Back to Homeschool part 1

Randi at I have to say... is hosting Back to Homeschool week. She's put forth one question for each day this week. I'm already two days behind, so we'll see if I can catch up.

What led to your decision to homeschool? Why do you do what you do? What brought you to homeschooling? What factors played a part in your decision?

Well, this could be a long story. Let me begin by saying that we feel called by God to homeschool. We firmly believe that this is His best for our family. That is the number one, largest, neon sign reason to teach our children at home. If this were not the number one reason, I would not pursue this very difficult task that requires so much sacrifice on my part.

The other reasons follow.

1. I have a hunk of an education degree. While I was doing my classroom observations, I had a good look at about 10 different classrooms in this state. I watched the smart kids get ignored, the not-so-smart ones get pampered, the average ones get bored, and the rowdy ones making everything difficult for everybody. The kids were overall nice to each other, but learning was difficult at best, and in some cases, teaching was nearly non-existent because so much time was spent on discipline. This was the same old environment - the one I'd grown up in - and if no one could have made changes in it by now, then I wouldn't be able to change it either, and I didn't want to put my kids into it. When I changed degree programs, my then-fiance-now-husband and I had a serious talk about how our children would be educated. We decided on private schools. That was when we thought we'd be DINKs for a few years before we had kids. Once we were married, we were pregnant in five months. Private schools? Who can afford that? It wasn't just the price - the situation isn't that much better at private schools.

2. As children, my husband and I both spend a lot of time at the head of the class and bored. We each had a constructive way of dealing with the boredom, but it was frustrating to have to wait for everybody else when we were ready to move on (different schools, same city). We live in the same area we were public-schooled in. In most cases, the public schools here have stunk and still stink. Systems are badly organized. All but the average kids are overlooked. No Child Left Behind actually made the problem worse instead of better.

3. When we were asked to put Bookworm#1 into the public school system to receive therapies after he aged out of the early childhood program for kids with special needs, we had all the meetings. We met all the people. It was got for about six months. I did not sign the medical release form that allowed them contact with our doctors without our knowledge or participation. Then someone from "The System" called the pediatrician's office we used and asked a doctor who had never seen #1 if he could come to school full-time instead of receiving therapy at home. The doctor apparently agreed to it, though we hadn't, and the large group of specialists hadn't. So, the school canceled all of our home therapy and said that if he wasn't in their building from 9am-3pm five days a week, they didn't have to do anything for him. The geneticist, cardiologist, and our regular, beloved pediatrician just about came unglued. And that is putting it lightly - The King and I were livid. We withdrew him from the system, and we definitely will not put any of our children into THIS sneaky public school system ever. Should they need to go to public school, we will move first.

4. Because we like to keep our children with us. We like them (most of the time) and we love them completely all of the time. We want to have a strong family - for our children to be close friends, and to enjoy each other. We want them to have lots of time for childhood, so we want to teach them at their own paces a little bit at a time and enjoy the years we have with them. We want to watch every step of their learning process and see the light bulbs coming on. We want them to learn to be themselves and to interact with all ages of people and to love all people. We want to teach them to love Jesus and to think and to reason and to love people and show Jesus to them. We want to teach them how to teach themselves and to love learning.

5. We are history and science buffs who want more time to learn - and it will be fun to study as a family.