A Counter-Culture and The Peculiar People

Writing more about homeschooling has been on my mind for the last several days, yet I have had trouble finding the time to do so. What topic to address this time? Perhaps a bit from the first book I read on homeschooling.

As often happens when I'm seeking knowledge on a new subject, I head to the library and check out a stack of books on the subject. They say not to judge a book by its cover, so I end up with every book they have on the given subject, just to be safe. Although, once get home, I have to start somewhere, so I do have to do a little cover judging. But it seems I am not unguided in my judgements. Such as when I was struggling with Braxton's behavior last year (see this post). This time the first book that drew me once I got home with my stack was a book called A Mom Just Like You by Vickie Farris and Jayme Farris Metzgar. I quickly realized that it is a book written by a Christian woman from Washington (where I was born) who chose to homeschool her 10 children. Sounds like a book for me (though maybe not the 10 kids!).

I was fascinated by how she arrived at the decision to homeschool. Like our family, she was not deterred by bad schools. In fact, her first daughter was attending first grade at a good Christian school when they came to the decision. It was from the Christian school that her daughter became enthusiastic about the particular Bible memorization they were working on.

She recited the verse she had learned, and told me how her teacher had explained its meaning. I suddenly stopped what I was doing and looked at her, overwhelmed by an unaccountable sense of jealousy. "Yes, it's wonderful that her school teaches the Bible," I thought to myself, "But...that's my job!"

She goes on to talk about a verse that she had recently read that talks about how we should diligently teach the words of God to our children at home, as we walk, as we go to bed, when we get up...always.

I was hit by the conviction that Mike and I should be the ones teaching spiritual truths to our children. God had given us the responsibility to train them, and apparently we were to be doing this in the various situations that would arise throughout the course of each day. But how could we do this if our children were gone to school five days a week?

 I've thought along these lines myself, "How can I be sure my son is learning the things I want him to know if I'm not the one teaching him?" but I love the way she states it and the way she uses the scriptures to reaffirm her feelings.

I was quite surprised to find that a good portion of the book is about letting God determine your family size, but I won't discuss that here. If you're interested, it's a thought provoking read!

One other concept that really interested me from this book was the way that she looked at how much time homeschooling takes. As you can imagine, homeschooling 10 kids is a whole other level from 1 or 2! I really admire the way that this woman looks at every aspect of life as either you trust God or you don't. Such as with their decision to refrain from using birth control and trust God to bless them with the number of children that He would give them, she has the same outlook on giving of your time to your children. She talks about Mark 8:34-36 where it talks about losing our life for His sake and Luke 14:33 that talks about forsaking all that we have. She says,

What does this mean in my everyday life? It is essentially an attitude adjustment: I try to remember that my time is not really mine, but rather the Lord's. When I don't get the time to read a magazine or make a phone call, I should have no basis for complaint--because that time is not mine to claim. When I do get a little time to relax, however, I should receive it with thanksgiving as an undeserved gift from God. 

This is not an easy attitude to adapt!

She does talk about some of the ways that she uses those "undeserved gifts from God" to help her recharge and, in turn, be a better mother, but what I really admired was the way that she looked to and trusted God for everything.

It is much easier for me to find the balance between service and rest when I look at Psalms 62:5 "My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him". In other words, all we have belongs to the Lord, and all we need comes from the Lord. We are both to yield everything to God and expect everything from Him. When we consider our time as His, and not our own, we can also look to Him to provide our need for rest and refreshment. If we need physical strength, spiritual stamina, emotional encouragement, or human help, He will not fail to give it to us. Nor will He fault us if we bring our needs and requests before Him.

I must admit that when I brought home my stack of books from the library, I was looking more for "how to's" and different homeschooling methods and organization ideas...the logistics of it. But, as usual, Heavenly Father knew that before I worried about the "how" of a venture, I needed to catch the vision of the "why". In the last chapter of her book, this mom talks about how the Bible says that "children are an heritage of the Lord". She talks about how the word heritage struck her. Children are not simply a gift - usually something fleeting and easy to obtain, but a heritage - something that often requires hard work, but the value of which can be increased. She gives the analogy of a man who inherits an estate, but doesn't put the work into it.

When his own life ends, he will not have much of a heritage to leave his family after him. However, if he diligently manages the estate, he can actually increase its value as time goes by, leaving his children an even better inheritance than he himself received. The value of the heritage increases with the work invested.

She talks about how a heritage is something long-lasting--reaching across generations if well cared for.

I would like every home schooling mother to catch this same vision of raising "a godly seed"--a seed which will continue to reproduce itself and bear fruit long after we are gone.

 I looked up the definition of heritage, since I wasn't actually sure of its meaning. It is "something that comes or belongs to one by reason of birth; an inherited lot or portion". This took it one step further for me. Children are something that has come to us from someone who lived before us - the Lord. They are an heritage of the Lord because they were His before they were ours. And they still are His, really. How wonderful!

As far as homeschooling as an alternative to what many see as a failing public school system, the author references a speech she heard comparing home schoolers to the underground church in the former Soviet Union. The speaker talked about how the Christian church is now coming alive with young people. He asked some of these young people how they knew they were Christians after so many years of Communism.

In every single case the answer was the same: "My grandmother." Even as the nation was listening to the Communists shout, "There is no God!", these old women would whisper into the ears of their grandchildren: "Remember we are believers. There is a God, and we believe in Him."

The author says,

I was struck by the imagery of this analogy. Like those old Russian grandmothers, we home schooling moms are building a counter-culture beneath the rotting structure of today's American society. Our faithfulness is creating a sound structure that, by the grace of God, will last even after the rotting outer shell of our culture has crumbled away.

Maybe it's the rebel in me, but I love that idea of creating a counter-culture. Definition: a culture and lifestyle of those people, especially among the young, who reject or oppose the dominant values and behavior of society. And if there was anything I would want my kids to reject, it is the dominant values and behavior of our society! I know a lot of people think of homeschooled kids as weird...peculiar, maybe, but as Deuteronomy 14:2 says, "For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself."

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).