Why I Believe Homeschooling Is The Best Way To Educate Our Children

The smell of newly sharpened pencils is starting to appeal to me again. Wal-mart and Target have been pushing Back-To-School for a few weeks now. I guess it's a good time to remind myself and everyone else in the process of why we homeschool. Here is my uncensored, no-bones-about-it view of homeschooling!

I've come to understand homeschooling as a natural extension of parenting. Teaching my son how to count to ten and how to write his name has developed into multiplication and teaching him to type.There's never been a time where I've stopped being his parent. Handing him off to a school--any school--would feel to me like I was abandoning him, leaving it to someone else to raise him for 8 hours of the day. I'd sooner cut off one of my limbs than see that happen. I love my son and I know he loves me with all the love a 10 year-old can have for his dad. I'd never want to see that closeness wane under a time-share agreement with a teacher who has 40 other kids to worry about.

And teachers, God bless them, are amazing! I know quite a few and how hard they work. Most of us are oblivious to how much work they put in to educate children. One friend regularly worked 60 - 70 hours a week, coming home late after dinner, staying up grading papers and then going to work early the next day. There are some like that who take their work so seriously, and then there are some that don't. Unfortunately, not all school systems are able to weed the bad ones out. Some school systems barely function at all, but it's not that they're underfunded. School systems, tied down by the teachers unions, are to blame for the sorry state of American public education. It is time to increase competition, free up parents to have true school choice, and let the free market system work to better children's education across the board. After all, the most damning evidence against the school systems is that these uppity homeschoolers keep on producing these national academic champions without the help of Federal tax dollars.

This was about homeschooling, not what’s wrong with public schools, so… moving on. What really sold me on homeschooling was when I met a 14 year-old homeschooled student named Jake. He looked me in the eye, shook my hand, and related to me like a man, a human being and not the alien life form that public- and private-schooled teens typically take adults to be. He was balanced, respectful, and someone I wouldn’t have minded considering as a son-in-law if the ages of my daughters were more in line. He had a great sense of humor, intelligence and he was already skilled in a profession. You don’t get that from most schools! What’s amazing is that I’ve found that kids like this aren’t all that exceptional in homeschooling circles. They’re downright common! Boy, where do I sign up?

Now, there are homeschooling mistakes and horror stories out there, and usually they start with, “we tried homeschooling but…” Experienced homeschoolers know that there is no single, one-size-fits-most approach. It isn’t even a one-size-fits-one-family, sometimes. The homeschooling failures that I have run across usually have tried a “school-at-home” option with a charter school that requires a specific curriculum and teacher oversight of the parent. In fact, some families even try re-creating a school room at home, complete with flags and chalkboard/whiteboard in the belief that the schoolroom is the only approach. This usually ends with the child frustrated at learning and the parents ready to pull their hair out. It doesn’t have to be that way.

For me, homeschooling has come to symbolize my children as individuals with their own individual learning styles and traits. One child learns by reading, another by exploring and doing, and still another learns by stories and discussion. These methods can be blended to expand and grow our children’s minds.

Homeschooling also goes beyond the three Rs of reading, writing and arithmetic. For example, this morning, our six year old began organizing her marker collection on her own initiative. She saw chaos interfering with her ability to create, and she said in her six year-old voice, “I just need to get organized!” Then, by emulating what she learned from her mother—she certainly didn’t learn it from me!—she began to take steps to bring order to her life. That’s a life skill she can use her entire life, and that is homeschooling, even on a Sunday.

Finally, homeschooling has changed our lifestyle. We are much more integrated as a family as a direct result of our time together. If we have committed to activities, we go together and support each other. If we go on field trips, we learn together. I don’t know how many times we’ve learned something in an experience homeschooling and then called on that experience while confronting a new challenge together. This lifestyle really stands out when I compare it with the alternative. We aren’t spending weeknights pouring over homework, grinding away at a curriculum that a teacher assigned to us. We spend time together as a family or we do other things we enjoy. Neither do we spend time instructing our kids on how to placate schoolyard bullies or how to negotiate the surreal social cliques that seem to exist only in schools. Homeschooling is easier and produces greater rewards, especially when you take these factors into consideration.

Is homeschooling life nothing but roses without thorns? No, there are challenging times too, like this year when we found that a math curriculum wasn’t working for our oldest. Yet, we weren’t locked to that curriculum for the rest of the year as we would have been in a traditional school. Truly, there are moments where we get tired of books. But there again, we have the freedom to take a break and go on vacation for a bit. Even in its shortcomings, homeschooling offers the flexibility that we need to enjoy life together as a family.

My wife and I would never dream of dropping them off at school and trusting others to do our job. Educating our children is a God-given responsibility of the parents. The Bible commands parents,

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. (Deut 6:6-8 NIV)

We cannot give our children the instruction God commands by putting them in a secular school. We cannot afford a private school that claims to give children a Christian education, and why would we want to? Even if money were the last thing on our minds, homeschooling would still be my first pick.

I couldn’t have picked a better way to raise my family than to educate them at home. We are daily living an adventure and a journey together. We have life together that we could never have by separating for 8 – 10 hours a day. Homeschooling has made our lives richer and God has rewarded us for taking his commands to heart. It's why I believe homeschooling is the best way to educate our children.