Homeschooling: My Why | Part 1
When people find out that we home-school our children, they give me one of two reactions.
The first is the most common, "That's awesome! Good for you!"
(Surround yourself with encouraging people, guys. It will do wonders for your soul.)
But then there are those people whose first response is to tilt their heads, scrunch up their eyebrows and ask in an are-you-some-sort-of-idiot tone, "Why?"
They just can't wrap their heads around it. They either don't fully understand what homeschooling is, or they do understand the what, but don't get the why. And why would they? If they have never experienced it, or seen it first hand, they are probably picturing something very different from reality.
For this reason, I've started a series of posts on the blog that cover "My Why".
You can look up "How to Home-school", "When to Home-school", or "What is Homeschooling?" pretty much anywhere. But, the why? That will vary from family to family. We all have different reasons for teaching our children at home, and they don't ALL have to do with religion or spiritual beliefs (as many onlookers tend to believe). Though that is very much a factor in my family, it's not the only one. The posts in this series will each cover one reason (other than our Christian faith) we love teaching our children at home.
Reason #1 More focus on individual needs.
Public and private school teachers need a holiday in their honor. They need a parade. They need raises and FAR more praise than they are currently receiving. Teaching. Is. HARD. I can't image having to teach a room full of children or teens every day. Lesson plans, long days, dealing with attitudes, making sure each child is keeping up... I can't say this enough: TEACHERS ARE AMAZING.
I want to stress that again. Teachers rock. My reason for homeschooling has nothing to do with public and private school teachers themselves but, rather, the size of the classes and the lessons taught. If I sent my children to school, my first grader would be doing first grade work. My third grader would learn third grade lessons. That's how it works. Teachers teach based on grade. And, for a lot of kids, that works just fine.
Now, let me tell you about my kiddos.
My first grade boy has a head for numbers. He definitely doesn't get that from me! When we started school last year, I bought him a first grade math book. He blew through half the book (and I'm not exaggerating here, HALF the book) in the first two weeks. So, I went ahead and bought grade two. We finished both books. Now he is re-reading book two AND doing third grade work, and we are not even done with his first grade year! He even knew many of the answers in the fourth grade diagnostic test I recently gave my daughter. He's a numbers man.
BUT....when we got into his first grade language book, he struggled. He is a fantastic reader, but grammar, spelling, etc. he just couldn't seem to grasp it. So, we took it REALLY slow. I would rather do the lessons more slowly and make sure he is GETTING IT than speed through just to check off a box. And THAT is something that is extremely difficult for teachers who have classrooms full of students. One-on-one student time isn't easy with a large class.
ON THE FLIP SIDE, my third grade girl is reading on a 6th-7th grade level and doing 4th-6th grade language work. She loves words. She understands them. She writes poems and songs. She diagrams sentences for fun. But she doesn't enjoy math. She doesn't hate it and she can do her third grade work, but, she doesn't retain it as well as her brother does. We often need to go back to second grade foundation work before moving on in her third grade lessons. And we can, because I can spend more time focusing on her specific needs.
Homeschooling allows me to assess each child individually, and work with their specific needs. We can back up if we need to. We can skip over things that they grasp firmly instead of wasting precious moments on unnecessary busywork. I can have a good understanding of how to help each child, what they can do on their own, and what we need to spend more time on.
That is a beautiful thing.
So, to sum it up, the first reason I love homeschooling is time on individual needs. Time spent with my children and used for their best interests, rather than just doing what everyone else their age is doing in that moment. I don't care what other 6-9 year-olds are doing right now. I can focus on making sure MY children are firmly grasping what they need to know, and not wasting time on the unnecessary. Again, this is not to say that children in public and private schools are wasting their time, or that those teachers aren't doing a fantastic job, so don't turn into a 12-year-old girl and cop a 'tude here. My point is time is precious. And homeschooling gives me that time.
Homeschooling families, I'd love to hear your Why. What makes you keep going?