I decided to keep a journal during our first year of homeschooling. Since this is such a new and exciting (and completely terrifying) endeavor for both of us, I want to keep an account of its ups and downs along the way as we learn together this year. I may not update this everyday, but I keep a written journal and will update this blog from my written journal as often as time allows.
A little about me and my family:
I'm a married mother of 3 boys, aged 8, almost 4, and 2. I have been married for 5 years this October to the best man on this Earth. God has truly blessed me in this life with so many people to love. Deacon, my oldest, has spent the last 3 years in a public school. The reasons for pulling him out are many, but the main ones were because they did not follow my wishes on him not celebrating certain holidays with his class, lack of communication, and my not being allowed to take his brothers with me to accompany him on field trips, even if I drove us myself. He has done well in public school and I have nothing against it as a whole. I think his teachers have just been overwhelmed with such big classes. He was being picked on, physically picked on and the teacher wouldn't or couldn't do anything about it because she didn't see it happen any of the times it did. I want my children to know values and morals and see them implemented in everyday life.
I will admit, one of the reasons (even if it is just a small part of all the reasons) we chose to homeschool is because of the time constraints forced upon us by a typical school day. Each day was rush, rush, rush, hurry, hurry, hurry. Get it done, come on, come on! No time to waste! Deacon was not doing well under the time pressure of getting work finished, getting dinner eaten, getting a bath, and still having some time to play before bedtime. Also along the lines of time constraints, I had a 2 hour block right in the middle of the day where I was unavailable for anything and everything except picking him and his cousin up from school. My husband is a good man and he works hard on a midnight shift, but it has gotten to where only one person working with a family of 5 is just not feasible anymore. With homeschool our school day is flexible. We can have school bright and early, or in the afternoon. It doesn't matter what time of day we choose to learn, as long as we learn. So that takes a lot of pressure off of all of us.
Another reason, and perhaps one of the most important, for our choice to homeschool is the hope of our son going above and beyond what he can accomplish in a public school setting because we don't have to slow down for others or speed up even though he hasn't grasped the concept. He can learn at his pace, no matter how slow or fast it may be. He gets to decide. I won't say we do it for purely religious reasons because we can teach him about our Father and Christ even with him in a public school, but it is nice to have more time to teach him about our God besides just on Sunday during Sunday school.
This will be a learning process for both of us, and if you have chosen to join us on this journey then you might want to brace yourself in advance, because I can't tell you how this is going to end. *smiles* Take Care and God bless!
No comments:
Post a Comment