Q: What are your "big picture" goals for your children? What are your reasons for homeschooling that keep you going on the hard days?
My answer: Good question!
We have our whole lives to learn academics and the specific details in school subjects. It is not possible to teach our children
every. possible. thing. there is to know. When we attempt to try, we get overwhelmed, and the resulting feeling is one of failure, which is not of God. So where should our focus be on our children's education if we can't teach them everything there is to know by the time they turn 18?
Our main goal is to nurture children with strong
character and
faith as well as instill a desire in them to continually learn throughout their entire lives. Also, we want them to have a solid understanding of their
individual worth by teaching each one they are a child of God who is their true source of strength and truth. We only get our children for a certain number of impressionable years, and we want to use those years to help them develop important traits such as
virtue,
integrity, and
charity. Those are traits that should be deeply rooted within a person to make them a successful Christlike adult and leader in the community. A future generation with these traits as a solid foundation will be far more influential than a generation rooted in the specifics of biology, chemistry, trigonometry or calculus.
That's not to say that as homeschoolers we don't teach academic subjects and solely focus on character and faith. We simply view academic subjects as the delicious side dishes that compliment the hearty main dish of the overall educational feast. Along with the main dish of character and faith we seek to provide a balanced course of
knowledge. We take into consideration our children's interests and tastes as we strive to provide them with the most wholesome sources and methods to obtain that knowledge. The core knowledge we focus on are the educational food groups of reading, writing, math, science, lessons in history, music, art, and other life skills that we feel prompted to teach them. We take a very unstructured and unschooled approach towards many of these subjects. I almost feel very hippie saying that, but it works. I feel like we are training our children how to learn as adults do, much of the time on an as needed basis and according to the cravings of our brains for nutritious information. I feel like textbooks and rigid curriculum are not like real life, and I have never been attracted to that type of learning. They are too much like a prescribed diet that doesn't offer enough variety, aesthetic appeal, or flavor. In other words, textbooks are like hospital food. (No offense to those of you who love hospital food. I enjoy a day or two of it when I'm in the hospital after giving birth, but it's not something I would want to spend my life eating.)
We make sure we introduce our children to a variety of subjects to see what might spark their interest and make them want to dive deeper into learning more about it and tasting of it's goodness. We strive to spark their interest simply through interesting books from the library or bookstore, or items I randomly strew about the house. I don't consider ourselves total unschoolers, because we do use some purchased curriculum that we enjoy to help organize and structure our learning, just as we would use a collection of recipes to help us prepare a well-balanced and nutritious meal. However, every now and then we throw some random educational ingredients together, ignore any directions, and it turns out to be an absolutely delicious learning experience.
I definitely have hard days that feel academically deficient, but I have learned and observed over the years that the days which include a devotional, as short or as small as it may be, are the most successful days that provide essential nourishment, even if the fiber of academic learning seems to be lacking that day. The spiritual lessons and values learned during that moment of
devotion are far more important than any math concept or grammar rule that could have filled that time. I have experienced sweet witnesses from the Holy Spirit that
those are the crowning moments of motherhood; I am truly fulfilling my calling by taking the time to instill those essential lessons in my children. I have also observed my attitude improves when spiritual thoughts, music, or scripture are included in our day. It grants
me more patience to deal with the frustrations that might accompany teaching academics, dealing with cranky children, or mediating sibling disputes, because those occur most assuredly every day!
I believe when moral character traits are nurtured, the knowledge will come naturally at a pace that is appropriate for each individual student. Our current educational system puts a heavy emphasis on academic standards and a time table on which to learn those standards. Although some standards might be a good
general guideline, I never want to have to force my child to fit in a structured mold. Education is not a race or competition. Education is not a factory that requires a quality control checklist or a grade standard stamp at each stage of the process. Children are unique human beings and therefore should be treated as such. I believe a loving home is the ideal place for learning to be most effective. Therefore, our core focus is on the end goal of deeply rooted moral character combined with a sufficient knowledge base and eagerness to seek knowledge throughout life as well as to know
how to seek out correct and worthy sources of knowledge. Our end goal is not to produce genius brainchildren that will go to ivy league colleges or become CEOs of corporate America.
Our goal is to create real people who will make the world a better place.
It seems as if the end goal of our current public and private educational system is to produce young adults who are prepared for college and career, with a Grade A stamp that proves they are a marketable resource for society. Although I agree that college is good and can provide opportunities for good careers, our family chooses not to get fixated on college or career as the
ultimate end goal of education. This can create a skewed vision of where we base our priorities. My husband and I have prioritized our
faith,
marriage, and
family over career and income. My husband has turned down several job opportunities that would take too much time away from the home. I have made the choice to be a stay-at-home mom since the day our first child was born. We hope our children will emulate these priorities in their future. I am more than ok with my sons having respectable jobs, whatever they may be or however much they might pay, that will provide for their families and allow them to spend a sufficient amount of time with their spouse and children. I am more than ok with my daughters desiring to be "just" a stay-at-home mom because I know that stay-at-home motherhood is
100% justifiable when the world seems to teach otherwise.
When the time comes, we feel our children will be ready to make the
choice of
whether they want to attend college, just like we allow them to choose topics they want to study while they are young. I have found that allowing my children to have a say in the topics they study and the materials they use produces a higher retention of the knowledge that is learned. We also encourage entrepreneurial goals that may not require a college degree at all. We value higher education and continuing education. My husband and I both have a bachelor's degree and my husband has his master's, but we believe that not all careers are dependent upon a college degree. Society seems to imply that college is the only avenue to success, so we also make sure that our children know what defines success. Career and salary do not define success. Character does. Being on a path that leads them back to their Heavenly Father is success.
If they make the choice to attend college, we feel they will be adequately prepared to find a way to get into a suitable university to pursue their career goals. The freedom to make choices is very important. We want to make sure our children do not feel pressured to go to college because "everybody's doing it." We plan to have them figure out what it is they want to do to financially support themselves and a future family and then figure out the best path toward that goal. A four year university may not be the answer, but if it is then great. It will likely be time and money well spent achieving a desired goal, and we will certainly support them in that goal.
We want our children to be prepared to enter the world when they are ready to leave the nest. Some students leave the nest ready for secondary education, but not the world. They might feel handicapped by their lack of life skills, such as cooking, laundry, sewing, gardening, or finances. They are then required to learn them as adults. Many adults eventually adapt to learning these just fine, however, why not learn them as early as possible and avoid that learning curve as an adult? Therefore, we place a heavy emphasis on these skills in our children and give them responsibility and
accountability for these skills at home beginning when they are young. Amazingly, many academic subjects such as science and math can be studied through learning these basic life skills, providing a consolidation of learning. It's pretty neat! :)
So in a nutshell, our "big picture" goals are to nurture the following:
Faith
through daily devotionals, scripture study, prayer, and church attendance.
Individual worth
by teaching them they are children of God, who loves them unconditionally and desires His children to return to Him.
Virtue and integrity
by practicing gospel principles learned daily in the home.
Charity
through service to family and neighbors.
Knowledge
by teaching academics, much of it through life skills, carefully selected curriculum, reading of good books, and wholesome activities at home on a time table appropriate for each individual.
Devotion
by remembering our number one priority is God and His Son, Jesus Christ.
Marriage and family
by having it as a priority in our lives for them to emulate when they are adults.
Choice
by giving them a say in the things they learn and the activities they do in order to obtain knowledge.
Accountability
through responsibilities carried out in the home and to the family.
I know children who have gone through the public school system and are still moral, faithful, and wonderful people. I know it's possible because of their good and faithful parents and some wonderful teachers along the way. The dictates of my husband's and my consciences lead us to commit ourselves to homeschooling because we feel it is the right choice for our family and circumstances. It allows us a tremendous amount of freedom with our time and resources to teach what we feel led to teach as we fulfill our callings as parents and nourish our children with the best education as possible. I believe it would be extremely difficult to effectively accomplish our big picture goals if we could only do it on the limited free time we had with our children during the hours they were not attending public school or completing school assignments at home. It would be like trying to feast during a famine.
I LOVE that freedom! It is precious. At this point in my life it is impossible for me to imagine sacrificing that freedom and flexibility when hard days might tempt me to enroll my children in school to catch a break, or because I mistakenly believe a formal school would supplement my deficiencies. I have witnessed many times the divine
grace that has been provided to me in the educational realm at home. My Heavenly Father has made up for many of my deficits, quite miraculously at times. I testify to that, and
that is what keeps me going, my friends. :)
