The Absolute Worst Thing about Homeschooling

The absolute worst thing about homeschooling is something that no one ever warns you about. I have been forced to deal with the problem before, but Thanksgiving weekend I, once again, came face to face with this inescapable downside of homeschooling.

As a mother who homeschooled her ten children from the first grade through Master’s Degrees, I can attest that there is an awful lot of bonding that takes place in the home classroom. Bonding among siblings and bonding between parents and siblings occurs on a level that is nearly impossible to achieve under other circumstances.

Nevertheless, I expected the close ties that resulted from so many hours spent in such close proximity. I was prepared for the “my siblings are my best friends” attitude that is a natural result of spending all day every day interacting with one’s brothers and sisters. I took it for granted that we would always share wonderful holiday celebrations, and I looked forward to the day when the children would marry and the family gatherings would include grandchildren.

My husband and I worked hard and sacrificed a great deal so that the children would all have their master’s degrees before they reached the traditional age for high school graduation. We wanted to ensure that they would be able to have successful careers and provide well for their families. Somehow, I never understood that those careers would scatter them in many directions and that their families would not always be with us, but this is the way it has turned out:

• In 1994 Francesca married; she and her husband and three children now live in Phoenix. 
• In 1996 Victoria married; she and her husband and two children now live in Dallas.
• Dominic is a photographer for CNN and travels all over the world shooting news stories. He is based in Miami but has spent a total of only two weeks there this year. Even as I write this, Dominic is in Haiti covering their elections.
• Israel is in Colorado studying to be a veterinarian.

Two weeks ago Benjamin, who was the main news anchor for the NBC television affiliate here in El Paso, dropped by the house unexpectedly and told us that he had just signed a contract for the position of the main anchor for a television station in Cincinnati. It is a huge career move for him, and he and his wife are thrilled, but his six-year-old looked at my husband with big tears in his eyes and said, “Grandpa, I’ll never see you again.” I trust that’s not true, but even to me if feels as though we will never see them again. On Saturday we kissed our son and daughter-in-law and their five children good-by and tried to not let them see how sad we were to have them go.

Five of my children still live in the El Paso area, but there are rumblings that some of them may soon be leaving here to pursue better opportunities and better lives. If I could keep them here, I would not do it; if I could bring the others back, I would not do that either. I made it my life’s work to prepare them to do the things that they were created to do. Those amazing relationships that were forged in that homeschool classroom will last, but the physical circumstances must change. It’s just that no one ever tells you that when your children never go off to school, you never learn to lose them a little at a time. You have never experienced dropping them off for their first day of school; you have never experienced the emotional separation that comes from having your teen decide that his high school friends are so much cooler than his family; you have never waived good-by to an eighteen-year-old heading off to college in some distant city.

No one ever tells you that when you see all your years of work reaping the benefits that you dreamed they would, you smile, but you are smiling through tears.

TECHNOLOGY IS GREAT, BUT…

The internet and DVDs provide many opportunities for homeschoolers, but there is just no substitute for Mom in the classroom.

Last week I invited questions from readers, and Rhonda submitted one that I found especially intriguing. She asked, “Did your children take only on-line courses, and what was the parent’s role?”

I began teaching my children in 1975—back in the dark ages of the movement when the term “homeschooling” had not yet been coined. In fact, I taught for eight years before I ever met another homeschooler.

One month before her fifth birthday I began teaching my oldest daughter to read with a system I had developed myself. By the time she was five years four months old, I had taught her to read, to print, and to tell time. She had also learned the basic one-hundred addition and one-hundred subtraction facts.

In those days there was no internet, no PCs, no DVDs. My “tools” were textbooks, pads of lined paper and pencils. The little battery powered hand-held calculators did, of course, exist, but I did not allow my children to use them. I insisted that they complete all calculations using only paper and pencil.

It was not until my youngest child was finishing his master’s degree that California State University, where all of my ten children earned their master’s degrees, gave students the option of e-mailing assignments. Since our computer was really only a word processor with no hard drive and no internet access, even that was not an option for us.

Yet, even with our limited resources, my ten children completed every grade level, including bachelor’s and master’s degrees, entirely through home study, and they did so by age sixteen.

I do not want to give anyone the impression that I am anti-technology. It is essential in today’s society, and I believe that we should utilize it as fully as possible. However, technology is never a substitute for knowledge, and I believe that this is something that we tend to forget. If the knowledge base is in place, technology is an extraordinary expedient, but no one, whether student or businessman, should ever rely on technology to provide answers he cannot verify independently.

My grown children who have children of their own are now homeschooling their little ones. They take advantage of the DVDs available with the various curricula now on the market that feature electronic teachers. I do not have a problem with that, but I frequently caution them to never rely on someone else to do their jobs. It is their responsibility to watch those DVDs with their children and talk to them about anything they do not understand. It is their responsibility to keep up and make certain that their children are deriving the maximum benefit from each day’s lessons.

When I began homeschooling, we wanted to make certain that our children were getting everything they needed for a well-rounded education. We also wanted them to progress to undergraduate and graduate work when they finished high school. As a result, we always used curricula provided through well-established schools that offered complete home study courses. We also bore the additional expense of having the schools do the grading and record keeping so that every grade level was fully accredited and each child had grade transcripts at every school.

I read every textbook that my children were ever assigned. I discussed every lesson with them that they ever completed. I read and critiqued every paper that they ever wrote. I was fully involved in every aspect of their educations. I was always willing to spend as much time as necessary to make certain that they understood their assignments. Nevertheless, because I was so involved, my children’s school day was only three hours long. I think that is a pretty good trade off—three hours of no nonsense, no distractions schoolwork in exchange for twenty-one free hours.

It is natural to want to find better ways of doing things, and when I was homeschooling, I constantly looked for ways to make my school day easier. However, there is a reason why Thomas Edison commented, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” Most of life is hard. If we are going to reach our goals, we have to be willing to give whatever it takes to accomplish them.

The advancements in distance learning are exciting. Today’s homeschooling families have access to volumes of information with just the click of a mouse. Thirty-five years ago I could never have imagined that in 2010 homeschoolers would have so many choices available to them. My advice is this: Take advantage of everything that makes your job as a homeschooling parent easier. Use technology to the fullest, but always remember that a computer is never a substitute for a home teacher who knows her children better than anyone else and who loves them enough to sacrifice her time so that they can succeed. At times you will be tired and discouraged, but when your last student has finished his last assignment, you will look back on these days as some of the most rewarding of your life. You will always be glad that you shared this great educational experience with the people you love the most.

Thanks for sharing your concerns with me. I will be posting my blog every Tuesday morning. I invite you to post questions that you would like to have addressed in future blogs.

                                                                     

The Three Most Important Things

Having worked in the mortgage industry for nearly twelve years, I know that any real estate agent will tell you that the three most important things in real estate are location, location, location.

Having homeschooled for twenty-five years, I know that the three most important things in homeschooling are commitment, commitment, commitment.

The first commitment is commitment to Jesus Christ. While it is true that some homeschoolers do not choose to homeschool for religious reasons, it is also true that the vast majority do. As Christian homeschooling parents we want the best possible educations for our children, but nearly always we are first attracted to homeschooling because it enables us to keep our children away from corrupting influences and classroom indoctrination that are in direct conflict with our Christian principles. Most of us agree that if our children fail to emerge from our homeschools with a firm Christian foundation that lasts a lifetime, we have failed.

The second commitment is commitment to our children. When we make the decision to homeschool, we are taking on the responsibility of ensuring that our children will be scholastically equipped to meet the challenges of the world in which they will live and work. It is a huge undertaking, and we have only one chance to get it right. Whether we homeschool  from the first grade through Master’s Degrees as I did, or only through high school, as most homeschooling parents do, we are taking on the task of educating our children so that their scholastic performance is equal to or better than their traditionally schooled counterparts. Our commitment to them includes not only preparing them to compete for admittance to colleges and universities, but to compete in an increasingly technological job market.

The third commitment is commitment to community. I am not referring to the next door neighbor, although, as Christians, we certainly have a responsibility to share Jesus Christ with those in our physical community. I am referring to the homeschooling community.  As homeschooling parents we need to encourage each other and build each other up as much as possible. Paul asks, “Is there any such thing as Christians cheering each other up?” (Philippians 2:1, Living Bible)As Christians we do need to cheer each other up, and as homeschooling Christian parents, we often need cheering up more than the average Christian parent.

My youngest child received his Master’s Degree in May of 2000. At that time I happily closed my homeschool and went to work full-time in the family business. Recently, however, I have been advised that even with all of the resources available to homeschooling parents, there is a continuing need for “cheering each other up.” That is why I have chosen to write this blog. In future blogs I will discuss my methods for conquering the little things that are often responsible for causing homeschooling parents to throw up their hands and say, “I just can’t do this anymore!”

You will like some of the suggestions and not like others. Think of this blog as a smorgasbord—take from it what you like and leave the rest. If you have questions you would like answered, post them in the comments section, and I will address them in future blogs. I look forward to sharing this journey with you.