Have I changed? Yes!
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| My Little Unconventional Son~Watching |
I had aspirations of being a mother. I had desires to work with children. I had dreams of being a nurse. I had dreams of traveling. I had desires of becoming an author. I had hopes of becoming a teacher. I did not want to be a missionary but God in his providence led us into home missions for twenty years.
I became the mother to 4 beautiful children. I became a nurses aid/care giver nurse of sorts. I got to spend 15 yrs. working in the church nursery. I got to travel the first five years of our marriage. I became that teacher by homeschooling my children. Have I changed? Yes! All these adventures changed me.
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| Deep Into Nancy Drew |
The purpose of this blog is to focus on one of those aspects of my life, HOMESCHOOLING.
I had never considered homeschooling until my oldest daughter turned five. I began looking at it through the lens of my own upbringing and schooling. It was 1985 and homeschooling was somewhat of a trend in my circle of friends.
I began by preparing myself by investigating my options. Although we located out to the San Fernando Valley just 2 blocks from the local elementary school where we thought our children would attend, I did not feel comfortable handing my kid over to their peers and others for the majority of their days. Each day I observed mothers, escorting their young children down the street toward school with unhappy faces.
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| My Little Banshees |
(Just a reminder from a previous blog that I was shuttled off to boarding school, with total strangers to me, at the age of six for months.) MY FIRST DAYS OF SCHOOL
MY EARLY YEARS OF SCHOOLING
We began attending CHEA conventions (Christian Home Educators Association) in the 80's when in the area and attending seminars. We were awarded a charter member certificate.
Now I know that home schooling is not for every families journey either by choice or because it is not logistically possible and I am not advocating it for every family.
I must confess that one of my reasons for home schooling was a selfish one. I wanted to continue the parent-child relationship that I had developed since birth. I just couldn't see a reason to end this just because my child reached compulsive school age.
I am so grateful God allowed me the privileges to home school and reap the results from those efforts.
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| Teacher ID card |
The motivation to home school grew out of the yearning for quality time and stability. I did not want to "waste" my time at parent-teacher conferences and school related issues that may arise because of behavior problems, and time travel.
I wanted my children to have continued relationships with each other. Something that I had not had, even though there were six of us.
I wanted to foster life long learning. I just wanted to enjoy my children.
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| My Little Gal of The Limberlost by her Swamp Shack~1991 |
I had some reservations to the secular nature of public schools and Christian Schools were beyond our financial reach.
Home schooling is part of our family legacy that I hope my children understand was made by choices made at the time with the limited knowledge, with an imperfect, sinful, inexperienced mother teacher.
I do not resent the fact that none of my grand children are home schooled. I respect those choices. As one that has been there, I know the sacrifices involved and I do not expect them to follow in those footsteps.
One becomes aware that we do not know the time or the place when our children will leave us. This became a sudden reality a couple of years ago when our son passed away. I was so grateful for all the time I spent home schooling my unconventional son and the bond we had forged.
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| Spent many "Park Days" at The Ranch |
My three daughters all high functioning readers with a strong vocabulary, verbally and otherwise excelled in most subjects.
I eventually gave up trying to bring "the school" into the home and gravitated to what may be labeled a "relaxed home schooler", leaning more to the "unschooling" approach for my son.
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| Alcove Academy temp campus in Highland Park |
What I did not realize til after the fact was how much each child picked up from their siblings and how the older ones were teaching the younger ones.
The girls all basically taught themselves to read by about age 5. They did not tarry on the primers but went straight to the interesting reads of their choice. We made many, many trips to the public library and the library at The First Baptist Church of La Cresenta and came home with an arsenal of the max each one of us could check out for three weeks. Oh how I enjoyed that quiet time when we got home as everyone found a spot to read.
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| NORTH HILLS CHRISTIAN ACADEMY STUDENTS ~Matt & Hannah |
Meanwhile, my son struggled or not, on reading. I spent so much time trying to teach him and finally I gave up around six yrs. of age. However, around the time he turned eight, I found out he had been holding out on me and he began to read, not the simple reading for beginners but he was checking out "how to's" and computer manuals well beyond his age. He learned much by osmosis. I never knew what was spinning in that mind of his.
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| NORTH HILLS CHRISTIAN ACADEMY STUDENTS ~ Amy |
My book end daughter's did attend conventional school. My oldest daughter was invited to visit her uncle and aunt who were teaching/house parenting/school nurse in Kijabe Kenya at Rift Valley Academy where she extended her stay to attend the latter part of her high school years and later the Masters U.
My youngest daughter was home schooled through fourth grade and attended conventional school also up through high school and eventually college.
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