Lay Down Your Homeschool Burden and Relish Your Freedom to Soar
Time was when Ray and I were pretty desperate for encouragement in our own homeschool journey. In those days we carried homeschooling around on our backs like a heavy sack of rocks. Whew!
Our homeschool story began during the 1989-1990 school year when we were having more and more serious reservations about our children staying in public school. Our children were ready for the first, fourth, and sixth grades. We didn’t make our final decision until August. Ray was a minister, so I often felt a need to explain what we were doing. I remember saying that we would try it for a year and that I didn’t think I would ruin them in a year.
I had three children to teach, and I had a friend who had taught her son at home in the summer in addition to sending him to public school during the school year. (Can you imagine doing that?) She brought me all of her textbooks for grades 1-6. I hung a bulletin board, wrote out a schedule, made places for each child in our basement den, and began. We went from 8:00 until 2:30 with two recess periods and a lunch break, except on Thursday when we went to a co-op in the afternoon. We had a full schedule that I could tell anybody about without being afraid, that I could describe with the sin of pride, and that was exasperating.
Finally, in the summer of 1994, we had a change of heart that continues to affect our family’s life today. We decided to chill out and become homeschoolers instead of trying to do homeschooling. At that point, we had been so discouraged by the work and pressure of homeschooling that–and I hate to admit this to you–we had become homeschool dropouts. We had gotten so worn out and discouraged that we quit. Early in the second year of our dropout season, our youngest child and our oldest asked us please to bring them back home. Our middle child, who was facing a great deal of peer pressure, was afraid she would be too weird if we started homeschooling again. The poor dear had so much homework that she came home from school, had a snack, did homework, had supper with the family, did homework some more, and went to bed.
I wanted very much to homeschool again. I prayed and prayed that God would bring us all together, that He would make us all want to do the same thing. After months of prayer, in that wonderful summer of 1994, God brought us all together. Our middle child came to us like a sweet little lamb one Saturday morning and told us she wanted to homeschool, too. I know that we could have forced her to homeschool, but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted her to be with us all the way. God was kind to give that precious gift to me. She told me later that she always knew it would be the best thing for her. I am very sorry that she went through that agony.
One of our first steps that summer was to develop, write down, and adopt a family philosophy. This is what we wrote down:
We believe that we should spend our lives praying for and pursuing our goal:
That we, our children and their spouses, our grandchildren and their spouses, and every succeeding generation live as Christians on earth and live forever in Heaven with our God and with each other.
We want to live our lives working diligently for the realization of this goal with all the strength He gives us.
This new philosophy wasn’t actually different from our old philosophy. We had always wanted this for our family, but something changed that summer and I am profoundly grateful to God for it. We set out on a wonderful adventure that isn’t over yet. God gave us opportunities to live homeschooling instead of doing it.
We used curriculum. We went on trips with senior citizens. We volunteered. We visited state parks and museums and grandparents. We took care of grandparents.
Visiting Ray’s Auntie Audrey
We watched old movies and went to concerts and plays. We produced plays. We taught Bible classes. We went on mission trips.
In Colorado during a mission trip to Idaho
We participated in Bible bowls. We read books and listened to Ray read aloud. We found cheap ways to travel.
Visiting a friend’s ranch in Nebraska
We cooked. We hosted families and groups. We took art lessons. One by one, we took senior trips and hosted graduations in our family room.
Every book and every activity prepared our children for their adult lives. We counted it all as “school.” A ride on a steam locomotive through the Tennessee hills with the senior citizens from our church—that’s school, too! It seems to me that learning “when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 11:19) is God’s plan for “outcome-based education,” and it’s fun!
I am sad when I think about our wilderness time in our family journey. I wish my children had never known a day of schooling any other way than at home. I also know that God has used our wilderness to bless us and to bless other families, too. Maybe our mistakes will help someone to avoid making them themselves. Maybe that someone will be you. If you are still carrying around your heavy sack of homeschool burdens, I pray that you can lay it down this year and relish your freedom to become rather than grinding out a to-do list of expectations.
You will make known to me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.
Psalm 16:11