Homeschooling, Unschooling, Public Schooling

This year we made the big jump of bringing out kids our of the private school they have attended their entire school careers minus eight months. They are in the 4th and 7th grade. Toni, the Happy Housewife, posted this morning "Why do you homeschool?". Well that's a good question. Honestly? The truest, honest answer that is most accurate is, we sought the Lord, and He revealed His will for us. It was very easy to yield to, which I found VERY ironic considering three short years ago, I prayed and prayed and prayed for peace about homeschooling and found NONE. (See first link in post.) Then you go into the "sub-reasons" for homeschooling (in no particular order of priority) a) it's much lesser expensive, which will afford our family more opportunities to do things that can honor the Lord b) I'm tired of being "poor" (oh, did I say that out loud?) c) it will work better with my at home work schedule when the 2012 election season gets in high gear ... oh there's more, those are the highlights.

I thought Toni made a good point, that I will add to my own reasons, when she said:

"The bottom line is that the system is broken. As a homeschooler we’ve chosen to flee the system rather than try to fix it and many people think that is the wrong solution... Teach your child to think, to question, to solve problems, to challenge the status quo. Focus less on grades and grade levels and more on learning experiences.
When they ask Why teach them how to find the answer."

We've only been at it for four weeks, but I have already had this revelation. One of my kids become paralyzed when they get to a point where they do not know an answer. I found this really surprising and we've been working on this for the past week. At first glance it just seemed they wanted to have you give them the answer, but the Lord revealed their lack of confidence in their own selves to start figuring out the solution on their own. WOW!

Toni had linked to this article on Seth Godin's blog, which is a very good article with valid points that anyone who is responsible for the education of children should read. That article, made me think about an article I read some time back on Jessica's blog (Bohemian Bowmans), that contained a video. I highly, HIGHLY recommend spending a few minutes in her post, and for you to watch that video. It makes tons of sense, and if it doesn't to you now, it will make you think about the ideas and it will eventually make sense :) Not to mention, in this article, Jessica hit on the very "heart reason" that made it so easy for me to say "yes" to homeschooling, when I was the one who said for years "I do not have that kind of relationship with my kids to be able to be with them all day, much less do school":

"I was becoming painfully aware of how quickly their childhoods were going to be over and what a sucky job I was doing as a parent to pass on to them what I actually thought was important. None of which was found in this place called “school” that I was sending them away to 8 hours a day...It was to create an authentic loving relationship with them that would go beyond parent and child, to discipler and disciplee."

Now, for my 'local' friends of mine, as you know, we are not doing anything near close to 'unschooling'... this year. I'm not even going to say whether what we're doing is actually working. I believe it might be too soon, because there have been too many extremes of emotions going on in this house in the past four weeks to know whether what we're doing is positive or negative at this point. I do know, I love getting up in the morning and not having to be anywhere, and know that we're late when we get there. That's awesome :)

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