My first essential is a reason for home education.
Home education/ homeschooling-call it what you will-is hard work. There are times when nothing seems to be working: the children don't seem to be learning, patience is diminishing and other pressures make home education difficult. This is the time when it is necessary to be sure of the reasons for choosing the harder route.
Before we started home education, a friend told us to write down why we home educate so that we could have this to refer back to when times get tough. This is sound advice.
We home educate because we want the children to be taught from a Christian worldview. This doesn't mean that we want them to be ignorant nor that we don't want them to know about other religions/ways of living. We don't think that we will make them little Christians, only God can do that, but we firmly believe that we have a duty to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
I've written in more detail about our decision to home educate here.
This doesn't mean that our children are taught only one point of view and schooled children are taught from a broad range of views. Schooled children, in the UK, are generally taught from a National Curriculum that has a secular humanistic worldview. There is great upset if Six Day Creation is mentioned in the classroom. Yes, I teach from a Christian point of view but we see science and history programmes which certainly aren't made for our worldview. These can be used as discussion points.
It is worth putting in times of evaluation. There may be reasons why a child might be better in school or when home education has finished its useful role. Again, this is something to put into the written out reason for choosing to home educate.
Please join me tomorrow when I will be thinking about the essential support network.
These are just some of the Crew who are writing about Homeschooling Essentials.
Lisa @ Farm Fresh Adventures
Nicole @ Journey to Excellence
Adriana @ Homeschool Ways
Laura @ Day by Day in Our World
Brandy @ Kingdom Academy Homeschool
Meg @ Adventures with Jude
DaLynn @ For the Display of His Splendor
or pop over to the Crew website for more thoughts on this subject.
If you enjoyed this post you may like to follow Delivering Grace by Google Friend Connect, G+,Facebook, Pinterest or e-mail.
I guess our minds went the same direction. Nice post.
ReplyDeleteYes, they did. I like your word to sum this up: conviction.
DeleteI love that as homeschoolers we can have our faith be an integral part of learning.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! A wonderful freedom.
DeleteYes, in order to remain fully committed I have to remind myself of the reasons we started to homeschool in the first place. Especially on those days when nothing seems to be going right.
ReplyDeleteThe reasons why are so important when things don't go quite right!
DeleteAbsolutely! On the days we are about to crash and burn I have to step back and recite my reasons for homeschooling and it sets me back on the right path!
ReplyDeleteLisa, thank you for visiting. I like the reciting the reasons!
DeleteI often have to lean on the reasons we chose to bring our children home for education. Those days that it gets hard - that provides strength because we know it is what God would have us do and that our children are better because of it. Even through the tough times. Well-written article. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThank you for visiting. The reasons give strength for those tough times and lead us back to asking the Lord for strength.
DeletePlaying 'catch-up' with your posts. I am SO thankful that God led us to this way of life. Often, I pinch myself and wonder, 'Why us, Lord?'. There may be some tough times, but *nothing* like as tough as it felt for me these first 3 years of our eldest child's education when we were sending him to state school ... We'd never even heard of home education then! How times have changed. I'm thankful for the internet SO many times.
ReplyDeleteAlthough two of our kids were never in the state system, two of them were (3 years and 1 year). I often think that God allowed these years to give me the assurance that no matter HOW tough the day was, I would NOT want to be sending my kids to Ceasar again.
Anne, we often felt that we were compromising all the way. Home education is difficult at times but means that we don't have the feeling that we are encouraging the children to go against our convictions every day.
Delete