My husband and I are products of
both the private and public school systems, entirely. Both of our mothers are teachers, by
profession and by vocation. My
mother-in-law worked for decades in the public school system as a teacher and
an administrator. It has been years
since she taught 4th graders, but we still get sweet notes or
comments from peers who remember her as their “favorite teacher.” I have every confidence that her excitement
for education was the highest octane of fuel for my husband’s outstanding
academic career.
My own mother’s professional life
as a teacher in the classroom was short, postponed perpetually due to my birth
and the arrival of my five siblings.
Among the six of us, I was the only one never homeschooled for a time,
but none of us was homeschooled entirely.
My parents tried as best they could to be responsive to each child’s
social and scholastic needs. My mother’s
proclivity for teaching and the seriousness with which she understood her
vocation were driving forces in how she raised us. Now, with her children grown, she gravitates
toward the local public elementary school as a sometimes substitute teacher,
still thrilled by the connections she helps make between children and learning. For both my husband and myself, education
was an integral focus and highly valued within both of our families.
Because neither of us was ever
homeschooled ourselves, our draw to consider it for our children surprises many
people who know us. We are the parents
on every field trip. We are the happy volunteers
who serve on committees, man the bake sale table, and watch the class for a
teacher’s planning period. We really
like our traditional school, its familiar faces, and beloved teachers.
On the other hand, those who know
us well, tend to see the hardwiring within us that makes this decision more
understandable. I take at face value
those who say, “I could NEVER homeschool.”
I trust that there are folks out there who have honestly never conceived
of the notion that homeschooling could be a choice for them, for any number of
reasons. Yet, my husband and I have
always considered it. Since the first
day our first child went to kindergarten, we wondered if it was the right
choice. We continued to wonder this each
year even as we signed the registration papers for the next school year. Our decision hasn’t come with thunder and
lightning strikes, forcing us to suddenly realize that what we’ve done all
along is wrong and we must find a new path.
Instead, it has been a process of continual consideration and prayer,
which has forged for us a clear stream into this present moment.
Timing is everything, so they
say. And the time feels right. For years, we have offered up the possibility
of homeschooling to our children and, for years, we have discussed the pros and
cons with them. Neither they nor we are
uneducated in the details. Still, each
year, we chose for them to go to back to school—a school we love, by the
way—because, well, there just wasn’t a strong reason to change the status
quo. The only real impetus to
continually consider bringing them home was the constant draw our hearts felt toward
the idea. And, these many years later,
the tug in the direction of home outweighs the pull toward traditional school.
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