How God Changed My Mind About Homeschool
How a Certified Teacher Answered the Call to Homeschool
I am a certified public teacher but I’m a mother FIRST – I’m a parent just like you.
Like me, I’m sure there are days you will doubt your skills. You don’t have lesson plan training and hours of IEP meetings or books and materials with references at your disposal. You probably don’t have dozens of certified tenure teachers to guide you along the way either.
It’s just you and your kids. But that’s okay. It’s ok to feel scared or nervous. Even an ex- certified teacher (that’s me!) of ten years gets scared about homeschooling. But I still choose it every single day.
My School Story
I do not tell my story to shame your choices or condemn you if you have chosen to send your kids to private or public school. Everyone has a different lifestyle and choice. But let me tell you that if you feel even the slightest pull to homeschool or are having what if’s, it’s worth praying and listening to see what God’s call is in your life.
Let me tell you some insiders about the public and private school. I’m not an expert- but after teaching in a big city, a small town, a suburb and working with small and big classrooms of all ages, I can assure you that public school is NOT what it seems.
There is a big reason that homeschooling increased by 30% after 2019.
It’s Personal
I grew up with teaching around every corner. From tutoring to private lessons, to full classrooms and more, I was always around teaching. Both my parents were teachers in and out of classrooms – elementary, middle school and college, tutoring, private lessons etc. I was surrounded by teaching – constantly. It came naturally and just made sense for me to get a degree in it.
After high school, I went through the motions of getting a K-8th degree. I student taught at Chicago schools and more, getting a view of poorly established and well-funded elementary and middle schools. But my eyes were clouded by my four-year investment and not on reality. Then I graduated and got married and had a kid. That’s when things changed.
My First Experience Teaching in School
When I first taught public school ages Kindergarten through 7th grade, I always had a “free spirited” classroom with very little structure. Each year with a new move, new town or city, and each different classroom, I scheduled almost nothing, had no designated “bathroom breaks” or worksheets to this subject etc.
Most of the time, I did activities, reading corners, games (like Kahoot!) and freestyle time to complete tasks. My goal was freedom- any order the students wanted or needed. Checklists. Expectations. Long recesses to explore the fields or play games on the playground. I made clear charts for rules and then accountability with themselves. I created a color system and levels, adaptations to learning styles. My own desire to learn allowed me to create a tiered curriculum out of the boring one I had been provided. The other teachers, and most especially my administration, thought I was weird, unstructured, uncontrollable, loud and undisciplined.
Why? Because God was already showing me that he wanted me to homeschool and knew it was the best option for my life. I was not cut out for the rigid style of classroom teaching. We are not made to fit inside a box. I was definitely not fitting the mold.
Wrestling with Homeschooling…
I was wrestling with homeschooling and being stubborn even when my husband was adamant about homeschooling our growing family. As I continued to teach in the public schools, I didn’t understand homeschooling and didn’t know what to expect. I was unsure and had very little positive experience with it. But I quickly realized this stemmed from my own personal upbringing, not what it could be or my current reality.
My parents sent me to private school, public school and one year in middle school when I had some severe health issues, they tried to homeschool me. However, without being on the same page, my parents encouraged me to go back to public school. So I went back after just one semester of homeschool. I had no solid foundation or positive experience to know how to homeschool in my own grown life or was going to work. Where did we start? How could my spouse and I find time or even afford to honeschool with just one working parent? Even two parents who are college graduates, were we qualified to teach? The Answer: YES!
The Struggle
I was wrestling with God’s push for our growing family to homeschool and accept what my husband already knew was right. These constant reminders in public and private schools and the pushback for my teaching style from the higher ups was only the start. In all those schools, my “free” students who were actually learning more with my unorthodox teachings, it was God calling me to get out and support homeschooling wholeheartedly.
Sold on the ideal that “it’s just this school, not all schools”
I was thinking with every change in schools, the next school would work out better. I often heard “it’s not a good fit” at the end of each school year. Over many years I was hated. Targeted. “Peer reviewed” and more. I thought it was just that school, not all schools. I was wrong. All schools are mostly the same. However, they weren’t all exactly the same, as some are more well funded or staffed or x, y, z than others but they all operate under the same conditions and expectations. Structure. Uniformity. Compliance. Obedience. Same. It’s get the tasks done and get the tests completed to get the funding or make government or parents happy. There was no care as to how they got there, they just got there. On a bell curve or on the same grid grading system, the school stuck to the same plan and the same box. I was not accepting the box because I saw how my students truly learned.
So I quit. After almost ten years in and out of every type of school, I quit teaching in the public sector. However, God knew I wasn’t done with TEACHING as whole. He had a plan and I was just getting started.
What Public School is NOT
Public school is NOT flexible. It’s NOT creative. Not open. It does not allow for multiple learning styles. Public school is not prepared fully for special education struggles or your child’s unique and special needs. Supplies are limited. Cookie cutter is the name of the game. The one size fits all is typically how it operates because the system HAS to operate that way to make it through. There are limited resources and limited teachers, regardless of where you live. Even the BEST and TOP rated schools have problems. Problems you may not ever know about or see. It’s below the surface. There’s a wealth of information you won’t hear about from your children or from your parent-teacher conferences. It just won’t come up and they won’t tell you. Hours and hours of “learning” and the other 90% of their day – going undocumented and unnoticed.
What Public School IS – A System
Public School IS – a rigid schedule that requests worksheets, desks, rows and lines. Regulated, rushed bathroom breaks. Silence. 15 minutes of allotted recess. Homework. Rinse. Repeat. Kids argue because they are asked to not speak. They grow restless because they are asked to sit still for hours. They react because they are asked to fit in a box.
You are not a control freak to be concerned or wonder what is going on during the day – and there’s a lot going on. At one time I had to sign a non-disclosure/gag order for a public school I taught for in a small town. They paid me to leave. I raised student test scores and I saw too much of the administration breaking rules (pushing and abusing kids). I was too much of a liability. Why would raised test scores make me expendable? Because it cost them their funding. It made them look successful. They needed their kids to remain the same and stay low on the scale of performance to get more funding. This is an inherently broken system being pushed on your child. Every. Single. Day.
Public school is – a system. An organization. Unrealistic expectations. Government funded, a well-oiled, failing machine. The rates of failure and lack of reading are astronomical.
Each year there’s another report of lower test scores, lower reading rates, lower graduation rates. The curriculum is tailored to the common denominator, the poorest learner. This is not excellence. It’s the bare minimum. They are more concerned about the statistics/end result and not the journey.
The Joy and Freedom of Homeschooling
Homeschooling gives you the freedom of CHOICE. You can pick what your children learn, where they learn it, how they learn it and more. It’s allows flexibility. Religious freedom. You can watch your child grow, learn, struggle and succeed.
My eyes were opened. It wasn’t a sudden thing. I think the first time I recognized the change was when we taught our son to read. I watched his eyes light up when he was able to discover the letters on the page made a sound. He was in awe of how a string of letters produced something creative and imaginary. A story. A window of opportunity. Why would I want to miss milestones like this?
Our son fell in love with reading. He just read and read and read. The librarian questioned why our 4 year old was looking at chapter books because we taught him to read. And we had been teaching him everything anyway, why stop? Before I knew it, my husband and I started ordering curriculum books. We started planning. We shared the journey with our knowledge and love. And we grew from there. Our journey had begun. God wanted me to teach, so I did. I started helping teach my own children and following God’s words, “raise them in the way they should go..”
Where Are We Now?
Now I am a strong advocate for homeschooling. Nothing could change my mind. Nothing could make me go back. And knowing how my children learn and act now with so many unique learning styles, I could never send them to public school prison. God gave me the opportunities to continue my passion of teaching. I teach Sunday school at our local church for preschoolers. Each day I’m helping our own children learn about art, reading, writing, spelling, history, the outdoors and more. We do experiments, I use my curriculums I designed to enhance our homeschooling. I’ve even created my own new curriclums in American History and Art. Every day is new and challenging and rewarding. My heart is full. God had a plan. I answered the call. And now, I’d never change a thing.