Blogger Friend School Assignment #100

While perusing other homeschool blogs, I stumbled on this website with this purpose: "BFS is a full school year of fun-filled assignments to Build Friendships, Strengthen Faith, and Journal your Memories! Our goal is to encourage a community of homeschool moms to learn together while writing out special memories."

Well, it all sounds good to me, so here's my first crack at an assignment:

I may be the most reluctant homeschooler ever. Don't get me wrong - I love my kids more than life, and I'm all about investing in them. But I have other interests as well, and I always thought that when they got into school, I would be free again to pursue those interests. I knew though, that raising my children overseas with questionable schooling options meant I might someday, for some period of time, need to homeschool them.

The first time I gave it any serious thought was at a conference for our ministry where I found the book Things We Wished We'd Known. If you're not familiar, it's a book in which 50 veteran homeschoolers share their wisdom. At first glance, I thought, "I'm not one of these people. They have lots of kids, and they live on farms with goats and they seem ridiculously creative and committed to this." I was beginning to wonder what I was going to do with my then 3 year old son. Feelings of fear that I could quite possibly screw up his education by making the wrong choice were beginning to creep into my mind. Living in a country where children are sent to school at age 2 didn't help me feel like I was doing the right thing by keeping him at home and just spending time with him. But that book gave me assurance that at that age, the best thing was to spend quality time with him, and above all READ like mad to him. It also gave me hope that if God called me to it, homeschool might be a possibility.

When we moved to Singapore in 2004, our son was 4 1/2 and it was time, I thought to do something. Since several of the families around us were homeschooling, I thought, "It's kindergarten. How hard can it be?" Famous last words, those. So when he hit 5 1/2 I cracked open our new big box of homeschool supplies and began our journey.

At first I wondered whose children those were in the catalog pictures, with captions about how they love homeschool so much they want to do it all the time. That wasn't us. In fact, after about 3 months, I remember distinctly sitting in a chair in the corner of my room, saying to God, "I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing." And He said quite clearly to me, "It's about time you admitted it. Now let Me help you."

So what began with reluctance has become a journey of dependence. We have good days when I can see that my kids are learning. We have bad days when we cry and get frustrated with each other, and I wonder how much that international school really does cost. We even have great days when my kids DO look like the kids in the catalogs (imagine that!).

We're in our fourth year now, and I have to say that for the first time, as I sat down to plan out our semester, I was excited! And not just about this year, but next year too. Four weeks in, and I am feeling like the steep learning curve of homeschool is starting to level out and I can relax and enjoy the process a little more.

Many times homeschool moms talk about their own poor schooling process as a motivator for teaching their own children. I can't say I had a bad experience, maybe because I was blessed enough to be in a school where children had more freedom to work at their own pace. I do remember being able to work ahead in math in 2nd grade. My teacher did this by letting me take the post test at the end of a chapter. If I scored 100%, I could skip the chapter. Guess what - it was multiple choice, and I guessed correctly. To this day, I am a little shaky on mean, median and mode.

Other than that unfortunate event, I have to admit that my education was good. But when I look at my kids now and think about my own education, the part of homeschooling I enjoy the most is the fact that my kids don't have to deal with all the negative social aspects of school. I wasn't scarred for life by that socialization, but it did little to build my self esteem. When I look at my little girl who is so easily swayed by her peers, I am thankful that I have this time to direct her heart and her friendships in a way that gives her a good foundation.

Fear and trembling, over-confidence, despair, joy, discouragement, excitement, peace, gratitude - I've felt the gamut of emotions through this process. I'm sure there's still more to come. What I know for sure is that right now in my life, this is God's assignment for me. I constantly go back to Psalm 16:5-6 which says, "Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup. You have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Surely I have a delightful inheritance." God's assignments are always for our good, leading us into more life. And that alone is enough to make me perseverance.