People sometimes ask me why I have chosen to home school. My first thought is that it is not ME, but WE. Greg and I decided to home school even before our oldest was ready to hit the books. We talked about it and discussed it for quite awhile, and we both became certain that the Lord was leading us down this route. We were attracted to the thought of home school for one big reason: Discipleship.
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Often the assumption becomes that we are trying to form our own little bubble and protect our kids from the world. The opposite is true. It is our desire to lead them by example, by the grace of God, in how to live in the world, but not become focused on the things of the world. We desire to expose them to the world, not shield them from it. Sometimes this means that they see us fail and we seek their forgiveness. We do not try to keep them in a bubble, but rather we have real life, true discussions of good and evil. After all, if one just reads through the Old Testament, evil will quickly be discovered in the first chapters...deceit, murder, etc.
Unfortunately, even at church, with a couple of adults in charge of 12-20 kids, things happen. Wrong things. There have been countless times when something has happened and a child of mine comes home to tell me all about it...maybe someone said a bad word, hit, or was mean in some way. When I asked them how they responded to it, often in the discussion I am told that the teacher could not help because he/she was busy.
This scenario does not make me upset at the teacher, nor does it make me upset at the child who has treated my child with unkindness, but what it does tell me is that naturally, events like this happen in even the "holiest" of places (if there is such a thing!) simply because we live in a sinful world and we are completely sinful ourselves. I want to be there to walk my child through the times they have been cheated along with the times that they themselves choose to follow evil. It goes back to the verse above. I want to take every opportunity I can to discuss with them how we can love the Lord our God, and how we can love others around us.
The time with them is already short enough. The kids were asking me just today why we home school and I was able to have such a great discussion with them. Somewhere in the conversation I told them how many hours away they would be from home every school day and how many hours we would have together as a family before it was time for bed. Micah blurted out: "We would NEVER see you or Daddy because we we would get home from school we would be so tired." They both told me that they were thankful that we home schooled.
Second, one of my favorite quotes on education:
"Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire." W.B. Yeats
Most schools do not hold this philosophy. And, really, I cannot blame them. I have worked at numerous schools to know that often the drive behind education is the push from parents wanting their child to be the best. Parents often have this sense of placing their own child's education on a platform and it somewhat becomes an idol itself. More information is better. In fact, let's drown our kids with information. Stuff it in. They will be much better off that way. And, I will be able to prove just how smart my kids, our kids are.
I believe that a child has learned something when and only when he/she can have a meaningful discussion about it and share, by way of communication or example, what they have learned. I have also worked with countless students who, even in fifth grade cannot hold a pencil the right way. I have also worked with middle school students who cannot even read but do OK on state testing simply because they guess on multiple choice tests. Yes, they tell this directly to me. I see older students grip a pencil with all of their might causing their fingers tire out very easily. I have also worked in places where, in the younger years, the emphasis becomes perfecting something like pencil grip SO THAT by the time they are older, the student is writing with ease. I have learned the approach to this kind of education, TAKES PATIENCE and focus on something like pencil grip doesn't really seem important. Remember, more information is better...so how can we spend SO MUCH time on pencil grip?
I have seen kids struggle so much in the area of pencil grip, that everything else becomes completely frustrating. They are shut down and cannot take anything in. They feel like a failure. I see these kids in Sunday school classes. Kids who go to the "best schools." It's like any normal adult not knowing how to drive and needing everyone else to take them places. I can have compassion on them. It would be frustrating to know that you should be able to do something, but you just can't. You haven't received proper instruction in it or shown patience in the matter.
Of course, there are always kids who excel at something the first time they attempt it. There are the kids who get bored easily because they process and learn things quickly. For them, "more is better" quickly becomes the motto. I have a child like this. Another great thing about homeschooling is the freedom to look at each child as an INDIVIDUAL, not a small person placed in a box that needs to go through some kind of system obtaining needed parts along every stop or grade level. I have chosen to look at the "big picture" of teaching kids and have learned that by the end of elementary school there are some things that kids NEED to master. The bottom line is that some kids take longer than others.
I believe that just as beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, so does intelligence.
I know adults who excel in the area of Arts but find the area of Mathematics difficult. They are brilliant in one area, but struggle in the next. I know kids that show a similar pattern. They excel in the arts but are required to work very hard in an area like Math. Isn't it obvious that we all have different gifts? That is not to say that I will not force my child struggling in Math to learn key components of that subject. It may just take a little more time and patience. And, I refuse to even give my child a glimpse of the fact that they aren't "good" at that subject. Perhaps that is why I have become so passionate about education. I remember hearing from teachers along the way that I simply would never be good at certain subjects. I received those statements from elementary school all the way through high school.
In our house, the phrases "I don't know," or "I can't do this," is not allowed to be a part of our vocabulary.
I truly believe that an excellent teacher leads by example and becomes the student or child's number one encourager. I look at my role as teacher to my kids as simply the person who places in each of them a strong desire to learn and become life long learners. Yes, I force them to learn things along the way, like Math facts, vocabulary and such, but I also consider these simply the tools to allow them to thrive in higher level thinking. I also focus on teaching them to use tools in order to allow them to educate their own minds.
Lighting a fire.
I love learning. I love reading. I love finding ways to strengthen my brain. The funny thing is that I have just discovered this about myself in the adult years of my life.
Perhaps I didn't fit into the box I was given as a child in school.
That is why I want a different education for my kids. I want them to meet their FULL potential of who God UNIQUELY made them to be. And, I want them to recognize this at a young age...
so that they can learn to serve Him with the gifts that He has blessed them with.
After all, I fully believe that God never makes mistakes,
and it is comforting to trust that He, ultimately, will give them EVERY tool to become what He has called them to be-both in their brains and in their personalities.
No comments:
Post a Comment