We began our home school journey in the fall of 1992 when our oldest was four years old. We have learned a lot over the years, and our philosophy has changed with our growth. When we started out, we lived in Ohio, where home schooling had only just become legal. We felt obligated to "do it right" and use an established curriculum which we knew would be approved by the head of the local school board. So I dutifully ordered all the brightly colored (and expensive) student books and teacher materials A Beka said I had to have for K4. In due time, the box came, and one sunny September morning my son and I walked over to the church building next door (where I thought he would not be distracted) and we began.
I don't like to remember that day, or that year. Before the end of two years, I hated home schooling, and wondered if there could possibly be another choice besides public school and (expensive) Christian school.
We moved to Texas in the spring of 1995. I had basically suspended school during the upheaval of moving, and Texas was a gloriously free state with no enforced home school regulations. The church there had its own private, members only, school, and I looked forward to placing my two older boys there in the fall.
It never happened. It's too long a story to tell here, but we decided to continue home schooling. I did my research, and this time chose Bob Jones. Only, Bob Jones was about a year behind A Beka in content, so for my oldest it was like repeating first grade. We were all bored with the program, and schooling became a drudgery, something we all dreaded and despised.
The next fall, I began a form of "unschooling", though I had no idea that was really a term. I just thought I was being lazy. I made sure the children did their math. I taught my daughter how to read. Every now and then I had them turn in a writing assignment, and we used those to talk a little bit about spelling, grammar and punctuation. I bought curriculum we only partly used before I astounded the children by burning it. We watched a lot of educational programs on PBS, and we visited the library a LOT. I looked over their books, making sure they had a good mix of fiction and non-fiction, history and science. But basically let them read whatever they wanted.
Those two or three years were the best, but I didn't know that then. I thought I was lazy and failing my children, but I needed that respite. We were about to enter the lion's den.
In 1999, we moved to New York State, the second hardest state in the Union for home schoolers, at least at that time. Due to all the rigid laws and my own inexperience, we returned--with dread--to A Beka. Since our fourth child was still younger than the compulsory age of attendance in New York, I only had to deal with the first three.
The books came, and the light began to dawn. My second son came to me, new history book in hand and disappointment all over his face. "I know all this stuff already," he mourned. So that's what all that free reading during the "lazy" years had done. Slowly, I began to consider other options to the traditional sit-at-your-desk, fill-in-the-blanks, workbook-and-pencil type of curriculum.
I sought out new catalogs, researched hands-on curricula, and read radical-sounding books. My all-time favourite was, and continues to be, A Charlotte Mason Companion: Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learning
by Karen Andreola. I found a kindred spirit in Mrs. Andreola, and read all her reviews in Christian Book Distributors' home school catalog. I couldn't afford to buy all the stuff she reviewed, but I learned a lot just by reading about her experiences. She blew a breath of fresh air into my weary soul, and a whole new world began to open up to me my children.The year 2000 saw us packing up again, this time to move to Ontario. Ontario's home school laws are even freer than those in Texas, which I didn't think was possible. Every year after that, I continued to explore and change. We rarely did the same thing twice. The children learned a lot. Our philosophy changed even more as we looked around at the sorry state of affairs in the public school system, and at the results they were getting.
As the older ones passed through high school, they gained an adequate education that they had to help earn by doing a lot of things on their own. What they didn't learn at home, they learned in the work place and in apprenticeship programs. One of them earned a bona-fide home school diploma. Others chose to work through their teen years and get their diploma through an adult continuing education program. All of them took time to choose what they wanted in life, and geared their learning experiences toward that end.
I still have five children working through home school. We gather every morning and spend an average of 2-3 hours doing academics, but our whole world is one gigantic classroom. Gardening, baking, cleaning, yard work, laundry, and a whole host of other home chores prepare them for real life in their own real families. Interaction with family and friends of all ages at home and at church, on field trips and at the park, on vacation, and in other public places teaches them real-life social skills with a variety of people, not just with their own age-mates.
Our children are good workers who are in high demand. The manager at Wendy's is a bit miffed that one of our sons has no interest in working there, and keeps trying to recruit him. One man came knocking on our door saying what good things he had heard about our boys, and could we spare a couple of them to work for him. One daughter is working for her piano teacher in exchange for more advanced lessons. Even the younger boys work hard doing "man things" like cutting and stacking wood, mowing grass, remodeling the house, and processing chickens.
They are also polite and friendly to all. Babies, toddlers and preschoolers adore them, and adults love having them around. They have friends their own age, but also enjoy the company of those older and younger than themselves.
I say these things not to boast, but in awe and with great thanksgiving to our Lord for leading us on this journey, however reluctant I may have been at times.
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