It’s not for everyone, maybe not for most. Then why would we pull one of our children out of the education system he has been in his whole life so far and do school at home? Sometimes I wonder too, but we did and here are some of the reasons why AND why we likely won’t continue to home school.
Why home school, why now, and why only one of our three children?
When our first child was about to enter K-5 we wrestled with whether we should put our children in public, private or christian school. At the time we both felt very unqualified to home school. Something I have heard is a common sentiment among many parents and judging by a few kids I’ve met have left me wondering if their parents should have arrived at a different conclusion. Both my wife and I went to Christian schools our entire life including college. You would think that our decision would have naturally been to do the same but it wasn’t. As we struggled to come to a conclusion, we were given advice that helped tremendously. “It’s not a permanent decision” meaning you aren’t stuck making a decision for the lifetime of your child’s formal education. Change if you need to. That was very freeing to us and since money was a major issue AND we had a pretty good public school option we went that route.
In the middle of our sons 6th grade year we began talking about options for 7th grade other than the public middle school he was attending. I might as well come clean at this point and admit that my desire that he not go to public middle school for 7th and 8th grade was primarily motivated by my own personal experience in those grades. It was torture for me in many ways and sadly it happened in a “Christian School” environment. Seeking God’s direction was clearly a part of our decision and he graciously guided us along in spite of my wounds from adolescence playing a role. He made all the pieces fall into place through his sovereignty and we launched into uncharted territory.
The elementary school our children are zoned for is quite good and my wife has been very involved over the years there which has established relationships that make it a good fit. It didn’t make sense to take them out and since we were just testing this whole thing out thought it would be a bad idea to go all in the first year. Besides, this was a trial run that we decided to evaluate later.
The type of curriculum we choose and why.
We all know, or should know, that stay-at-home moms have full-time jobs. Truly full-time or rather all-time jobs that never end. You are amazing and often under-appreciated. For me, I still had to work and could not take a traditional path of home school that involved heavy engagement in co-ops, establishing field trips, and especially not keep track of lesson plans from multiple educational sources. We needed a one-stop-shop that took advantage of technology and gave me as much opportunity to do my work while also providing ample support to our son. We initially went with a program called Monarch by AOP but after two weeks realized it was not a good fit and switched to BJU online. We liked the fact that both had online testing and grading which eliminated a tedious task for me but where BJU won out was in the video lectures from real teachers and the use of actual books for reference and additional study. The price was a little higher but worth it to us.
What worked and what didn’t.
Keep in mind I was new to this experience but overall it has been a good experience although we had some bumps. Our son is a social butterfly which caused us some concern venturing into this knowing he would not have consistent interaction with other kids and teachers every day. Since we are actively involved in our church, host a small group in our home, and he regularly plays with friends in our neighborhood he has not come up short in his social bank account. While that worked out, his ability to focus, like any kid, was challenged even while I sat 4 feet away from him in our work area/office. That set up worked great but there were times I had to take my laptop to another room as he would want to interact with me which distracted him from his work.
The biggest challenge has been in the curriculum. The number of questions he had on a test were double what they were in public school. Some may consider this a sign of a better education. Tougher, yes. Better, no, or at least not for everyone. He’s above average in his abilities but struggled quite a bit.
Mistakes
In January he came clean to us that he had not taken any tests or quizzes for the previous two months. He was doing his classes and moving ahead without testing. Because of this he will likely be working to finish all the way up until time for school to start again. It has been a major point of grief for him and us. While he was the one that tried to cheat the system, I still have to acknowledge my failure in the matter.
First, as a self motivated person all my life, I gave him too much leash to run on. I should have done a better job checking his progress. I would log into the system and not see anything to grade then continue dealing with all the things that I was struggling to juggle as a Dad that worked, tried to keep up with chores around the house, pick up the kids from school, etc. So I dropped the ball. I do think it would be helpful if the online platform would prevent you from proceeding without completing tasks or notify the parent that the student has bypassed something. Again, my fault not theirs but that would have helped.
We certainly have learned a lot through that but thankfully have little else in the way of things we would do differently.
We’re goin’ back
In a nutshell, we aren’t home schooler’s. Not sure how else to say it. It’s not that we failed it’s just that we aren’t wired for that. Others may be and I admire them. I have a new-found respect and admiration for those parents who do it year in and year out.
For us and especially our oldest, formal education is a better fit. That is why he will be going back to his middle school for 8th grade.
The question we now are wrestling with is whether to move our kids to christian school in the future. I’m not a fan of the HS we are zoned for even if it is in walking distance but with a monthly tuition of $1600-$2000 a month for our 3 kids to attend christian school, it’s not looking very promising.
For now we are taking it a year at time and trusting God to guide us and hold our kids in his will for their lives.