The Way They Should Go

We are a homeschooling family with two girls, ages six and four.  After discussing the possibility of homeschooling in a “what if one day” sense throughout our marriage, we dabbled during 04-05 school year when our oldest was pre-school age.  Then in the 05-06 “school” year we stepped it up to homeschool pre-K/K  for her (I don’t know exactly how to describe her grade level, it’s different for different things!).  After doing less “work” than I expected but still reaching the goals I had – minimal as I tried to keep them, we added more subjects in the 06-07 year.  And now I’m prepping for next year a bit too.   Our oldest spans late K through starting 2nd grade in levels.  Our four year old is cruising along learning way more than I expect watching big sister, and tackling her own stuff now too.

Before meeting my husband I had a vague concept that some people “out there” homeschooled.  But I didn’t know any of them, and they were probably the militia forming, in-breeding community, cult-ish, denim-jumper wearing, no make-up, women never cut their hair type.

That’s really not me.  Although forming a little community with all my far-flug homeschooling friends to share the fun and work and each teach our specialty does seem more and more attractive… maybe they’re getting me…

I digress.  Then I met my husband, and no, he wasn’t homeschooled, but some of his friends had been – a couple all the way through highschool and I never even picked up on their freakish ways!!  I had to be told they were homeschooled!  Some of these people completely destroyed any socially-awkward, sheltered, refuse-to-form-relationships-with-anyone-not-just-like-me preconception anyone may have.

In addition several couples who had had a deep impact on my husband’s maturation, both generally as a man and spiritually, were homeschooling their kids.  The more time I spent around their families the more I liked what I saw.  I liked the kids!  They were funny, rowdy, had unique personalities and strengths, fought with siblings, had to be disciplined, whined when it was bedtime sometimes, basically normal kids.  One difference that I had to comment on though was that they were generally more respectful to their parents and able to hold conversations with adults about things beyond the latest fad or TV show.

And lest I (or you) worry about them knowing how to relate to other kids – they were involved in all sorts of extra-curricular stuff.  Clubs & lessons specific to some hobby or interest, a network of other homeschool kids, all kinds of opportunities to volunteer in the community.

And the Moms weren’t plastic-smiled, saccharin-sweet, doe-eyed Stepfords – praise God!  They didn’t look like they might snap at any moment and start hurling knives either.  They were (*gasp*) real people who invited you over for coffee, shoved some things over on the dining room table and chatted with you.

So, I was intrigued.  Hubby had always liked the idea of homeschooling, but is not at all the type to decree from on high the path we shall take.  He was equally concerned with an option that worked for us.

Another thing that kept us coming back to homeschooling was our own experiences in school.  No, we weren’t horribly tormented or abused or anything like that.  (Well, there was that one teacher who succeeded in quickly making me despise anything to do with computer programming.  So I married a computer geek – he still insists he could easily teach me to be a programmer.  Why would I do that?!?)  Scott and I were both good students.  In fact we were both “honors” students with little effort or interest.  Even when grades slipped in a challenging class, we were still doing “well enough” and didn’t make any real effort to do better.   As adults we looked back and wondered what we might have learned or done if we had been at all motivated and engaged.  Instead my husband had contests with his friends in the back of Calculus class to see who could hold their breath the longest.  He made it some scarily long time before turning grey and getting called on by the teacher.

Somewhere in here we got married, we both worked, we discussed.

After having our first daughter I happily stayed home and these discussion took on more meaning.  I named our site “The Way They Should Go” from (I’m sure many of you know) Proverbs 22:6… “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.”  A reoccurring point in our discussions was this verse.  The literal translation is more like, “Train up a child according to his way”  or “according to his bent.”  The verse, in my understanding at least, has more of a practical application.  An instruction to train up a child according to the gifts and abilities given to her by God, according to the interests God has laid on her heart, according to the way God has made her… so she can really develop into who she has been created to be and be ready for whatever has been prepared for her to do.

Eventually the thought crossed my mind that one day Scott and I would answer for how our daughters were raised, what they learned, and how they were prepared to walk their path.  No one else would be standing there for that question.  No teacher or school administrator will answer for my girls.  “But everyone else is doing it” wasn’t going to work any better with God than it did with my parents when I was a teen. This was our decision.  I haven’t ever been quite able to shake that picture. 

Where is the best place for training that is “according to their way” for our girls?  Custom-fit, designed around their abilities, giftedness, interests?  I’m not at all saying everyone has to homeschool to do this – or has to homeschool all education.  But when we looked at our girls and our options for public or private school with this in mind, we couldn’t see a way besides homeschooling that would give them the what we are looking for.  At least no way that didn’t involve selling one child, our family returning to two incomes and living in a shack to fund the remaining child’s education.

Speaking of which, we had our second daughter.  We had moved by this time to a new area and weren’t around those old homeschooling friends much at all.  But weird thing, our new church had good sized homeschooling community.  Many of our Babysitters were homeschooled – they can babysit during the day for those emergency dental appointments!

I was again impressed.  These are young women (our babysitters at least) that I had to keep reminding myself weren’t 25.  They understood things like the grocery budget, children can be sneaky when they don’t want to go to bed, it’s your own responsibility to get your work done and sometimes moms just need a break! 

These were mature, responsible young women at 13, 14, 16 years old.  And in their spare time they are doing things like going to 3rd world countries to help build an orphanage, volunteering in the assisted living center or working in a day-care a few hours a week – whatever it was that was their interest.  The flexibility of homeschooling had given their families the opportunity to be involved in so many other rich, interesting, life shaping things.

The academic argument had been long debunked by now, so my biggest question was whether I could do it.  That’s the big scary thing, right?

Me teaching kids I still find humorous.  I don’t like nursery duty.  I’ve never been the mushy-over-kids type.  The thought of teaching in an elementary classroom gives me hives – I am amazed at friends who choose to do that, and do it well! 

But I’m not teaching kids.  I’m teaching OUR kids.  The ones I taught to dress themselves, to use the potty (boy there are stories there!), their colors, to count to 10, to ask politely, to say grace before dinner and prayers before bed.  When I think about it, Scott and I taught them an amazingly large number of things well before they hit “school-age”.  It will be our job to teach them to be responsible with money, to drive, to be a good friend, to honor God, to honor their parents, to be respectful to their elders, to have responsible, God-honoring relationships with the opposite sex.

Is having us be responsible to teach them to read, write, do math, science, etc. so much more difficult than all those things??

So here we are.  Our current answer for “How long are you going to homeschool?” is “For as long as in makes sense.”  Maybe that will be all the way through highschool.  Maybe in a couple years I will start hurling those knives and Hubby will have to put me away in one of those nice places where they cook for you three times a day and clean up after you.  Maybe at some point a specialized school or program will be desireable – or going to school for sports or some other scholorship possibility will make sense (:-)  Sorry, the sports possibility made me laugh – if you knew us you would too.)  One of the nice things is, we can choose to do any of these things should the need arise!

For now, we’re going to keep on training them up at home, and we’ll try to keep you updated on the adventure as we go.

Thanks for reading!

Meg.