When I was a little girl, my parents pulled
my brother and I out of the public school system and brought us home to learn.
I was in the fifth grade. My brother was in the second. Mom and Dad were trying
out some newfangled idea that they’d heard about from one of my dad’s patients,
the idea of teaching your own children all they needed to know at home. It
seemed a bold move at the time, one which only the daring attempted. My mom and
dad were some of the pioneers of the movement. They were the objects of criticism
and concern by many of their friends and family members. Most had never heard
of it.
I remember Mom breaking the news to the authorities at the
school where I attended. It was just before the new school year was to start.
While we were there, I was asked to go up the hall of my former school to a
classroom. I had to collect something-or-other. While Mom talked with the
school personnel in the front office, I walked up the hallway toward my old
classroom alone. I was immediately
surrounded by a crowd of my former teachers and their colleagues. I was
bombarded with questions. “Why are your parents home schooling you? Were they
unhappy with the school? Were they unhappy with your teachers? Is your mother a
qualified teacher? How is she going to teach you with all of those little
brothers and sisters running around? What about your friends?” I stared blankly at them, not really knowing
how to respond. My fifth grade self instinctively knew that something was wrong
with the whole picture. They were so...panicked. They knew so little about the idea of this
so-called home schooling and clearly disapproved of the whole situation, this blatant
breaking of “the rules” about how things were supposed to be done. As we walked back out to the car, I relayed
the whole scene to my mother. Their concerned faces and tones had cast doubts
in my mind about the plan my parents had for my education. Was this really such
a good idea? What was it about their decision that would make me the object of
a combination of fear and wonder by authority figures who had formerly been
responsible for educating me? By placing me in this situation, had they
sentenced me to a downward spiral into doom, from which I could never hope to
recover? What the heck were they doing?!?
It must’ve been difficult for my mother. She and Dad felt
convicted that this was what God wanted for their family. Homeschooling
was very different from what it is now. Support systems were minimal.
Information was hard to find. People seemed generally unsupportive. We were
doing something considered freakish for the times. None of their friends did
it. Nobody at church did it. We were weird. Visits to the grocery store, the
library, or anywhere else during school hours garnered remarks and head shaking
about why we were out during the day. “Were we out of school for the day?” they
wondered. When we explained that we were home schooled they would usually get a
puzzled expression and either stand there speechless, or start asking even more
questions.
During our first year of home schooling, Mom was pregnant
with my sister, Hannah. She was extremely sick. She laid on the couch for months
that year, getting down to ninety pounds. She was so weak; I remember her
slowly shuffling across the house each time she had to use the restroom. She
was bent over like an old lady. She was weak and sickly. I know she felt
terrible. I didn’t make things any easier on her. I was angry! I was belligerent. I remember shouting at
her, “You can’t teach me! You aren’t even a real teacher!” What an ignorant
brat I was! Mom was juggling four children and pregnant with a fifth. She was
so sick. She lost lots of weight and people from church started bringing us
food. Mom trudged through that first year of school to the best of her ability.
I remember
feeling so lonely back then. While attending public schools, I had been extremely
social. I had lots of friends at school. I was one of the more outgoing
students, voted class clown, always up to some sort of shenanigan, more of a
leader than a follower. Being social was
pretty important to me. Realizing this, my mom found out that the local home
schooling group met regularly at a nearby skating rink one day a week and
started bringing our family to participate. I resisted her efforts to try to
get me to incorporate into this group. I hated going to the activities. I told
my mother of my misery and how I didn’t like to hang out with the people there.
They all wore funny denim skirts and held hands with their brothers and
sisters. I was a big fat snob. I felt so sad. I missed my school social life.
Since I didn’t see my “good friends” from school on a regular basis, they
mostly forgot about me. It was a very hard time for me. When we would go to the
skating rink or any of the other activities that mom and the other mothers put
together for us, I would put my nose up in the air and roll my eyes at the
people there. I was terrible. What a brat! I believe that ultimately these
years of being on the outside were character building years, ones that made me
more empathetic and compassionate towards people who are different or left out.
God used these years for lots of things, but this was one good thing that came
from those years of heartache.
I did eventually meet
a few girls that I was able to be friendly with, so that helped. It was funny.
I remember feeling like in the public schools I’d had the reputation as being
from the one of the most super conservative families among my peers and their
parents. I’d had to leave several events because the movies were deemed
inappropriate by my parents and was far more sheltered than most of my friends.
I remember sometimes being the one who
was secretly judging my friends or the habits of their families as bad choices.
As a new home schooler though, I found that I was often the one who felt
judged. I remember always being afraid of one girl’s mom in particular, who
always seemed to be viewing me through a magnifying glass. This woman’s face
possessed an unintentional scowl. Through her frown lines, I felt like she saw
me as some sort of a corrupting influence in her daughter’s life. When this
girl would come over to play, I remember being so scared that I would do or say
the wrong thing and that she wouldn’t be allowed to play with me ever again.
This girl and I became great friends and her mother eventually grew less
concerned about her daughter keeping company with me, but I was always cautious
in her presence.
My parents were conservative and religious, but only in
comparison to my public schooled friends. When you put them in with the home
schooled crowd, they could be viewed by some as the black sheep of the bunch.
What would make us appear this way? Maybe it was because we watched secularly
minded television shows, “risqué” shows like Family Matters and Full House. I had Barbie dolls. I listened to the New Kids
on the Block and read secular books. Our family didn’t have nightly family
devotions. I didn’t wear denim skirts. My parents didn’t believe in courting.
The list goes on and on. Most people were homeschooling their children back
then because they were extremely religious. It was so different than it is now.
When we started home schooling, back in the late eighties,
safety was a concern. Mom joined something called the Home School Legal Defense
Association. For a yearly fee, this was an organization that provided a lawyer
in case someone tried to take your children away from you for a home school
related reason. The law at the time stated that we didn’t have to answer to
anyone. There had been cases of school authorities coming to a child’s house,
knocking on the door and trying to take the child away because the family had
opted out of the public school system. Mom had coached us on how to respond to
questions or what to do if someone came to our door. In a small way, it felt as
though we were running from the Nazis, even though everything we were doing was
perfectly legal. There was a sense of hiding out from those pesky school
authorities that I knew were out to rain on our parade. So many people were
ignorant about the laws. Many people were just unsure, especially older people.
We got lots of, “Those kids should be in school! How are they going to be socialized?”
Mom had done her research and found that plentiful data
existed on homeschooled children that reflected highly on both their test performance
and social skills. It seemed that even back in the late eighties, homeschooled
children were being sought after by universities all over the nation for their
academic successes.
So much has changed over the last almost thirty years! People
are being drawn toward the idea of home schooling by the droves! I hear from
people all the time who are prayerfully considering home schooling for their
family. I love that my children and I don’t have to be pioneers. They aren’t
alone. Probably a third of their friends from church are homeschooled. My kids
have lots of friends.
People who home school their children are no longer viewed as
denim skirt wearing vigilantes. They are your everyday people. They are often
highly-educated, passionate people who just want to do something good for their
kids. Though some of the people are doing it for religious reasons, many just
want to hang out with their kids more or cater to their unique learning needs
or whatever. I think home schooled families are generally people who want to
make their own rules and do things their own way. In my experience sometimes
home schooled families have trouble with following rules. They are still
pioneers, searching for better avenues of educating their little ones.
There are opportunities everywhere for the family who chooses
to educate their children at home! There are curriculums that are tailor made for every type of
homeschooled family. There are programs for people who don’t want to do any
teaching and people who want to be right by their children’s side all day long. There
are social networks, academic resources, anything and everything anyone who was
interested might every need or want. It is truly amazing just how far
homeschooling has come!
I know that
home schooling isn’t for every family. I am grateful that we live in a country
where people can choose how they want their children to be educated. We live in
a land of options. My next post will
detail why we feel that homeschooling is best for our little family and try to
answer many of the questions that people keep asking me about the how and why
of our family’s homeschooling journey.
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