Homeschooling Is....

By Ginger Schollenberger

Perhaps this is your first year of homeschooling or maybe you’re a veteran of many years. Maybe you are exploring options for your children’s education. I just finished my fourth year of homeschooling and I’ve discovered that educating my kids at home doesn’t look anything like I imagined before I started. Let me paint a word picture for you.

Homeschooling is learning beside your children. It’s discovering a new passion for a subject you disliked in school. It’s the joy of digging deeper into something you’ve always wanted to know more about. It’s the satisfaction of passing along your fascination with your favorite topics.

Homeschooling is knowing that God called you to this ministry of educating your children. It’s also wondering if perhaps you mistakenly overheard His direction for some other family.

Homeschooling is choosing between the piles of laundry waiting to be washed and reading one more chapter of that great book. It’s often a compromise—you will read one more chapter and the kids will help tackle the laundry. Of course, their laundry labors get written down as ‘life skills’ for record keeping.

Homeschooling is attending a curriculum fair and wondering if you missed the part that said denim jumpers were required attire. It’s feeling bewildered when you see how many programs there are to teach phonics or history or math or spelling. It’s the excitement of seeing an art program that’s the perfect fit for your family.

Homeschooling is seeing and hearing the ‘ah-ha’ in your child when reading (or math or science) finally clicks. It’s like watching your baby take his first steps, only more satisfying.

Homeschooling is wondering how other moms get it all done. Everyone has one homeschooling friend that seems to have it all together. If you drop by, she has freshly baked cookies, two neat projects her kids have just completed and a spotless house. But one day you catch her at a bad time and hear her kids quarrelling in the background while she stumbles over stuff scattered everywhere. Then you know that you and she are both normal.

                Homeschooling is explaining (again) that socialization is a fancy name for learning how to get along with people and that kids can be socialized with their siblings. It’s wondering if your kids will ever learn to get along. It’s being proud of them when they all work to get dinner on the table when you’re down with the flu.

Homeschooling is going ahead with school on a day when other kids are off. It’s taking a day off to go sledding or to make a snow sculpture. It’s celebrating a warm February afternoon at the park. It’s getting the garden ready and mulching the flowerbeds while your kids bring you their creepy-crawly discoveries. It’s making sure you have all the field guides with you whenever you go outside.

Homeschooling is cozying up to your favorite curriculum catalog with a highlighter and making a wish list. It’s hearing the UPS man on the porch and finding a box of new books. It’s diving into them and finding that some are so interesting you can’t wait to teach while you wonder why you bought others.

Homeschooling is wondering if you’ve left gaps in your kid’s education. It’s knowing that gaps are unavoidable: that’s why you’re learning alongside your kids. It’s knowing that teaching your kids how to find out what they need to know is indispensable.

Homeschooling is wondering if you’re pushing too hard or not pushing hard enough when it takes your child half an hour to do five addition problems and she’s in tears over it.

Homeschooling is developing an intimate acquaintance with the library card catalog system and being on a first-name basis with all the librarians. It’s bringing laundry baskets to the library to cart your books home.

Homeschooling is wondering how you’re going to occupy your eight-year-old son during your annual gynecology appointment. It’s hoping your family doesn’t take up all the chairs in the orthodontist’s waiting room.

Homeschooling is listening to your children play together in a glorious hash of historical events, scientific facts, and literary figures. You hear them playing that Henry VIII discovered gravity when Johnny Appleseed dropped apples on his head.

Finally, homeschooling is a lifestyle of discipleship and learning for the whole family. Education isn’t just for kids anymore!

 Ginger Schollenberger is wife to Scott and mom to three daughters. She makes time to read, write and quilt between homeschooling adventures at their home on the East coast.  Copyright 2003.

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