Why Homeschool: The Carnival of Homeschooling: week 3

Throughout my life, I have been faced with many major decisions that seemed to involve choosing one of several reasonable options.  Usually, however, an inner nudge or a still small voice inside of me would nag at me, leading to the very best decision even if that decision did not make sense at the time. (Now that I think about it, that seems to often be the right answer: the one that seems not to make much sense from a worldly point of view!) The decision to homeschool was no different. I, along with my husband, decided that homeschooling was simply the very best option for our family. Let me try to explain why.

1. Homeschooling is best for our growth as a family. We recognize that living as part of a family is God's mandate for us yet the skills to do so may not always come naturally. People spend years and many dollars learning other (ususally job-related) skills but focus so little on what is most important-family. How many of us know doctors, lawyers or teachers who have excellent professional skills but their family lives are a mess? We want to learn and teach our children about the finer points of sharing a home and significant relationships. I am a child of divorce so this is especially important to me. We believe very strongly that Americans are destroying the fabric of our nation because of our lack of strong families that we feel committed to helping reverse this trend.
2. Homeschooling is best for our desire to follow biblical teachings regarding the importance of "training up a child in the way he should go". Although it may be possible to transmit knowledge of important morals, values and religious teachings afterschool and during school vacation periods, we believe that teaching in these areas is too important to be relegated to the scraps of a child's learning time and added to already overstuffed schedules. Furthermore, we were troubled by the lack of "neutrality" in most school settings. Instead of schools being indifferent to Christian morals and values, they are frequently downright hostile to them. We do not feel it is appropriate for a young child to be confronted daily with an institution which is anti-God  and which forbids any entry of God in its hallways. We believe we honor God by infusing our children's education with the Word of God not just in formal teachings but throughout the course of our everyday life.
3. Homeschooling is best for academics. It is well-known that most children learn best one-on-one with individualized learning plans. Schools are trying to reduce class sizes and implement IEPs while parents are busy hiring tutors and sending their children for academic enrichment after a busy school day to address this key issue. Homeschooling allows for the entire educational experience to be an individualized one taught by a teacher committed to honoring the child's learning style. Whether your child is gifted or suffers from a learning disability, homeschooling can allow your child to reach his highest potential. We knew we definitely wanted that for our children. Early on, we diecided that whether or not our children were significantly out of the norm in their learning styles, they would nonetheless benefit from homegrown instruction tailored to their needs and co-ordinated, managed or directly taught by parents who love them very much.

For our family, homeschooling is the VERY BEST choice. It very well may be the same for your family. Please consider homeschooling.

What an amazing concept! Get a subscription to a magazine that is full of great information and inspiration and receive awesome free bonuses for your homeschooling!

I was so excited, I sent away for most of the offers yesterday as soon as I got the envelope in the mail. These samples are products that I have heard of and been curious about (like the Progeny Press Study Guides and the Bible CD's) but never investigated any further.

Leave it to TOS to have such a unique promotion.

Now I can not wait to get all of my free gifts...

I had a post up about homeschooling families wanted for a televsion show called "Wife Swap". We do not watch TV and I had never seen the show.  Since my post, I have learned that the show is not a positive forum for homeschoolers so I have removed the post.

Of course, I would expect any homeschooling family to use wisdom and discernment in evaluating any opportunity they would choose to become involved in but I choose not to advertise for it.

Homeschoolers are showing up in the mainstream more and more these days and as a huge homeschooling advocate, I think that this is a very good thing.  I am excited that many more parents, especially Christian parents, may come to view homeschooling as a viable and desirable alternative to "traditional" education.  Of course, homeschooling is as traditional as education gets but somehow that fact has gotten lost over the course of the last century.

I hope that most in the homeschooling community will welcome the new generation of homeschoolers (myself included) with open arms.  We may not have to fight for the right to homeschool the way the pioneer homeschoolers of the Eighties did and we have many more resources available to us but we still share the same basic desire to educate our children at home.

Check out the article here from the Boston Globe that emphasizes the point that homeschoolers are very well-socialized and well-rounded.  Examples are given of the activities of real-life area homeschooling families.  I like to read about what homeschoolers areound the country are doing (I guess that is why I spend so much time on this site!) 

The next article is from the St. Petersburg Times in Florida and it paints a very interesting picture of how homeschooling there grew from being illegal about 20 years ago to capturing more students than voucher schools today to the tune of at least 51,000 homeschoolers.  The reporter makes the point that homeschooling has been an antidote to the disconnected dual-career family hustle and bustle for growing numbers of families. 

Check out the funny anecdote about the mom who used to avoid the homeschooling "freaks" at the playground but who ended up homeschooling 4 years later! 

Interesting trends noted from the article:

Over the past decade, the number of children parented by stay-at-home moms increased 13 percent - more than three times the overall increase in the child population.

 

While Baby Boomers sought to "have it all" through work, family and possessions, Generation Xers are increasingly likely to forgo a second income, it said. "Instead of trying to fit family into their work life," the study concluded, "Generation X parents are more likely to try to fit work into their family life." Homeschooling is a way to do just that.

While Baby Boomers sought to "have it all" through work, family and possessions, Generation Xers are increasingly likely to forgo a second income, it said. "Instead of trying to fit family into their work life," the study concluded, "Generation X parents are more likely to try to fit work into their family life." Homeschooling is a way to do just that.

 

One slightly odd comment from an otherwise sensible quote from a sociologist regarding homeschooling as a way to bring families closer together:

"Homeschooling," said New York University sociologist Mitchell Stevens, "is a really creative way through a problem" in an American society "that hasn't figured out how to have women work and create a reasonable system of parenting." Homeschool parents, he said, "give up income and suspend a career aspiration for a while. But you get this kind of unstructured, unscheduled time with your kid, which is something that otherwise only really affluent people can do."

 

"...otherwise only really affluent people can do." Huh?  So either you can be independently wealthy to allow you to homeschool your children or you can sacrifice, scrape and pinch pennies to do so?  Okay, so what is his point exactly? 

By the way, I do not know of any wealthy families who homeschool.  Do you?

Against my better judgement, I let Chase check out a Scooby Doo book from the library.  The book presented Wicca, Wiccans and witches in a very deceptive light and I was horrified as I was reading the story to Chase.  (Needless to say, story time ended without me finishing the story although I did go on to read it myself later).  I am very familiar with Scooby Doo from my childhood and part of me figured it could not be so bad since the supposed "ghost" in each story turns out to be a real person.

Boy was I wrong! And I learned a thing or two about trusting my better judgement.

Check out this description of a Wiccan from the book Scooby and the Witch's Ghost by Gail Herman:

Sarah was a Wiccan...a kind of medicine woman, like a doctor. 

 

Wiccans don't use ordinary medicine.  They understand the forces of nature-herbs and plants-and use them for healing.

 

The story also involved a singing group called the Hex Girls consisting of Thorn, Dusk, Luna along with a spell book and the actual recitation from the spell book.  It was amazing how subtly all this information was woven into what was supposed to be an innocent cartoon.  I imagine these are the kind of influences rife in public schools.

It is hard to believe and accept how diligent I will have to be to make sure that our family's values are not compromised by outside influences, especially while my children are still young.

I think that I learned about this great site, CurriculumConnection.net, through Cindy Rushton.  It is a great site filled with very nice books run by a homeschooling family, the Becks.  The Beck family and the Rushton family together sponsor a Family Business Expo that has already been held for this year.  I hope they have it again next year because we would like to attend!

CurriculumConnection has a section on books for boys that is featuring a series called Little Britches by Ralph Moody. It sounds very promising and I will be ordering later this summer.

I am so appreciative that families like the Becks and the Rushtons are sharing their God-given talents with the homeschooling community to help us to become more Christ-like, better parents and better homeschoolers.

I pray that I would follow God's leading to serve families as well as these two families do.

As a new homeschooler, I have been an active seeker of information.  I spent hours in the library, researching public education, educational alternatives and homeschooling.  I also sought out homeschool support groups in my area.

I became a member of an African-American homeschool group.  My membership in that group was extremely useful as it helped me to clarify not only my homeschooling agenda, goals and values but my religious beliefs as well.  I was challenged to define the roles of race and religion in my life in ways that I had never read or heard about before.  Here is some of my story.

Initially, the members of our AfAm support group formed with only a hazy idea of what we were looking for in the group.  Reasons for forming the group seemed as diverse as the founding members. Some had entrepreneurial ideas for the group, others wanted to be sure that their children learned African-American history, still others wanted their children to be exposed to other African-American homeschooled children.  And the majority of us also wanted our children to associate with other children who were being taught the ways of the Lord and we wanted the chance to encourage each other in the Lord.

It was this final point that I believe became the undoing of the unity of the group.  You see, for those members for whom this was not an important or even a desired shared experience, the topic of religion became a thorny one.  After countless hours of discussion our differences came down to this question: which was most important to us- our racial identity or our Christian identity? Or put a different way, if we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, should we focus on our racial differences? Could we really call ourselves an African-American support group if our group was based on Christian principles and included a Christian statement of faith? Would Muslim, atheist, buddhist and other non-Christian really feel welcome in our group?  Was it important that all stripes of African-Americans be included in our leadership then?  Would the Christian members of the group feel comfortable asking for prayer requests, discussing Bible studies and other topics of Christianity with some groups that are known in the African-American community as being hostile to Christianity because they view Christianity as racist?

The emergence of these tough issues challenged all of us to examine where we stood in terms of fatih and race.  I found myself standing at the intersection of race and faith and I felt exposed and batted about by the winds of controversey.  These were more than hypothetical questions. The answers to these dilemmas would determine our mission as an organization and therefore our activities, affiliations and goals.

In the end, after consultation with my husband and much prayer, I decided that for my family and I our Christian identity superseded our racial identity.  We want to teach our children that all peoples are seen as one by Christ by example. Seeking support from racially separatist organizations does not suit our family' statement of faith or our desire to live more Christ-like.

Having said that, I do see a role for organizations designed to inform and empower African-Americans to homeschool.  These do not have to be exclusively African-American organizations.  In fact the HSLDA, a Christian homeschool group, is leading this effort at this time.  It has never been more important.  Right now, African-American academic is at an all-time low both in public and private school settings across socioeconomic lines.  Decades at attempts to reform have failed.  I would like to see an organization that targets African-American parents to encourage them to consider homeschooling as a out of the cycle of poverty and academic under-achievement that is devastating our communities.

Links-race and Christianity:

Racism in the Bible

Book Review on Racist Christianity

Answers about African-American Christian History

Kwanza and Christians

Thanks to Daryl for this link commenting on the growth of African-American homeschoolers.  For years, because most homeschoolers were not ethnic minorities, the media and therefore the public, thought of homeschooling as not being as open to African-Americans. Some African-American parents have told me that they would not feel comfortable at a homeschool meeting, support group or conference in which they were the only African-Americans present. This is in part because the parents did not want their children to be the "onlies".  I can not necessarily explain these feelings.  I just know them to be true for some.

Check out my in-depth article on this topic here.

Thank goodness enough pioneering African-American homeschoolers persevered and paved the way for this new generation of African-American homeschoolers.  There are many more support groups today that  are diverse compared to even a few years ago, I am told by veteran homeschoolers in my area.

I believe that the number of African-Americans and other under-represented groups homeschooling will continue to rise as homeschooling in general becomes more diverse and as entrepreneurial homeschooling families continue to provide products and services that make homeschooling a little easier and therefore more accessible to all.

And that is a good thing.

Some links to African-American Homeschooling Groups:

NAAHA

Unschoolers

Single Parents

Big thanks to Kim over at the AHA site for reviewing my blog and many other homeschool blogs. Her reviews give a good idea of the tone and theme of each blog and I am very grateful for the blogs I have learned about through her blog.

If you would like to have you blog reviewed, go to her personal homeschooling site and drop her an e-mail. Tell her that I sent you!

I am so excited! Spunky has the most amazing homeschool convention up at her homeschooling blog here.

Looks like a lot of thought-provoking and informative speakers.

Run, do not walk to the Online Homeschool Convention today!

No time to post. Gotta get reading...

Rumor has it that there may be as many as 50 featured bloggers. So cool.

I do not believe that I am overstating my case when I tell you that the homeschooling movement has the power to change some troubling trends in our society.
Homeschooling is growing and it is no accident. I see a God who is so troubled by what he sees happening in American society that he knows a radical, fundamental change is needed in the fabric of our institutions and in our families. Homeschooling will provide the impetus that is needed to cause true, spiritual change that is needed in America today.

One troubling trend in our society is the disintegration of the family. If you think that I am only talking about divorce and out-of-wedlock births, you are wrong. The truth is that even our "intact" families are often comprised of selfish parents with misplaced values and a improper emphasis on material gain. The material gain I speak of is sometimes subtle.

Recent surveys of Christian parents showed that the majority are far more concerned with their children's academic achievements than with their spiritual development. Certainly, striving for academic excellence is not a frivolous worldly pursuit yet we must ask ourselves where we place worldly knowledge in our value system. Parents continually search for self-fulfillment at the expense of their children and the children are bitter, disrespectful and ungrateful. All parties have excuses of why their bad behavior is OK.

The media and government programs reinforce stereotypes to further break families apart. Teens are expected to be surly, parents presumed to be prudish and babies are just demanding, crying sponges of neediness that are no fun at all to be around. Housework is endless tedium with no redeeming features and marriage is merely an annoying inconvenience and unnecessary relic from the past. Any attempt to protect your children is viewed as "stifling" them and akin to child abuse. Teaching them religious values is viewed as cult-like indoctrination.

We can not go on like this! Homeschoolers dare to buck these trends. By acknowledging the importance of family and how much we actually enjoy our children we are setting a much-needed example for other families. As people appreciate the tremendous financial and personal sacrifices made to homeschool, they may start to question their own dependence on two incomes. Children are held to high expectations and they look to their parents for protection and guidance in many homeschooling families. Housework is a treasured skill to be passed down to our children and providing a sound spiritual foundation is setting them on the right path for life. Babies are viewed as a gift from God and perfect in the way that they are made and marriages are viewed as the foundation for a godly family.

What I am describing of course is an average homeschooling family and although every homeschooling family will not fit the exact picture I describe, the numbers are high enough and growing quickly enough to make a difference. The key is that Americans will see that there is another way for those who dare to follow a different path.