Today I am feeling led to talk about our homeschool story. So that is what I am going to do. I want to tell you how my husband and I decided to homeschool our two little blessings. First, I need to explain that I am not degrading anyone who chooses not to homeschool, and these are our own personal opinions about homeschooling. I really want to show how it was a big decision that my husband and I really had to pray about. So on that note....
Deciding to homeschool was a very huge decision for my husband and I. However, it really wasn't hard to come up with the answer either. Let me begin by giving you a little background on how I started to learn what homeschooling was. I remember being about 10 or 11 and moving to a new neighborhood. I met this girl who was the same age as me and I was so excited. I was hoping that we would be best friends and we would be in the same class and I would feel comfortable starting a new school with someone I knew. Until she told me she was homeschooled. Homeschool? What? Homeschool? What is homeschool? I have never heard of homeschool? So I asked her "what in the world is homeschool"? She then gives me a look like I had just come from under a rock. My new friend had then told me that she does school at home, and her mom is her teacher. OHHHHHH I said, like the lightbulb went off. Home + School = homeschool. Over time I would ask her questions about homeschooling, you know the typical ones "do you like being homeschooled" "do you have any friends" "and do you think your mom will homeschool me"? This was my first experience meeting a "real homeschooler".
Fast forward about 15 years and now I am married with two blessings and living in England. My daughter was attending the DODDS (Department of Defense District School) pre-k class, and she was loving it. I on the other hand was not loving it, I was missing her like crazy. I just figured that it would take time for me to get use to her being gone all day. I still had my son at home with me and I thought it would be good for him and I to have our time together. I met one lady who was homeschooling two of her three children, and of course I asked her children "do you like being homeschooled?" The two being homeschooled said yes they loved it. My friend and I talked about homeschooling and she was telling me that I should homeschool my daughter next year because Kindergarten is so easy. I said thank you for the idea but I said politely "I do not want to make my daughter "not smart" (I used another word here and thought not smart would sound better ;)
Fast forward again about four years. Now I am living in Maryland and my daughter now was attending a public school on the Army base. Kindergarten was okay she was only going half days which she was not happy about. In England she was going all day and she was looking forward to Kindergarten because she was able to eat in the cafeteria!! However, not Maryland, and she was so sad. We had one experience in this class with a little boy that was very aggressive. He chose to make some very graphic comments to my daughter about how he was going to "get rid" of our dog. My daughter came home crying and it took me all night to explain to her that this boy would probably run away because he would be scared of our dog because she was a large dog(couple of weeks later my hubby and daughter were out walking our dog and guess who they ran into....or should I say guess who ran away.) I then met a lady who is now one of my best friends and is now living in California. She had two children in my daughter's class and she told me that next year for first grade she was homeschooling her children. Really??? I asked her, what is making you choose to homeschool? She explained her reasons to me and of course I asked "aren't you scared that you will make your children "not smart"? It was great to hear her say yes, not that that was a good thing it was just nice to hear that she was worried about the same things, but she then went on to tell me that God will help her, and she had comfort in that.
At that moment my mind was racing and I started looking back to my previous encounters with homeschoolers. All I could think about was "Am I really considering this???"
To be continued.....
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