Schooled at Home

Note: “Homeschooling is not primarily about school at all. Homeschooling is a lifestyle. It encompasses nearly every aspect of life and family, and its influence is far greater than anything found in the pages of Saxon math or Charlotte Mason-approved novels” – Thomson.

I firmly believe that our society would be a lot better off if we had more parents home schooling their children. This might be a tough thing to pull for a single parent who has to work. But for those who are given the wonderful opportunity to home school their children, the results that are seen and felt are like night and day.

Every time I come across a home school product, I’ve noticed how much more mature they are well beyond their age. Home school kids are smart, exceptionally mannered, attentive, and socially adjusted.

For many of you who read this blog, you might be thinking, “How does this article apply to me? I am passed the home schooling prime of my days. My kids are gone and are on their own.” Yes, I know. I am not a home school grad myself, nor did we home school our two kids. But what I like about the idea of home schooling is what every Christian ought to wrap his or her heart around – and that is the idea of the FAMILY! Home schooling is about the family – learning together, being together, growing together, and changing together.

In our day and age when we come across so much family pollution, breakdown and assaults, those who home school their children ought to receive a medal for doing so. They are advancing against societal tide and are doing quite well.

If you come across a home school student or a family that is involve in such – don’t miss your opportunity to encourage them to stick with it. It’s all about the family. Perhaps, if HB-444 (the civil union bill) is passed, we will be seeing more parents home schooling their kids and for good reason. Go Home Schools!

Schooled at Home
by Rachel Starr Thomson

Tabithah is 5 years old, small for her age, and just over her baby lisp. She could carry a tune before she was 2 and count to a hundred before she was 3 and a half. She wears Sunday dresses nearly every day of the week. Mom lets her, because what are pretty clothes for if not to wear them?

A few days ago she busied herself rearranging bright plastic letters on the fridge door and pronouncing the resulting words. Mom called down from upstairs, "Taba, what are you doing?"
Without turning around, she shouted, "I'm teaching myself to read!"

Tabithah's announcement made us all laugh. She's only one in a long list: One sister is teaching herself algebra and biology, I'm teaching myself English Lit, my brother is teaching himself computer programming. Another sister is in a massage therapy program and comes home spreading anatomy and physiognomy facts like fairy dust; they are, she tells us, very enriching.

I bear the unusual distinction of being a homeschool graduate. While homeschoolers are more and more common, grads are still a reasonably rare breed. By virtue of my upbringing, I probably get into more discussions on education and childrearing than most single women in their 20s, but I don't object. I hope I have something unique to add to the conversation.

I loved being homeschooled. Now that I've graduated, I'm all the more grateful for my parents' decision to keep us home for our education. Homeschooling has had more impact on me than any other parental decision except remaining open to children. Thanks to that second choice, my life is blessed with 11 truly wonderful siblings. To the first choice, homeschooling, I owe nearly all of my perspective on life.

And to that, I owe nearly everything I am and do today. But the word "homeschooling" is misleading, and I'm not especially fond of it. Homeschooling is not primarily about school at all. Homeschooling is a lifestyle. It encompasses nearly every aspect of life and family, and its influence is far greater than anything found in the pages of Saxon math or Charlotte Mason-approved novels. It's that lifestyle I have loved, its foundations I am so grateful for, its inherent ideas about life I'm still living out. If I have children, I mean to homeschool them.

Sheltered at Home
Homeschooling is sharply distinct from the lifestyles of those who "go to" school, first because homeschooled kids don't "go" anywhere. They stay home. What does that mean to a child? It means shelter, security and greater ability to be children in a world that wants people to grow up too fast.

It's curious that "sheltering" is a charge often leveled at homeschool parents as though it's a bad thing. Of course children can't stay sheltered forever, but they won't stay children forever.

Many homeschool parents like to use the greenhouse analogy. A plant that is tenderly nurtured in a greenhouse, protected from predators and the elements, can later be transplanted to live a healthy, thriving life. One that is always outside may simply be eaten, or stunted and destroyed by wind, sun and snow it's not ready to encounter.

I like to say that a puppy thrown to the wolves will either be eaten or learn to be a wolf. A fully grown dog stands a fighting chance.

Our home was sheltered. I remember realizing at a very young age that many of my friends were scarred and jaded by their experiences at school — and I'm talking about children under the age of 10! They were already cynical, already hurt, already worldly-wise.

In many ways my siblings and I were naïve and innocent, and we knew it — and were glad of it. We did encounter evil. We learned about sin and consequences, hell and heaven, cold hard reality and the need for grace. But we didn't learn about these things by falling prey, nor were we left to figure things out for ourselves.

We learned by our parents' side. In the process, we grew into a unique and close bunch of people who tackled life together. Every family is a community, and they form cultures of their own. Homeschooling families seem to do this in heightened measure. My family culture is a wild and wonderful one, and it has grown from our household atmosphere of shelter, discipleship and creativity.

Discipled at Home
Recent NCES statistics show that 83 percent of homeschool parents have chosen this lifestyle because of "a desire to provide religious or moral instruction." For most homeschooling families, discipleship is a top priority.

My parents took 2 Peter 1:5 as their homeschool verse: "And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge." Mom and Dad wanted us to grow up with a solid knowledge of Scripture, a strong understanding of the gospel and a virtuous character.

It's interesting that Scripture so often presents these very topics in the language of parent to child — in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Psalms and even the epistles. God designed the home to be a primary place of discipleship. He commanded the Israelites to keep God and Scripture constantly at the forefront of their home lives, discussing the commandments of God constantly with their children: And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Deut. 6:6-7)

Many homeschooling parents choose to bring their children home because they believe it is their God-given responsibility to disciple them.

Discipleship extends beyond spiritual concerns to character and life training. My mom practiced discipleship when she spent hours teaching us to scrub a bathtub properly, to cook a pot of spaghetti sauce from scratch and to wash our socks with homemade soap. We learned practical and business skills at home from our parents. We spent serious time with them, watching them in action, gleaning from their character and experience. And we learned how all these things related to who we were in God.

Can children be discipled while they're going to school? To some degree, yes. But most homeschool parents don't feel they can properly disciple children who spend eight hours a day away from them, five days a week, for 13 of the most foundational years of their lives.

Homeschooling offers parents something unbelievably precious. It offers the same gift to children. That gift is time.

Learning at Home
My father was a public school teacher who had the usual problems with public schools — rampant immorality, poor discipline and ungodly worldviews taught as truth. But he also disliked modern education itself. Dad was never a typical thinker, and he wanted our education to be natural, interest-led and largely independent.

I often joke that I got my education because my parents taught me to read and said, "There's the library." It's a joke, but it's not far off the mark.

Academics at our house have always been an unusual mix of painful self-discipline and wild adventure. I remember falling asleep over multiple math books, but I also remember pulling off the road in the mountains at 2 in the morning so Dad could point out the constellations, or stopping to watch purple lightning and talking about what makes a storm.

We never really had "favorite subjects," because learning wasn't divided into little boxes like that. We learned at every opportunity. We pursued our passions. We probably missed a lot of things — yes, we have "gaps" in our education — but then again, we learned how to learn. Gaps can always be filled when needed.

Education in a homeschool family can take many forms. Some people buy whole 12-year curriculums and stick with them. Others go the unschooling route, tossing out curriculum altogether. In between are a thousand variations on education, all bound together by the single idea that God made us to learn and to teach each other, and with love and creativity we can do it. Homeschooling is education emancipated!

Sent from Home
An adult now, I grow more aware all the time of homeschooling's fingerprints on my life. In some ways, it's made me different. I come from a different cultural background, a different set of peer and family relationships, and a very different approach to education. But I'm grateful for the differences.

There's a biblical word we don't use much anymore. The word is "consecration." It simply means to be set apart for some purpose. (My father used to illustrate consecration by saying that even a garbage can is consecrated: it's consecrated to hold garbage.) My parents set out to consecrate their children for the purpose of serving God and living life to the fullest. A homeschooling lifestyle was key to doing that.

I still remember the day, freshly out of kindergarten, when my father announced that next year I would not go to school. Did he sound slightly anxious? Did I suspect that he was trying over-hard to assure me — a child who had not liked school and was not worried about leaving it behind — that everything would work out well? Perhaps he did. Perhaps, back then, homeschooling made us nervous.

It doesn't anymore. I am a deeply grateful homeschool graduate, aware that homeschooling as a system is not perfect any more than public schooling is, but equally aware that homeschooling as a lifestyle is one of my parents' greatest gifts to me. These days, my friends are getting married and having children. And every time another child is born, I bite my tongue and wish the parents would ask — "So how did you like homeschooling?"

Usually, they do. And it's all I can do to keep from saying, "Please, please homeschool your children." Instead, I stay calm and share why I loved it. Why I would homeschool my own, absolutely, yes. Why it worked — not just as a form of academic education, but as an enricher of childhood, a builder of family and character, and as preparation for life.