My standard answer when asked why I decided to home school is that there isn't just one big reason, but many small ones. Depending on the reaction and the circumstances surrounding the conversation, I'll either leave it at that or elaborate further.
Since you're still reading, I'll assume you want me to elaborate.
Flexibility. This reason ranks pretty high on the list, due to my husband's crazy work schedule. When our oldest son was in public school it was not uncommon for him to go days without seeing his dad. Now that we home school, we make my husband's days off work our "family days." We can adapt to his ever-changing work week and make sure that we have family time.
This flexibility carries through to all of our activities and makes everything from dentist appointments to Cub Scout meetings much easier to incorporate into our days. The year my son was in a public school just seemed so...busy. Full days of school, combined with shuttling the other kid to and from preschool left very little time together. Add to that schedule just one or two extracurricular activities and life was suddenly crazy. More importantly, it wore my son out. It wore ALL of us out. My son entered first grade a very excited and eager-to-learn child and came out of it completely exhausted. Home schooling allows us to take advantage of the times when we are all at our best each day and gives the boys more time to pursue their other interests.
Values. Another big reason why we home school comes down to who we want to most influence our children - family and friends who share our values or a large group of same-aged kids? It's never seemed quite right to me to expect my young children to spend most of their time away from me and from each other. I'm just not comfortable with having their minds and hearts shaped by people and events that I have no control over. I used to think that I was just being over-protective. Now I'm okay with that. These boys have been entrusted to ME - it is my (and my husband's) responsibility to keep them on the right path. I feel much better equipped to do that through home schooling.
Customized Education. I have even more respect for teachers in schools now that I teach my own kids at home. They have the insurmountable task of teaching the same thing to probably 25 or 30 kids who are all at different levels and have a variety of learning styles. My children are certainly unique, but there's only four of them. I am able to take turns giving each child my undivided attention. I mostly use a "packaged", Catholic curriculum for the boys, but am able to use it in whatever way best fits their individual learning styles. We have the freedom to learn what we want, when we want and however we want. This means that we can start each day with prayer and spend an entire day learning about space if we want to. We can do reading while snuggled up on the couch together. We can skip unnecessary workbook pages if a concept is already mastered and allow time for areas that need more attention.
The longer we home school, the more reasons I seem to come up with for continuing to do it. However, I think most of them would fall into the above categories. I've experienced many validating moments in the last couple of years; assuring me that my boys are on the right track. We're taking it a year at a time, as far as the decision to continue home schooling or not. Right now I can't imagine having things any other way. I love having my boys with me. I love watching them learn and grow together. I love having the opportunity to truly know who they are both inside and out.
Have you thought about homeschooling for any one particular reason? Or, do you also have several, smaller reasons that have made you consider it as an option? I'd love to know - please share in the comments.
~ Dori
No comments:
Post a Comment