home all day. Until the age of 8, their mothers should be their constant companions. Not that they should never leave your side, LOL, but you are always nearby.
I love the
TJEd analogy of a tree. You plant a seed, it sprouts and begins to grow. What will someday be a hefty trunk is still a tiny twig-like stem. Its roots are tender and short and do not yet have a deep and strong hold in the ground. If this small plant is subjected to strong winds and hail before it's ready, it could be uprooted or its stem may snap. But if we keep it sheltered from the storms of life a little longer, nurturing it, allowing its roots to take hold and its trunk to strengthen, it will be more capable of surviving what the world will throw its way. It is now able to develop into a huge, immovable oak tree, developing branches of knowledge and experience -- capable of being a stalwart influence for good in this world.
