Sometimes Folks Say, “Yes!”
In 1991 our family was in our second year of homeschooling. In the fall, Ray went on a business trip to a Detroit suburb, so the children and I tagged along. While he went to meetings each day, we went on adventures. During the trip, we made two homeschool memories that have always stood out to me. One was a bit scary, and the other was wonderful.
I’ll tell the scary one first. We went to the grocery store one morning to buy supplies for a picnic lunch. The lady who checked out our groceries asked why the children were out of school. I told her that we homeschooled. She replied, “My neighbor did that. They arrested her.” Her comment was quite unnerving for the children, and I hated that they heard what she said. I’m thankful for all those homeschool pioneers who worked hard for the laws we have today!
One day we discovered a city park with a small historic village, including a one-room schoolhouse. On the day that we discovered the park, a group of schoolchildren were there for a field trip. That was a long time ago, but I think they had an historic school day experience in the school. Whether that inspired me or something else did, I don’t remember, but somehow I got the courage to ask an employee if my children and I could come back the next day and have school in the school. The answer was, “Yes!”
The following day John, Bethany, and Mary Evelyn were my students in a one-room school. They sat in the old-fashioned rows of desks and sometimes on the dunce stool in the corner (just for fun). I stood behind the teacher’s desk and taught them from the McGuffey readers. What a precious memory.
Sometimes folks say, “Yes,” and our children get a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
For God has not given us a spirit of timidity,
but of power and love and discipline.
2 Timothy 1:7, NASB
Awww, what a sweet story! My girls and I have always been enamored with the little one-room schoolhouse idea, having grown up reading all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I guess homeschooling is a lot like what those old schoolhouses were!
I guess that *was* scary!
I was homeschooling my children in the 80s and didn’t know anyone else personally who was doing it. In our 500 member church I was considered strange for doing so. (People would wrinkle their noses when I mentioned it.)
At that time we only left the house during school hours when we had a doctor’s or dentist’s appointment. On that day we could go about in stores and if anyone asked why the children weren’t in school I said that we had just come from an appointment.
I am thankful, though there were scacrifices, that I was not working at the time and could stay home with them. I also am so glad that people have worked to make homeschooling have less of a stigma.
Even at that time I found two situations in which people did not have a bad reaction to homeschooling. Since I had cousins who were in other countries doing mission work, I found that their homeschooling their children was understandable to people. I first learned about homeschooling resources from them.
The other situation is if the child is an actor. This happened to apply to us when we were in TN for 3 months one fall when our 11 year daughter was playing the role of Annie in the Cumberland County Playhouse production of that name. No one thought it was strange that we were homeschooling during that time. Between shows we split our time between Gainesboro and Lebanon.