Yesterday was our first day of homeschool. Madison, our bright, enthusiastic twelve-year-old, has been looking forward to this day for about a month now, which is surprising, because we felt sure that she, being the social diva of sixth grade, would not want to leave her classmates of the past 8 years to jump onto the homeschool bandwagon.
Our decision to homeschool Madison came as a sort of "Aha!" moment for us. My husband taught junior high and upper level sciences in our community's Christian school for five years, and I have taught preschool, eighth grade, sixth grade, and fifth grade at the same school off and on since 1996, when our oldest daughter, now a Sophomore in college began kindergarten there. I love our Christian school! I really do! Our middle daughter is now a junior there, and we want her to finish and get her degree from VBS, as she has set a goal for herself to graduate as valedictorian, and she is well on her way to reaching it.
After five years of teaching junior high and high school sciences, my husband, who is an environmental scientist by trade, started his own business from our home. He loved teaching, but our school could not comfortably support our family of five. I continued to teach over the years, until the school made the decision to go through the accreditation process, which would force me to continue my education, at my own expense. I decided that already having a bachelor of science in nursing was enough education for me. I also decided that I could not afford the time nor the money that it would cost for me to take the continuing education courses that it would take for me to remain a teacher at our school.
From August through December of this school year, Madison has enjoyed being in Mrs. Pastorelli's sixth grade class at VBS. She is a delightful teacher, very well-organized, and very witty, with great classroom control and rapport with the students. So, until my "Aha!" moment, I really hadn't considered homeschooling Madison. Then, one evening, our volleyball team played a local homeschool team. I struck up a conversation with one of the homeschool moms, pointing out which of the girls on our team was my daughter Haley. I continued by telling her that I felt like all the girls on the team belonged to me, because I had taught all of them in one grade or another. Later in the conversation I explained that I was no longer teaching at the school, only subbing from time to time because of accreditation. That's when she asked me two life-changing questions:
First she asked me, "Would you say that teaching is your God-given gift?"
I took a moment to ponder before I answered, "Yes. I would say definitely, yes!"
Then she asked the second, "I hope you don't think me too bold by asking, but if teaching is your God-given gift, then why are you paying someone else to educate your children?"
I have never been so profoundly affected by such a question. Never before had an answer been so obvious. It's like my mother used to say, "If it was a snake, it would have bitten you already." It felt like God was slapping me upside the head, and all I could say was, "Duh..."
Immediately, I imagined what negative feelings my husband would make about the idea, so I didn't even mention it to him for a while. I had heard from him so many times, "Homeschool kids are weird and unsocialized." But, I couldn't get it out of my head. The question resounded in my head day and night. I couldn't sleep. I started praying about it; then I started researching the topic on the internet. I found some really great articles that convinced me that it was a wonderful option. Armed with printed internet articles, I approached my husband with the idea, and to my surprise, the tune of saving $285 a month for Christian school tuition spoke to him. I asked him read the articles anyway, and he, too was convinced that we should do this.
Then came the task of telling our school's administrators and Madison's wonderful teacher what we had decided to do...
