This year I suffered several defeats. Some personal, some more public. Each of them leaving some battle scars. One of them was this push I was making to get a bill passed that would allow my kiddos to play for their district's sports teams. It's a whole big thing and I'm not going into the details of it now, but after months of work, when we were just at the finish line with the thing, it went south. Lawmakers chose not to vote on it.
During those months of work petitioning lawmakers and tweeting tweets and posting appeals to the common man on FB, I heard lots of things about us homeschoolers that I didn't know. I typically learned them from people who didn't homeschool. I learned we don't get up until lunch, we don't have televisions, and that the Honey and I are behind in planning the arranged marriages for our children. While I am the first to crack jokes about the idiosyncracies of homeschool, the one thing I heard about us that I can't joke about is that so many of you think we homeschool because we think we're superior to public education.
Um....false.
Let me say right here, right now, that I love public educators. I am a sister to one, a friend to many. I talk with administrators and educators every week at church and at the ball field. I hear their hearts for their students and community. I see their posts praising their students' hard work and achievements and listen as they tell stories of kids' coming to school hungry or hurting or helpless. Educators are more than teachers. They're advocates. They're cheerleaders, guidance counselors, soldiers on the front lines for our community's children. I love our public educators. We need you. We are thankful for our. This homeschool family is especially thankful for you.
People often ask why we chose to homeschool. The answer is layered. There are logistical benefits for us. The Honey travels a lot with work and homeschooling allows us to travel with him some. The Honey and I also share a philosphy that we aren't fans of seeing the kids tied to a desk for the majority of their day. We love seeing them play basketball during the middle of the day, or that we get to have them tag along if we have to work the cows in the morning. Now that the kids are older, they're even able to work some odd jobs here and there that they wouldn't get to do easily otherwise. There really is a lot of convenience to educating your kids at home.
But here is the main reason: I like it. Really. I genuinely just enjoy teaching my kids. You hear all the time from people who excel in their fields that they just found what they enjoyed doing and pursued it. That's all I'm doing. I get butterflies learning along with my kids about European geography and inertia and latin conjugations. I'm redeeming my own education, those years I spent passing notes and making those paper fortune tellers, in the process. I like figuring out their learning styles and adjusting how I teach to aid in making them more successful. I love how we get to make lunch together. I love how we get to do life together.
Of course, there are a thousand things that are difficult or aggravating about it, just like any other job. But that is a post for another day. The point is, we don't homeschool because we feel like we have all the answers or because we look down on the other options. We just do it because....that's what we do.
What about you guys? Homeschool moms....why are you doing what you're doing? Mamas of littles going to your community's school....what are you loving about your kids' teachers? Working moms...how did you get started in your line of work?
