Tea Time 0002 - Homeschooling: Changing a Cultural Mindset

Homeschooling: Changing a Cultural Mindset

As I get on the KONOS e-loop and read all the different activities, the different topics, the different ideas, the different subjects that each mom is investigating and teaching... a flood of memories sweep over me. I think back to when Wade and I started homeschooling 23-years ago not knowing what or where our decision would bring our family. We began homeschooling during a dangerous era. The day we took Jason out of first grade, that night on the news, was the story of the Short family who had been called up before the Justice of the Peace, because they had taken their daughter out of the very same school district we took Jason out of! Wade and I looked at each other. I remember asking him, "Are you ready to go to jail over homeschooling?" We were not sure what we were ready to sacrifice at the time. The only thing we were sure of was that we were supposed to be homeschooling.

We had not started out wanting to homeschool. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Wade and I had had a wonderful public school education in a idyllic setting. We had known each other since first grade and had gone to school from first grade through high school with the same kids. Everyone knew everyone else. There was an incredible sense of community growing up in Oak Cliff in Dallas, TX. We had great teachers that you even invited to your weddings. After graduating from college, we had both taught in the public schools. We had purposely moved to a suburb that had the same feel as our Oak Cliff neighborhood had had and enrolled Jason, our oldest, in the elementary school down the street. He could walk to school and I could be the room mother. It all seemed so perfect! And it was... for a while.

Imagine my surprise one day about 3 weeks into the 1st grade, Jason came home and reported that a boy he had really liked in kindergarten was not in his 1st grade class. CJ’s mom, Carole, was homeschooling him. "What is homeschooling?" I asked. My six-year-old shrugged his shoulders and said, "I guess that means she is teaching him at home," to which I replied, "Ridiculous!" My mission was to set Carole straight when I first rang her doorbell, but after a week of arguing with and listening to Carole and Charles, Wade and I were convinced homeschooling was what we should be doing with our children. And so began our adventure, our journey that would impact our lives beyond anything we every imagined.

Reflections of my years homeschooling, form a backdrop for the e-loop questions today. In a visionary moment it comes to me... we have changed a culture!! We have been part of a major paradigm shift! Think about it. The e-loop questions reflect moms actively involved in teaching their own children. "Where can I get cow’s eyeballs to dissect?" "Does anyone have any tips on setting up the ear for me?" "Help! I am having trouble with an eight-year-old who doesn’t want to read?" You are saying under your breath, "OK... so what else is new?" I answer, "Listen to the pronouns in those questions. They are I and me." Those little pronouns represent a paradigm shift!

Growing up, my mother wanted me to have the very best in education, so she found someone good to teach me all the subjects I needed. My mother found experts to give me my education. The moms on the e-loop have become the experts. The moms themselves are giving their own children their education. As moms, we know what that means on a daily individual family basis, but what does that mean in the grand scheme of things? Not only is there an entirely different kind of education being developed here, but there is an entirely different level of intimacy and relationship that arise from homeschooling.

The intimacy that develops because of homeschooling is far deeper than most families ever experience mainly due to the volume of time homeschoolers spend with their children. Moms and kids spend an entire lifetime getting to know each other heart to heart as they walk though every day of homeschool. Moms do not just receive reports from others on their child’s actions and behavior, moms witness their child’s actions and behavior daily placing them in an excellent position to recognize the MOTIVES and heart of their child. In addition, a large volume of time spent with these children is spent developing godly character as well as teaching to their intellect. Homeschoolers teach to the most intimate part of a being...the heart where the deepest intimacy is established.

Likewise, there is an entirely different relationship that develops because of homeschooling. Moms are not merely the chauffeur to events and the pay roller of kid classes; they have become co-laborers with their children in education. If we are studying China and the Chinese exhibit comes to our city, the entire family rejoices at God’s provision. If fungi is the topic, and mushrooms pop up in the front yard after a rain, everyone is excited. The learning is more than learning...it is a shared experience. It is a memory that people share and memories cement relationships. Homeschool allows for many more memories to be created cementing deep relationships.

The education provided by homeschool is tailored specifically for each child as the mother teaches a child instead of a curriculum. This in itself is a radical departure from the cookie cutter classroom and broaches an entirely new level in education. Since the advent and growth of public education, we have thought and taught masses and classes rather that individuals. Individuals became numbers who filled in test blanks and later found their grades posted next to their social security number. Not only do homeschoolers consider it our privilege to teach each individual child, we consider it our duty to assist each child in identifying his or her gifts and talents as well as our calling to enlighten each child to the responsibility of using those gifts and talents for the Lord.

In a culture that screams for independence, homeschoolers have chosen family and community. In a culture that exalts intellect, homeschoolers have taught first to the heart and then to the head. In a culture where parents seek to abdicate education to the government school, homeschoolers have sought to reclaim the education of their sons and daughters as commanded in Scripture teaching them His Word as well as all the subjects of His Creation. God tells us, "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up." How incredibly exciting to not only be part of a paradigm shift, but to have caused it...to literally have changed a portion of the culture for not only for good but for His glory. Amen!