Resurrection

Although I haven't kept up with all of the wonderful ways I was going to continue with recording our lives, and I could let myself feel guilty about the lost memories, I've enjoyed my hiatus from blogging. But lately I've been feeling passionately about a certain subject and found myself wishing to share my feelings on it. Or at least record them in a way that others who might be exploring the same subject can access them.

The subject is homeschooling, or rather home based learning in the stead of formal education. Calling it home learning or homeschooling or what have you might just seem like semantics, but I've been reading a lot of books about the subject and I like the way that many of them emphasize the fact that learning should have no specified time or place set aside. One should always be open to learning. And learning done in one environment (say, a classroom) is no more relevant or important than that done in any other environment (say, the back yard). That is why I've decided to think of it as home based learning rather than just conducting school at home. Our home will be our base for learning, as it is our base for most of life. But it is by no means our sole stage for learning.

However, for the sake and ease of reading and writing, I will refer to our endeavor as homeschooling. Just know what I mean.

So now that that's out of the way, let me delve a little into a few of the reasons I (and by {mostly} common consent, Jason) have chosen homeschooling.

First, it is not due to any negative experiences with public or private schools. In fact, Jason and I had mostly favorable experiences with school. Jason went to a small town school where most of the student body moved together from preschool through elementary school, joining with surrounding kids for middle and high schools. A few of those same kids now have kids of their own attending the same schools they grew up in. It was a nice school experience.

My own experience wasn't quite so controlled, as we moved a bit more and at one point I was sent to a private Christian school to avoid the disturbingly rough middle school, but I genuinely enjoyed school. I liked to learn and was good at it.

This year we've been fortunate to have Braxton attend a small, private Montessori preschool. It, too, has been wonderful. I'm grateful for all he has learned there and the real love that the teachers have for the children.

I have not been quite so impressed with tales from the public school that Braxton would be assigned to attend next year, but there are several other options that we considered very viable in our contemplation of school routes (charter schools, open enrollment schools, etc.). So our choice to homeschool is also NOT due to lack of options.

What it was also NOT due to: As some may remember, this last summer was a very long summer of anticipation and eager waiting for the opportunity to send Braxton off to preschool. Yes, I was one of those moms. The one I never thought I would be. The one who couldn't wait to get her kid out of the house and off to school. It was a rough summer (and before that spring...and maybe winter) riddled with behavior struggles and feelings of just generally spending too much time together (mostly the two little boys). I was glad for Braxton to have some time away to focus his energy on new activities and Easton to have a break from being picked on and Mommy to have a break from breaking up fights. And it has been a nice break in many ways. But in other ways, it's been disconnecting. I expected Braxton to come home from school and eagerly tell me a play by play of every detail in which he spent his time. Instead, I'd excitedly say, "Braxton! What did you do at school today?" only to be met with, "I don't know. Nothing."

 Now he really wasn't doing nothing at school. I know this because he constantly brought home work and his teachers would even post pictures of his "nothing". There is just a disconnect of the way that kids see the time they spend and the way grownups do. It was difficult for me to not know all that was happening in his life so that I could, in turn, use it as a teaching and/or bonding tool at home. For instance, I have a general idea what he learns about each week in Primary at church. I know who is there with him and I even get to see how they interact for part of the time since I am the Primary chorister. So I know when we get home and he's wound up that it's in large part due to who was in his class that week and the energy that they have. I can say, "------ was being kind of disruptive during Primary today, weren't they? I saw how you were trying to ignore them and listen to the lesson. Thank you for doing that, that made me happy to see. You were being a good example." Etc. Point being, I know where his mind is, where he's coming from, I have a frame of reference for conversation, I know how to teach him.

When he is at school, I have no idea what's happening. I don't know the names of half the kids in his class, let alone their personalities and how they interact, what Braxton is enjoying or struggling with (like how he was afraid to select work for many weeks and spent large amounts of time kind of wandering), and often even the best way to help him with the things he is learning (does he need to work on writing the letter "A" or is it ok the way it is as long as he knows that's an "A" and it makes the sound "ah"?).

Now this might all sound a little overbearing and over protective, but is it not my job to guide my kids both mentally (teaching them to talk, read, write, reason, etc), physically (teaching them to walk, touch others respectfully, etc.), emotionally (it's ok to feel angry, sad, happy - here's how to deal with those emotions) and most importantly, spiritually (do you think the way you're treating your brother is the way Heavenly Father would want you to treat him)? If I don't have those frames of reference, I've found it difficult to guide my kids in the ways that I want. This is not to say that a parent can't guide their children if they go off to school. I've just found, at this stage, that it works more the way I want when I am more fully immersed in their lives.

So after much prayerful consideration, we've decided that this next school year will be the start of our homeschooling adventure. I'll be sharing more about how we came to that decision, some excerpts from books I've been reading that particularly affected me or that I liked, some of my trepidations about homeschooling as well as some of the things I'm excited about, and, as we progress, how it's going. I'm excited to have something that I feel passionately enough to write about again. How interesting that the first thing I felt passionately enough about to begin this blog was preparing for my firstborn to be born. Now here we are five years later and he has inspired me again to put my thoughts to paper (or screen, as it were).