Once Upon a Time
I stand in awe of the homeschooling pioneers who risked having their children taken away because they made the radical decision to homeschool. Though we were not pioneers, we began homeschooling in 1990 and have therefore lived long enough to see many changes.
In 1990 we had the opportunity for a once-a-week afternoon co-op for art, music, and physical education. Today children can take free classes through local public school systems. They can participate in dual enrollment classes and online classes with tutors across the country. They can be involved in local co-ops and tutorials and be away from home several days a week. This spring I visited at a conference with a mother who was looking at one of our high school history courses. She told me that her daughter was enrolled in a certain program and that with all that was required by that, she only had about two hours a week to work with her with our course.
Once upon a time in the early days, an important theme that was often repeated when homeschoolers came together was a teaching from Deuteronomy 6.
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons 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 up.”
Deuteronomy 6:4-7, NASB
Many educational choices are available and almost any can be used in a wholesome way, but we must be sure of our motives and what is really best for each of our children. I believe in doing what is best for all children and getting help when we need it, but I think we need to look deeply into our hearts and know for certain why we make the choices we do. Are we choosing certain paths because we feel pressured by other mothers or because we are afraid or because we are paying attention to the pressures of the world?
I sometimes wonder what has happened to homeschooling. Is it still centered at home? Do parents have enough time to train their children when they sit in their houses, walk by the way, lie down, and rise up? Are homeschooling parents tempted simply to be consumers who shop in the giant “supermarket” of educational choices? Are they rushing through their children’s childhoods while serving as educational consultants?
What a joy it is to sit, walk, lie down, and rise up with our children. It’s an opportunity too special to miss.
Good food for thought, thank you Charlene!
We have homeschooled our 5 children for 14 years now. I too have noticed some homeschool moms “contracting out” many subjects, to the point that the children are gone most of the day. We decided we would have too much difficulty applying the Deuteronomy teaching that way–whatever The Lord wanted our family to learn could mostly be learned at home. We’ve never regretted that extra time with our children!