Yesterday while picking up a few groceries I happened to notice that hidden behind the fireworks, red, white and blue napkins, plastic tablecloths and discounted gas grills was a full display of pencils, notebooks and bottles of Elmer’s glue all awaiting eager back to school shoppers. There was in my heart about 30 seconds of regret that my children will not soon be picking up their “back to school” supply list. They won’t be getting a wardrobe of new clothes, and a backpack.  There will be no evening with them carefully putting their names on their pencil boxes and crayons. (though many classrooms have switched to a “community property” rule when it comes to school supplies)… and with that my entire regret that we switched to homeschooling our children passed.

Deciding to homeschool was a big step for us. We are staring at the start of our second year homeschooling and I am looking at it with a mix of excitement and the normal stress that accompanies any large endeavor. And homeschooling is in ways a large endeavor. It takes time, both planning and implementing. There are moments when the kids just do not want to do their studies and times where other pressing things get in the way. But overall I know this is the best solution for our family

One thing that strikes me as rather amusing at the moment is how homeschooling is viewed by so much of the world. Now, I will grant that having six children makes us rather insane looking to the common populace, then add the homeschooling thing on top of that and people you meet become quite convinced that you are completely insane without uttering another word. Until you walk into the local Catholic homeschool group then we are all nuts together.

 

 One thing that really makes me glad that we decided to homeschool is hearing about what children in schools are actually doing.

Right now my son is diagramming sentences. Yes, I know this is cruel. The Random Yak has a wonderful post about her child’s history assignment. While I will freely admit that creativity and personal expression are wonderful things for a child to learn I am with the Yak on her assessment of this assignment.

We have just finished the New Kingdom of Egypt and I am really, really looking forward to Greece. We have reading, art projects and even a field trip to the museum planned. But nothing so creative as making postage stamps. We will be doing a good bit of memorization and history reports that will be sadly heavy on writing about historical facts .

Interestingly the Anchoress (yes, yes I read her frequently) writes about the SAT’s essay portion:

“ Like so much of post-modernist bunk, students can meet the trick if they simply learn “the form” of a thing without learning its function or substance.”

I can’t help but wonder what “Yak the younger” and classmates will be seeing on their SAT’s. I shudder to think they might actually be writing paragraphs about how math problems make them feel for the math portion and doing creative brain-storming collages for the verbal section. If you think that is alarmist you need to take a look at my High School Freshman daughter’s Algebra Text.   Is it really any surprise that schools are having trouble educating our children?  It is as though they have forgotten what it means to be educated.

 

We are a Catholic, homeschooling family.

Homeschooling was our response to a small crisis that was created when the parish school our children had been attending raised its tuition.  We simply couldn’t afford to pay the tuition.  Our options became limited, we could either homeschool or enroll our children in the public school.  The decision was remarkably easy once it was made and we have had no regrets about the choice. 

We are very lucky in several ways.  First we aren’t alone in this by any means.  My mother is a veteran teacher, and while she isn’t a big fan of homeschooling in general she has been incrediably supportive of our homeschooling.  We are blessed to live in an area with an active Catholic homeschooling community.  These are traditional Catholics.  The center of this community is Holy Rosary Parish.  It is so delightful to walk into a room of parents who are all open to life, loyal to the magisterium of the Church, and homeschooling.  The group has a co-op of sorts which hosts a variety of lessons.    The support of our decision to homeschool is there, thick and rich.   When combined with other community and online resources it is almost overwhelming. There is no lack of educational and social options.