As I have been looking over the past school year and gearing up for the next one, I am amazed anew at the journey that we have been on for the past 6 years. Yes, we have just completed our sixth year of homeschooling! This has been an amazing blessing for us, but it is one that I didn't see that way at first.
When Kora was 1.5 years old to about 2 years old, Kelly and I started talking about options for her formal education. We were living in Oklahoma City at the time, on Tinker Air Force Base. Kelly was a lieutenant in the AF and we weren't sure where our future homes would be. What we did know was neither one of us thought we should send her or any other children we might have to public, or government, school.
At first this was a reactionary decision. Actually decision is probably the wrong word, because it was never an option for us. But we knew what the schools were like when we went through them, how we were taught so many things that went against what the Bible, our parents, and our churches taught us. We knew what the social atmosphere was like, and had seen the double life so many "Christian" kids - including ourselves at times, we admit - often led as we were torn in two from the completely different values and expectations we lived with: one at home and at church, and one at school and with friends.
The stereotypical homeschooling family is one in which the mother wants to homeschool, and the father has to be convinced. However, this is the exact opposite of how it came about in our house. From our earliest conversations, Kelly said he wanted us (read ME, I thought) to homeschool the kids. I balked. I was voting for a private Christian school. I was pleading for Christian school. I tried every way I could think of to figure out a way to pay for it and talk Kelly into it. After all, we only knew one family who homeschooled. I was completely unfamiliar with it, and just knew it would just mean more work for me. And after all, didn't everyone send their kids off during the day?
Besides, I was a very unlikely candidate to be a homeschooler. I excelled at the academics in school. To this day I still miss college. :) I thrived on the competition for grades, scholarships, and awards. Wasn't that what school was all about?
Well, I'll have to continue with how God brought us to this point in a later post.
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1 comment:
looking forward to the rest of the story! This may be another trend as Cathi and I were just discussing this this past weekend!
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