TOS Affiliates' Corner

Did you hear the news? The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine is celebrating its tenth year!

In the last decade TOS has been an amazing resource for homeschoolers that we have all turned to for advice and encouragement again and again.

Do you have a favorite TOS memory? Was there a specific TOS article over the last ten years that resonated with your heart and gave you the confidence to keep homeschooling? What about a TOS product that your family has thoroughly enjoyed? Now is your chance to share your love for TOS.

Bloggers, affiliates, subscribers . . . Oh my! If you have benefitted from the insight and wisdom of this leading homeschool magazine, come tell us about it.  Let’s get together and chat about our experience with TOS.  Join our Tenth Anniversary Celebration blog hop and start meeting other homeschool bloggers.

But first, let’s get the inside scoop on TOS from the creators.

Many of you have had the privilege of personally meeting the publishers, Gena and Paul Suarez. Others have built an online friendship by following Gena on Facebook or Twitter. You’ve read her articles and seen her influence in the homeschool community. No doubt you’ve learned something valuable through the hard work and dedication of this amazing couple as they determine to make The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine a treasure trove of blessing.

Recently I had the opportunity to talk with Gena about how far TOS has come and ask a few questions. You’ll see Gena’s responses below in red. Here’s what we talked about:

Hi Gena! Congratulations on your tenth year! I know that The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine has been a lifeline for so many new homeschoolers. Thank you for all you do to produce this quality magazine.

Can you tell us how long have you been homeschooling? 21 years! My oldest child is 21 and we’ve been homeschooling since birth. Our youngest is just 14 months old so we’re starting all over in a sense on our homeschool journey. It’s nice because the older ones help the younger ones.

What led you, personally, to this decision? I didn’t want my children to be thrown to the wolves in the public schools. Everything I learned about the streets came from peers and teachers in the public school. Any profanity, sensuality, hair-raising talk of witchcraft, and revelations of what gangs really do to teens in some inner cities, were infused into my being, never to be forgotten. My mind was filled with all that I read in the school library. When I would arrive home at night, I pretty much kept to myself. I was loaded up with enough homework to keep me occupied for hours, and my parents and siblings were not high on my “to do” list. They were not my top priority; school had to be.  That was not the school life I wanted to give my own children. I did not want to have them gone all day only for them to come home and keep their distance from us. Why have kids? So we decided to homeschool. Now, some of this has evolved over the years (this philosophy). I, like probably most Christian parents, was unsure in the very beginning. There was a short time I thought we’d put our oldest child in public school kindergarten even though Paul and I had talked about homeschooling prior to that. But Paul said, “No way,” and I am SO glad he did. We “momentarily” considered a Christian school after that, but never enrolled our son. At age 4, he was beginning to read in our little homeschool and we have never looked back. Six kids later–still homeschooling strong.

When did you first see a need for a Christian homeschool magazine like TOS? We had an eBay business selling curriculum. Our clients kept asking us homeschooling questions–questions along the lines of: “What method did you use? What curriculum did you like? How do you homeschool with a busy preschooler at home? How many hours a day does it take?” It was getting time-consuming answering individual emails, so we decided it was time to write a homeschooling newsletter to answer the various incoming questions for our customers. And that’s what started it all.

How do you think TOS has best met that need over the last ten years? The magazine has been an encouragement to so many homeschoolers, and many of those same readers have become staff here at TOS or good friends; it’s been a two-way street for sure. People have told us that some article or a particular email has renewed their decision to stay the course in homeschooling, that they were convinced they’d be putting their kids in public school until they ran across something published by the magazine, which changed their thinking. God actually uses the magazine to help people, whether by instruction as we uphold His Word or by encouragement or by resources we bring to them from so many excellent vendors who serve the community alongside us. We really feel blessed to be a part of it. It’s God’s–we just want to keep following His plan for us and for TOS.

There have been many changes to TOS over the last ten years. Which ones bring you the most pride? Hmmmm, I can’t say I feel any “pride of accomplishment.” What can I boast about when ANY and ALL successes of TOS have only been realized because of Him and what He has done. This is the Lord’s magazine. He brought the staff together (and along the way he has pruned back and grown it) and we are so blessed at what THEY do for this magazine. God has given us some brilliant, God-fearing people who know their stuff. Paul and I like to remain primarily in the background. It gives us a “marvel-eye view” of what the Lord is doing.

What articles or ideas from The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine have had the greatest influence on your personal homeschool efforts? There have been many! I can’t think of anything specific at the moment but there are times I read some of the articles coming in and I get excited! The encouragement, the engaging conversations from smart mamas and dads out there, and the grandparents who have written us to tell us THEY are homeschooling their grandkids! All of these things inspire me. They make me remember that the Lord has built this thing. It’s so much bigger than any of us.

Being in this industry for ten years, what is the biggest lesson you’ve learned about the homeschool community? There isn’t a cookie-cutter method for teaching and learning. Homeschoolers have to learn to trust the Lord to lead and direct them in their homeschooling efforts. But that’s the beauty of homeschooling. YOU can custom make your own learning environment and the statistics are on your side. They reveal that homeschoolers do better, long term, all the way around. But most importantly of all, we can train up our children in the admonition of the Lord, keeping them near us, speaking into their lives about the Lord, and hopefully modeling Christ to them. Drop them off at your local public school for a year and you’ll see all of that spiral. A student becomes like his teacher.

Thank you Gena and Paul for the hard work you’ve devoted to casting a beautiful vision of homeschooling! The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine has been our safe place, providing resources to answer the many questions that have confronted homeschoolers along the exciting adventure of home education. Here’s to ten more years of quality publishing!

Now it’s your turn to join the party. Let’s get this blog roll started.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Start blogging. Write a blog post about your favorite TOS product, memory, or article.
2. If you’re an affiliate don’t forget to add affiliate links and be personal. Tell your readers why you became an affiliate and what you like about TOS.
3. If you’re a subscriber, tell us what you love about the magazine. Why did you subscribe and what articles do look forward to with every issue?
4. If possible, add pictures of your family using the product you wrote about.
5. Copy the Linky Tool code to your blog:
   1. For WordPress blogs: <p><b>Powered by Linky Tools</b></p><p><a href=”http://www.linkytools.com/wordpress_list.aspx?id=86578&type=basic”>Click here</a> to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…</p>
   2. For Bloggers: <script src=”http://www.linkytools.com/basic_linky_include.aspx?id=86578″ type=”text/javascript”></script>
   3. **Update**If  Blogger does not accept this code please try the WordPress code. Even though they are different platforms, it still works great in Blogger. **Thanks!**
6. Add the direct URL of your post into our Linky Tool.
7. Start hopping!

Thank you for sharing the love! Get ready to have fun visiting great new blogs while letting others find you. Enjoy the variety of homeschool methods you’ll see on the hop and note the size of this growing community that all share a heart for homeschooling. Take pleasure in knowing you are not alone!

The Linky List will be active from April 27-May 18^th.  Let’s get to know each other and build some great traffic and lasting friendships.

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Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…