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July 30, 2014
Our family began its homeschooling journey almost 19 years ago when our oldest turned 5. Instrumental in our decision to homeschool was a family we knew. The mother was a former public school teacher, the father, a pastor and their (then) 4 boys were delightful. I asked my friend why she, a teacher, would homeschool. Her response was not what I expected from a pastor's wife. It had nothing to do with religion or dogma or doctrine. She simply said that she knew how much time was wasted in a school setting, and she didn't want to do that with her sons' education. Hmm. We also had local friends who were homeschooling for religious reasons, so I figured we wouldn't be the only ones in the community doing this! And, honestly, I was enjoying my kids and not ready to pack them off to the local school, so we started the adventure.
And that is exactly what it has been, an adventure. We have had fun, tears, laughter, yelling, you name it, but mostly my friend was right. We had more time. As busy as we are now, I shudder to think what it would be like if we had to conform to a rigid school schedule. It would make accommodating my husband's very variable work schedule difficult. The kids would not have had the time to develop their own unique interests, and the time to take to learn the difficult subjects that were harder for some of them to master than others. Just today, I read a Home School Legal Defense article that talked about letting your child have time to be a kid. I think homeschooling has allowed us to do everything we wanted to do and still give the kids time to curl up in bed and read for pleasure or go play in the yard or even get enough sleep! Oh the blessedness of being able to let them sleep til 8 or 9 after getting home from theater or an out of town basketball game late! If they had been going to public school they would have had to be at the school house by 8 am trying to function even if they hadn't gotten home until midnight.
Well, we stuck the journey out and are now coming to the end. Our oldest is a sergeant in the US Army. Our second child has graduated from Texas A&M University with honors, after struggling with learning disabilites! She is now married and about to make us grandparents! Child number three graduated this year and will be starting college in the fall. Our final homeschool student will be a highschool sophomore this year. When people ask me how I like homeschooling, my answer is that most days I like it just fine. Some days I love it, and others I am just glad to survive, but I am so glad we did it.
Linda (and Dan!) Hale
