We are home educators.  I mean, we, you, me, we all, who have children, are home educators.

I have quite the history with schooling philosophies.  I have been in small private schools, public schools and home school.  I did not think I would homeschool my kids, I was ready to send them to private school perhaps, but most likely I was ok with sending them to public schools.  When I began to actually consider home schooling it was because all of a sudden my baby was 5 years old, old enough to send away all day and I just couldn’t do it.  It’s not that I am a helicopter parent, I am far from that, I don’t hold too tightly, I just couldn’t imagine giving him up to another adult and a room full of children I didn’t know to be influenced for the majority of his day and week.  As I began to really ponder this, I am beyond thankful for the laws in PA that allowed me to have the time to think through this and not feeling rushed to make a decision.  In PA we dont have to register our children for school until they are 8 years old at the start of the school year.  So I began to read, and think, and reason out what school means, what is education, and how is it best accomplished.  I analyzed my own feelings toward school as a child, my experiences, what I liked and disliked, and what I feel could have been improved upon to enhance my experiences.

I began to form a philosophy of education, in the most rudimentary sense, and yet, it was crucial, and I didn’t even know that until I began to have real opinions based on meditation of the subject.  I hated reading as a kid, I didn’t understand math,  I didn’t like being compared to other students, because I wasn’t a “good student” (whatever that is). I didn’t get the best grades, so I wasn’t in the “smart kid group”.  I had friends, I understood things that were important to me, I would have loved to spend all day in art class, or dance class, or choir, but those were the non-essential classes that we only had once a week, because they are not as important…so what I loved…was not important.

I struggled through school, and because of that I struggled to learn, I struggled to find my niche.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I knew just what my niche was, but no one in school seemed to encourage me dive into it, to discover it, to pursue it beyond it being a nice hobby.  I understood, just as most children discover early on, that there are things which are important to learn, and if you are good at them, you are “smart”.  I was not smart.

So as I began my journey to home education I began to realize that why I choose to homeschool will determine the kind of education I provide for my kids.  I’m no expert, I did not go to college to learn how to teach, I don’t know all the latest teaching techniques, I have no certificate stating that I have adequate training in the area of educating children.  These were the reasons I thought my kids’ education was better left to more capable adults.  I wasn’t going to assume that responsibility and fail them, this was a huge deal and I didn’t want to mess it up.  However, assuring that you choose the best school, with the best teachers and the best curriculum doesn’t ensure a great education either!

What is education?  Is it learning a bunch of facts from books, history, geography, math etc?  I guess I can teach them that.  I can read, I can follow a curriculum, it is made so easy now, that really, anyone can do this.  I began to realize however, that education of a person is not just about things you can learn that give the appearance of intelligence.  I am raising up young men and women, I want to equip them for life, real life, not a fabricated world of homework, report cards, honor roll, SAT scores, college admissions, and dean’s list accolades.  I want them to learn so much more than books can teach them.

And children are learning all these things wherever they are.  That’s why I say that we are all home educators.  It matters not the mode of education; home, public, private, charter, online- their environment is teaching them life skills; philosophy of education is training their thoughts about learning, about life, and all of that adds to what will make them in the end.  SO my husband and I began to talk about what was important to us with regards to how our kids were educated. What are our goals as their parents?  We came up with this basic list: we wanted them to love learning, (my husband Brandon told me he remembered how he loved reading, until that was squashed in elementary years with demands on what to read, and how much to read) we hoped they would have freedom to pursue their interests in a satisfying way, we wanted for them to discover things in their time, so that it would stay with them for a life time, we hoped to afford them experiences and not just books, we wanted to them to be able to be children and have adequate time to be children.  I don’t know if you feel the same, but we feel our kids are growing up way faster than we thought possible!  Childhood is so fleeting.  That window of time where your kids want to dress up in princess dresses, your high heels, and a baseball cap and think they are amazing will be over in the wink of an eye.  The window of time that your son wants to play with wooden trains and get lost in an imaginary world of Thomas and Percy is over before you can take a picture.  It feels like it is forever that you are tripping over train tracks, dressing baby dolls and making stuffed teddy bears talk, but it is over so fast.  Why should we be so eager to have them grow up and “let go” of them so they can learn what they “need” to learn from a stranger and a set of books. Of course they are also building their character, and learning life-skills when you send them to school, but I wanted to be the biggest part of that, not the weekend influence, or the end-of-day, working with what’s left of their emotional energy influencer.  

So, we took the road less traveled and didn’t put our son in school, we didn’t even school him at home until he was 7.  We let him be a kid, we let him learn how to make his own breakfast, how to fix his bed, how to grocery shop, how to interact with friends, siblings, and strangers, how to enjoy a sunny day in April, how to have a sleepy rainy day in May, how to savor the Christmas Season, because book learning is not the most important thing in life.  He learned how to visit the library and look for books on subjects he wanted to learn about, he learned answers to questions he had about subjects that interest him.  He didn’t learn to read until he was ready, and no, he’s not “behind” he is perfect, he is himself, he doesn’t have to compare himself to anyone.  He doesn’t have to feel inadequate because he got a bad grade, he is motivated by his own measure of effort, of diligence, of perseverance.  We are helping to build his character, not his GPA, we are helping to instill in him self-motivated accomplishment, not test-driven studying of facts he will forget because they mean nothing to him.  And above all I wanted to really be able to help him discover who God has made him to be, why he is gifted in the areas he is, how he can use his gifts to glorify the Lord, and that pursuing that is the greatest thing he will ever do with what he has been given.

Can you do all that while putting child through public school?  I think so, but I didn’t want to try, I felt a different calling.  Home schooling is not for everyone, but raising your kids is, and however you feel you are best able to do that, it is still your freedom to choose.  The main thing to remember is that there is a philosophy to everything you do, whether you have labeled it or not.  So, if you kids are in public or private school, just be sure you are doing your part to be there to teach them life, to build their character through each situation they encounter.  Your kids don’t have to go any further than right within themselves to be faced with all the temptation, and evil desire that their flesh can afford them, so keeping them out of a public school doesn’t mean that they are protected, or in a bubble.  I hope to use the time wisely to help them gain strength  before releasing them to the wolves of the world, hopefully after they have somewhat mastered the beast within, through full submission to God.  

So we don’t homeschool because we are afraid of public schools, we don’t homeschool because we think we will have smarter kids, we don’t homeschool because we’re weird.  We homeschool because we felt convicted that our kids were given to us, and we’re just not ready to give them to someone else to influence them so deeply just yet.  I’d like at least a few more years to build memories and have time spent before they turn 18 and start their own life away from me.  I can never have these years back, and so I think I’ll just enjoy every crazy, tiresome minute of them.  I want to enjoy every moment, to be able to look back and remember the first book they read aloud, being beside them when they learned 2+2=4 taking a day off of book learning to explore the woods on a beautiful day, to be able to say “yes” to more spontaneous fun and in turn teach them how to steward their time, rather than having them constantly on someone else’s schedule.  They have their whole life to be on a schedule, right? I want to enjoy the freedom to spend more time together, rather than time spent doing homework after a full day away from me.

So that, in a nutshell, is why we home educate; because I am not bringing school home, I am keeping my kids home while they discover the world.