I'm choosing to live intentionally and would like to share with others what that looks like from my perspective. Living intentionally means to make thought out, educated, vetted decisions about parenting, rather than following the crowd.
Now onto the main event.
After much thought and consideration, I am seriously considering home education. I honestly NEVER thought of homeschooling as a viable option until recently. I have quite a few friends who are teachers, including Hollie one of my fellow bloggers. She is an English teacher. I've heard from some of them how hard they work to provide their students with a quality education. I've also heard them explain the ridiculous bureaucracy that good teachers experience while trying to challenge students and involve parents....But I'll leave that for Hollie to possibly address in the future. (wink!)
Here are the reasons why I didn't consider homeschooling as an option in the past:
1. I've met my fair share of let's just say it, weird, quirky, antisocial home schooled kids. My siblings and I were even forced to hang out with some one summer to help them improve their social skills and it was down right torturous.
2. I am not a teacher. I clearly understand that teachers spend years studying their specific field and how to express what they know to young minds. I (obviously) have not; and so what makes me think that I can therefore educate my child better than an educator?
And that's about it. Those have been my main reasons for not supporting homeschooling.
But here are the reasons I am now considering homeschooling, and they far outweigh my reasons to not:
1. I would like to be an integral part (not in control) of my child's education. I do not think that PTSO boards and parent teacher conferences offer enough opportunity for this.
2. Kids get lost in the crowd. Teachers end up having to teach to the majority. So if you have a child who is able to excel in a subject, but the teacher doesn't notice for any number of reasons, you can very easily end up with a bored student who hates school or gets into trouble. If you have a child that is struggling in an area and never gets noticed you can have a similar outcome. I was one of those underperforming students in math and it was never addressed. I didn't realize until college that I actually really enjoyed math.
3. Classrooms are getting large. It's a fact and the alternative option is a private school, which typically have smaller class sizes.
4. Private schools are expensive and not always a better education.
5. Not all teachers like or want to be teachers. And it negatively affects that teacher's pupils FOREVER.
6. These days the grade your child receives is not always the grade they have earned. This mainly is true in underperforming students. Hollie may be best at explaining this. It is getting harder for teachers to honestly grade students' academic performance.
7. I would like my family's values represented on a daily basis to my child through her education. I do not think a Christian school is the answer. (I won't get into it now)
8. I want to recognize the areas where my child excels and challenge them to achieve their highest potential in that field. I do not believe that schools possess the ability to recognize or address this. After your kids get home at 3pm or you get off of work it's almost impossible to squeeze in extra child specific activities. .
7. I don't want to be apart of the suburban rat race.
5 am- wake up
5:30 quick breakfast
6am- catch the bus
6:30- off to work
kid is at school all day
kid goes to practice or after school care
4pm- kid lets self into house (when old enough)-surfs the internet, social media, porn. Hangs out with friends, wasting time.
5pm- parents come home, cook dinner, do homework, try and get to a bible study at church
8pm- bath time, squeeze in a "devotional" that obviously does not have time for many questions of deep discussion with your kids.
9pm- kids in bed (if they go/fight them to sleep)
10pm- hopefully parents get their own time.
11pm- parents go to bed, unless you are a hard charger and likes to stay up to 1am trying to be productive and catch up on life (ie...plan a vacation, surf internet, talk with "friends/family)
...do it all over again tomorrow. I have a strong conviction against living a life like this.
We are given one life to live and I want to live it to the fullest. I want to show my kids that life can be enjoyable, freeing, and always a time of teaching. Contrary to popular belief, the classroom is not the only place of learning. The home is the first and foremost important teaching tool. And when we live lives like the one I detailed above, there is little time for us as parents to teach, instill, and reward the values we find important. In the scenario above your child's teacher and classmates literally see your child more than you.
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| This can be a positive or negative mark. |
As parents we have the opportunity to teach our kids all the time; but if we are tired, overworked, and living someone else's life, not the one we (personally) are meant to live we cannot experience life in it's fullness. By "living someones else's life", I mean, that we have not actually evaluated and been intentional in the decisions we make for our family. I have to say that I think most of the time parents simply move to a nice neighborhood where they find work and enroll their child in their designated school. They briefly consider what the education will be like, but not what will happen if a teacher teaches things that violate the ideals you teach at home, what will happen if your child begins to struggle in subject... Everything is mainly reactive, and not proactive. Though I am currently talking about education, this reactive behavior is evident in other areas of our lives. A way to combat this is by being intentional.
I am NOT saying that homeschooling will address and fix tiredness or being overworked. It will allow you to determine how you spend your years with your child and the impressions you make on them that will form their character and eventually the adult they become.
I want to throw this little tidbit of info out there. I remember the first time I really got to know a homeschooling mom. Prior to this I had only "known of" homeschooling parents. And I realized that my friend would only actively be teaching her kids for a few hours a day. I thought it strange at first and asked her how it was possible for them to get all their lessons completed in just a few hours a day. She explained to me that in traditional schools much of the kids' time is spent calming, corralling, and shuffling students. When you teach a few kids at home you can get straight to the lesson, break for a short time and get back to the lesson. I have to say that I had never heard this before and it took me a while to process it. And when I did, my socks were blown off. I never realized it, but it's true. Much time at school is spent lining up, getting students into the classroom and calmed down, etc....These processes are a normal part of adult life and can provide as a teaching opportunity, but I think they are easily taught outside of the traditional classroom.
Again, these are my opinions and not meant to convict parents who do not agree. I understand that these are points that I feel are accurate and others may see this topic a completely different way.
If I were to homeschool: I would need to be intentional with my time. I would need to plan and continually evaluate how it is working for my child and also for me. I know that many homeschool parents become burned out and overwhelmed. I don't know if homeschooling is something I would do for my child's entire school years; but it is something I am considering for the first year or so of elementary school. We will be living overseas and so it's the perfect opportunity for us.
Do you have strong feelings about your child's education? I would love to hear about them.
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| Do you feel this way? |
-Anjelica
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